Download EMS Free Surfer Companion 1.3.0.0.  It's pure freeware now!! 1. Starting to use EMS Free Surfer Companion 2. How to use the popup stopper engine 3. Using LogIt! - site info manager 4. Using WashBoard Pro - cache cleaner 5. Using QuickSearch 6. Using Snapshot Manager 7. Using Host editor 8. Frequently asked questions (FAQ) 9. Known problems

- Download the latest version of EMS Free Surfer Companion (fsc) and install it.

You can uninstall fsc any time via control panel uninstaller or start the uninstaller manually from EMS Free Surfer Companion program group (click uninstaller).

Run fsc and the tray icon become visible. By left clicking you can view fsc main window. By right clicking you can start various plugins easily.

There is also an fsc icon in IE toolbar for easy activating EMS Free Surfer Companion.

Activate fsc main screen by clicking tray icon.



Start and stop popup stopper engine by pressing Started/Stopped-button. Fsc is now equipped with brand new fs-30 popup stopping engine.

2.1 Natural mode alias 'mode normal'



By default FS starts in 'Natural' mode. This means that it does not in any way interfere with opening new windows and the IE popups are automatically removed. No any kind of black lists are needed.

This mode doesn't try to be 100% rigorous proof, instead the intelligent FS-30 engine tries to clean all obvious pop ups, and assures the peaceful surf experience without popup chaos in the screen.

2.2 Strict mode alias 'mode rigoureux'



If you are internet 'heavy user' and want to use just one browser at a time, you can switch the mode to 'Strict'. This mode allows new windows only if you press Ctrl or Shift while clicking a link.

2.3 Panic! - button alias 'ne paniquez pas - permettez surfer librement'



Panic! - button is very handy when you accidentally surf to the 'aggressively pop-upped' site (and the popup stopper engine is disabled of course:). This button closes all currently active browsers in a desktop.
You can also access to panic! -button by right clicking the blue/white fsc tray icon.

By holding down shift or ctrl while pressing Panic!, you can execute Total Panic!, a low-level process killer.  This option lets you close really badly behaving browsers (browsers with dialog message loops etc).


2.4 Active browsers list



All urls of all active browsers appears here. By pressing 'Add to rules', the selected URL can be added to 'Rules list'. If some of these browsers are behaving badly  (there is no toolbar anymore etc ...) it can be closed by pressing 'Close browser'.

A desired browser can be activated by double clicking row.

2.5 Rules list

By default, fsc tries intelligently to stop all popups. There is a possibility to enhance this automation by defining 4 different types of rules;

2.5.1 Allow all popups. Type a url or a part of a url to allow popups. This rule actually pauses the popup stopper when you are one of these defined sites.

2.5.2 Disallow popups. Disallow all popups when you are on of these defined site. This rule causes fsc to go strict mode (see 2.2)

2.5.3 Disallow URL. If you disallow url you can't even surf to that site. There are many really annoying and badly behaving sites in net. Just disallow it and you never see it again.

2.5.4 Remove any window manually. Now you can manually disallow any window (popup) by selecting it from list or using 'sniff out' button; activate the sniff out and point and click the window (remember to click to the caption). You can get rid of all kind of popups, like popups generated by various adware applications (Kazaa etc).

2.6 Options

You can configure FS and set features below ('Tools|Options') :

- Start FS automatically in Strict mode
- Load FS automatically at startup
- Don't show flash screen when FS starts
- Hide Tray icon.
- Speaker sound on/off. You can also select sound source (internal beeper or sound card). There are several wav-sound available in download page that can be used with FS.

- Change language. Fsc has now open multilanguage support and the amount of languages is growing rapidly. Please check latest language packs from fsc download site.

- Silent mode. Disables dialogs and activex-prompts. Very useful in some annoying sites that uses dialogs badly or sites that have a lot of activex-controls.

- Lock home page. Locks home page, so any script can't change it. There are several adware etc. that tries to steal your predefined home page.

- Enable disable GIF animations.  Only the first image frame of GIF is shown when disabled.

- Enable/disable Flash animations. There are many sites containing very annoying Macromedia Flash animations and advertisements. This option allows disabling Flash animations. In some cases its recommended to re-open the browser.
Note that this option don't uninstall Flash!!

Enable/disable background sounds. Sometimes the automatic background sounds can be really annoying.

- Enable/disable page transitions. With this option you can disable page changing effects that slows down browsing.

- Enable/disable Messenger popups. Messenger is a service that comes with Windows XP, NT, and 2000. Advertisers have taken advantage of this by sending ads over this service. Now you can easily stop this spam.

- Enable/disable floating ads. Floating ads are new kind of ads that often are animated or moving parts in a web page. Really annoying!

3.1 What is LogIt!

LogIt! is easy to use and effective site info manager. With LogIt! you can easily store all info from any WEB-page and restore it later with just one click. Store your usernames, passwords and any data and you'll never forget it anymore. LogIt! crypts all data, so your personal data is always secured.

Read Step-by-step help how to add site to LogIt!

3.1.1 Three methods to to open LogIt!;

1. Right click fsc tray icon and choose 'LogIt!'.
2. Press 'Show' button via fsc main screen.
3. From fsc main screen menu; Tools|LogIt!



3.2 Add site to LogIt!

Check that there is at least one browser (IE) open. Open fsc and click 'Add new' and the 'Add new wizard' opens.

1. Enter name of site.

2. Enter additional memo if you want.

3. Enter additional url masks. Some sites may have several urls (for example Hotmail) so you may want to add some additional identifiers. For example Hotmail-site, add word 'hotmail'. Separate words with ','.

4. Type additional password for this info. This password is asked every time when you try to access to this particular site info via LogIt!.

5. Type additional shortcut for url (alias for URL). You use and type this alias directly to IE address bar to navigate to the site. For example if you added URL http://www.hotmail.com and typed 'hot' as alias:


You can see a list of URL aliases via LogIt! main list (the last column)

Please note that if there is installed some 3rd party plugins (for example 'commonname' spyware) to your IE that hooks IE addresses the fsc url shortcut mechanism may not work properly.

6. Select desired browser from list and press next. LogIt! now collects all fields from selected browser and shows a list. Check that all fields are correctly filled. You can also fill the fields via browser and then transfer texts to LogIt! by pressing 'refresh'. When done, press 'Next'.

7. Press save. All's done.

3.3 View/Edit stored info

You can edit saved site info easily. Just open LogIt! main screen (see 3.1.1) select desired info from list and double click it (or press View button). This activates View mode. If you want to edit data, press 'Edit' button.

3.4 How to restore stored info

There is thee methods to use stored site info:

Method one.
Surf to a site that has site info stored, right click the WEB area in Internet Explorer and choose 'Get site info data (fsc)'. LogIt! automatically searches info related to current site and fills all fields.
This is the fastest and easiest way to access LogIt! data.



Method two.
Open fsc main screen by clicking fsc icon. Select active browser from list and click 'Fill fields'. LogIt! dumps also memo related to this site to the info manager area. You can see all data by double clicking this area. This site info can't be anymore viewed for security reasons after minimized Free Surfer. The info manager area can be cleaned by pressing button 'c' (clear).

Method three.
Open LogIt! main screen. Select desired site info from list and press 'Surf and fill'. LogIt! opens a new browser surfs to a site and fills all fields.

3.4 Handling site info data

You can export/import (File|Import or File|Export) any site info data and for example send it to your friends via email. Site info is heavily crypted using standard MD5 cryping algorithms. You can also add additional password to any wanted site info data.
All site info files are located in EMS Free Surfer Companion/Dump directory. It is recommended to backup these files frequently.
You can easily copy these dumps to another computer that have fsc installed.

WashBoard Pro is a fully featured cache cleaner with some timing options and cache management. It also includes  history, cookies and cache explorer via Fsc-Viewer plugin.

4.1 Cleaning options

WashBoard handles now temporary internet files, cookies, autocomplete entries, Typed URLs, IE History, recent documents folder, run history and recycle bin.

4.2 Timing

You can adjust WashBoard to clean selected items automatically always when all browsers are closed. It' possible to adjust also a specific time of a day to execute cleaning.

4.3 Cookie management



Fsc offers now a complete cookie management. To view cookie manager, press 'Cache list' button. In this extended screen you can exclude any cookie and also explore History, Cookies and Cache via Fsc-Viewer plugin.

QuickSearch is a really easy to use one click content search from favourites and from cache. Now you can easily search those sites visited or added to favourites. You can also search favourites by pure URL.
QuickSearch plugin offers also 'Cache explorer' button. It allows Cahce management via Fsc-Viewer plugin.

Take a snapshot from all your currently open browsers in a desktop and restore them with one click. To take snapshot, press Snapshot! button and then click desired slot 1-5 to save. Slot is highlighted if it contains saved data. To clear desired slot, press 'C' following wanted slot.

Hosts file is like an address book. When you type an address like www.yahoo.com into your browser, the Hosts file is consulted to see if you have the IP address, or "telephone number," for that site. If you do, then your computer will "call it" and the site will open. If not, your computer will ask your ISP's (internet service provider) computer for the phone number before it can "call" that site. Most of the time, you do not have addresses in your "address book," because you have not put any there. Therefore, most of the time your computer asks for the IP address from your ISP to find sites.
If you put ad server names into your Hosts file with your own computer's IP address, your computer will never be able to contact the ad server. It will try to, but it will be simply calling itself and get a "busy signal" of sorts. Your computer will then give up calling the ad server and no ads will be loaded, nor will any tracking take place. Your choices for blocking sites are not just limited to blocking ad servers. You may block sites that serve advertisements, sites that serve objectionable content, or any other site that you choose to block.

It is really easy to add sites to hosts file using hosts editor. You can edit, find and modify entries easily or change the hosts file easily to suite your suffing session.

You can find really effective hosts files via net and use these files vith EMS Hosts file editor.

What about operating systems?
Fsc runs in 98/SE,ME,NT,W2k and XP. Especially optimised for XP. No currently available for MAC or Linux. Not tested with 95 but there are still many people using it with 95 though.

What Internet Explorer should I have?
IE 5.0.3314 or later must be installed. If you have older one, just surf to Microsoft-site, and get updated. It's recommended to get newest one. It's more reliable and offers better security.

Does fsc work with other browsers?
Currently fsc works only with IE.

I have several rules set in my EMS Free Surfer mk II. How import these to fsc?
Of course - Just copy the FS_Enabled.fs file from Free Surfer folder to EMS Free Surfer Companion folder after fsc is installed.

Can I block other popups than IE popups?
Yes - just add 'remove any window manually' rule and 'Sniff out' the window.

How to uninstall fsc?
Run the un-installer from control panel or vie EMS Free Surfer Companion program group.

I have older Free Surfer in my PC. Do I have to remove it before installing the new one.
Not necessarily. The new one runs fine without uninstalling the old one.

Can't open links?
You can always press Ctrl or Shift while clicking link to temporarily disable fs30-engine and allow any popup.

I'm getting 'Script errors'.
Fsc handles this kind of problems better, but if you still get those errors, just disable the script debugging from IE. (Tools|Internet options|Advanced). EMS Free Surfer Companion disables this option by default after install.

How does EMS Free Surfer Companion  works?
Free Surfer uses fs-30 inference chain engine. The rules of engine are easily updateable. That's why fs-30 engine is continuously evolving and getting better and better.

1. There is some problems between some Logitech wheel type mouses and Free Surfer. Check Logitech topic from in order to solve these problems.

2. Running Free Surfer in 95/98 simultaneously with Solitaire game may produce errors. Please see Microsoft article Q234430.

3. In some computers Free surfer will not start (error 429 or 91) unless IE is already running, or has been started at least once. In this case it is recommended not to use autostart.