i hate web articles that have each item of list on a different page

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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,332
12,559
126
www.anyf.ca
Another thing that completely pisses me off is those gray out popup ads. Since they differ too much from site to site it seems no program can block those. I really hope adblock can eventually block them.

I immediately close the web page when I encounter one of those. Someone who codes that shit does not deserve a single penny of ad revenue from me.

Lot of websites in general have really turned into garbage though. It's all about trying to annoy people as much as possible it seems.
 

phucheneh

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2012
7,306
5
0
The trend towards more aggressive ads to circumvent adblocking just makes people more likely to install an adblocker and use it on all sites, including those that try and play nice with one simple, non-malicious banner. Really shafts those trying to be decent.

Speaking of ads, I see AT is back to the perpetual loading glitch if you block ads. Which makes me...want to block ads.
 

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,489
3,200
136
Lists are money. Slideshow photo lists = more money. Actual content being worth anything need not apply.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
That you have to click through. I know it's probably to increase view counts and ad space. But it needs to die

http://naturalon.com/10-of-the-most...m=referral&utm_campaign=pcgo&utm_content=ndtv

It's done to boost ad impressions and SEO (increase click through to lower bounce rate and attract crawlers), but I agree it's not a user friendly practice. I think it can backfire if overused.

Here's some other bad web practices in my Sin Bin.
1. Using Adobe Flash at all
Flash is bad for a lot of reasons. It's insecure, a resource hog, it's not supported by mobile devices.

Some businesses, restaurants especially for some reason, still like to build their entire sites in Flash. This is bad for SEO for one, since Flash content is invisible to crawlers. It offers an inferior user experience too.

2. Full page pop up ads that cover up the content
3. Full page pop ups bugging you to sign up for the site or newsletter
These two are a real turnoff for users. It's obnoxious and makes me less likely to sign up, or even stay on your page. Worst ones are the ones that pop up while you're reading the article. Damn, I lost my place asshole.

4. Articles spread across multiple pages when it doesn't make sense to
Explained above.

5. Autoplay videos
This one really irritates me. Probably more than the others. It's startling and obnoxious. Especially if the video content isn't the feature content of the page. Let the user decide whether they want to play it or not. Especially if they're at work or on mobile broadband.

6. Sites not designed with touch screens in mind
Flash sites, too many animated menus, sliders, all are difficult to use with touch screens. With tablets and smartphone commonplace, you really do have to keep their usability in mind when designing.

7. Forcing mobile sites on tablets when it doesn't make sense to
The worst offenders are the ones that make you swipe horizontally through an article. Just put the whole thing on one page so I can read it like a normal person. Destructoid used to be bad for that one but I see they've finally gotten rid of it.
 

Carson Dyle

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2012
8,173
524
126
5. Autoplay videos
This one really irritates me. Probably more than the others. It's startling and obnoxious. Especially if the video content isn't the feature content of the page. Let the user decide whether they want to play it or not. Especially if they're at work or on mobile broadband.

I love having four or five browser windows open with about 100 tabs and in _one_ of them, somewhere, a video begins playing.
awcrap.gif
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,332
12,559
126
www.anyf.ca
Another trend I noticed is pages that have no scroll bars! Some stupid article on Facebook again (it seems a lot of these trashy sites are spawned from Facebook). One of those "you wont believe" Why I click on those I don't know. Well the title was there, the article started, and then it just ends at the end of the page. No scroll bar to keep going. I don't even get the point of this. This particular page did not even have any ads.
 

phucheneh

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2012
7,306
5
0
list of things I agree with

Preach on, brother.

The mobile site thing has been chapping my ass the most lately. And I have to tell it to load the desktop site EVERY damn time I visit it. And some sites outright refuse.

Like, fuck you, website, my Nook is 1920x1280. It has more pixels than my desktop monitor, and they're not packed into a fucking 4" phone screen. GIVE ME THE WHOLE SITE.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
Loads lightning quick for me. Try NoScript.
And prepare to have to manually whitelist most of the Internet. I think damn near everything anywhere uses a script.
I started using it at work after getting a rootkit while trying to find an aluminum extrusion manufacturer through Google.




Another trick that is being used now to circumvent adblockers: The content itself is served from the same server as the ad.
 
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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,332
12,559
126
www.anyf.ca
And prepare to have to manually whitelist most of the Internet. I think damn near everything anywhere uses a script.
I started using it at work after getting a rootkit while trying to find an aluminum extrusion manufacturer through Google.




Another trick that is being used now to circumvent adblockers: The content itself is served from the same server as the ad.

Yeah sucks how badly coded most sites are now :/ I have noscript too but it's a pain in the ass. Half of sites don't even load AT ALL without whitelisting like 50 URLs. WTF do they do this? Why do they register so many domains for? Why not host all the scripts locally? News sites are by far the worse for this crap. They even have scripts that call other scripts! You white list them all then there's more!

I sometimes give up and just skip such sites but sometimes it's something I actually want to see like local news or something.