Things that bug Alasdair #13427
Pop-up ads have long been the bane of internet users everywhere. Fortunately, in this age of pop-up blockers and browsers that aren't Internet Explorer*, they've become less of a problem for most people. To be honest, I've never thought of them as that much of a problem and have even got some amusement out of them.
But I cannot stand roll-over ads.
You know the situation. You're happily reading a webpage when, maybe to click a link, maybe to open another tab, you move your mouse. Big mistake. Now, some animated smiley is yelling at you, telling you to click something else. If you're lucky, it won't happen while you're trying to be quiet. If you're really lucky, and I'm often not, you won't have navigated away from the page by the time the sound starts playing, usually a few seconds after you move over it. If this happens, it can be a real pain, even if it takes less than a minute, to figure out what's making the stupid blathering.
It happens with all sorts of things. I've seen adverts for games where all kinds of dramatic music and sound effects start playing for no apparent reason. Car adverts are surprisingly common, with the "window" sliding down over your page, asking you to purchase the Manufacturer Foreign-Sounding-Word and challenging you to a game of "find the X button".
Because they're embedded into the webpage, they're much harder to deal with than simple pop-ups. In fact, I don't know of any software designed to block them out. I'm not an expert on that sort of thing, but I'd think that something capable of blocking anything that annoying would have made a big enough splash to come to my attention. If you know of any, post a comment about it.
I'm no great opponent of advertising on webpages. They're a useful source of income for people running the website and sometimes even the people behind the advert. But, I swear to Trogdor, if I ever find the person responsible for those blasted yapping smilies, I will kill them. Slowly. And painfully.
*Interesting fact: while I was trying to use a school computer to find the sound that a kookaburra makes (don't ask), IE crashed five times in as many minutes.
But I cannot stand roll-over ads.
You know the situation. You're happily reading a webpage when, maybe to click a link, maybe to open another tab, you move your mouse. Big mistake. Now, some animated smiley is yelling at you, telling you to click something else. If you're lucky, it won't happen while you're trying to be quiet. If you're really lucky, and I'm often not, you won't have navigated away from the page by the time the sound starts playing, usually a few seconds after you move over it. If this happens, it can be a real pain, even if it takes less than a minute, to figure out what's making the stupid blathering.
It happens with all sorts of things. I've seen adverts for games where all kinds of dramatic music and sound effects start playing for no apparent reason. Car adverts are surprisingly common, with the "window" sliding down over your page, asking you to purchase the Manufacturer Foreign-Sounding-Word and challenging you to a game of "find the X button".
Because they're embedded into the webpage, they're much harder to deal with than simple pop-ups. In fact, I don't know of any software designed to block them out. I'm not an expert on that sort of thing, but I'd think that something capable of blocking anything that annoying would have made a big enough splash to come to my attention. If you know of any, post a comment about it.
I'm no great opponent of advertising on webpages. They're a useful source of income for people running the website and sometimes even the people behind the advert. But, I swear to Trogdor, if I ever find the person responsible for those blasted yapping smilies, I will kill them. Slowly. And painfully.
*Interesting fact: while I was trying to use a school computer to find the sound that a kookaburra makes (don't ask), IE crashed five times in as many minutes.
Labels: alasdair, annoyances, rant
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:11 PM
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