Pop-Up Blockers

If you pop-up blocker is blocking pop-ups from the Online Orientation or from Blackboard/Moodlerooms, you will have problems accessing important content. Usually when a pop-up is blocked, there is a visual or audible inidicator from your Web-browser. Pay close attention to the screen and follow the prompt to allow pop-ups from that site.  Pop-up blockers can be built in to the Web browser.  They can also be components in web browser toolbars that you've installed, or they can be a hidden component of a firewall program such as Zone Alarm Pro, Norton Internet Security, or McAfee Internet Security. Please read the documentation of your software to learn how to enable, disable, or configure its pop-up blocker.

Blackboard  provides a "Check Browser" function which tests if you have a pop-up blocker.

Helpful Instructions from Blackboard for disabling several pop-up blockers are provided here.

Pop-up blockers can interfere with online orientations as well as with your class. If you are clicking on the Welcome link or the Course Syllabus link and are not seeing them in a pop-up window, you probably have a pop-up blocker. As a further confirmation, you can do a Popup Test here to test your browser.   If you did not get those pop-ups, you have a pop-up blocker. Disable your pop-up blocker for the hccs.edu domain if your pop-up blocker has that capability. For your courses on Blackboard, follow the instructions from their Browser Check link. You can also turn it off altogether if you do not know how to configure it, or if you have multiple pop-up blockers. If after you have disabled your pop-up blockers, you still can't see your pop-up Welcome or Course Syllabus, try logging off your computer and logging back in or restarting for the changes to take effect.

Remember that it is highly likely that you have more than one pop-up blocker running. You usually need only one properly configured blocker.

Also remember that you should switch to a different browser if you get "stuck" or can't succeed with your default browser.

It's highly recommended that you install the Firefox browser to get out of jams.

Most of the third-party toolbars in Internet Explorer that have pop-up blockers will not affect Firefox.

Below is an example of turning off the pop-up blocker that is built in to Internet Explorer.  Note that it is done from the Tools Menu:

Also, you can configure the pop-up blocker instead of merely disabling it.  In Internet Explorer, you would click on Pop-up blocker Settings and add "hccs.edu"to the list of allowed websites:

However, you also may have a pop-up blocker lurking in one of your toolbars. In Internet Explorer, the quick solution is to disable the third-party toolbar from the View Menu: