If you're among the 99.9 percent of Web surfers who are annoyed by pop-up and pop-under ads, maybe you should look for a new Web browser.

Netscape Version 7.0 is not only vastly improved over its predecessor, it includes a setup option that stops pop-up windows in their tracks. However, the program does allow legitimate pop-ups that are directly generated by a mouse click.

I turned the feature on and set it to issue a quick beep every time it killed a pop-up. Then I visited some notoriously offensive Web sites and heard my computer chirp merrily away - nary a pop-up window appeared.

Although I haven't tested every feature yet, Netscape 7 appears to be a fine browser in other respects. It's much faster than earlier releases, generates complex pages without errors, and has a full set of plug-ins available for multimedia Web pages. Its e-mail, newsgroup and Web page editors are solid, too.

You can also kill pop-ups by installing third-party plug-ins for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Since Netscape managed to build a pop-up killer into its browser, it's obviously not that hard to do. But it's doubtful that Microsoft will follow suit because it doesn't want to offend corporate clients who generate pop-up windows.

In any case, there's no reason you can't install both IE and Netscape on your PC - I haven't found any serious conflicts, even with both running at the same time.

So, if pop-ups get you down, Netscape 7 is worth trying, especially since it's a free download at www.netscape.com. A warning, though - it's a big download. If you have a dial-up connection, you can order the program on CD for $3.