I never thought I would see it. I was reading Slashdot, scrolling down, and a huge single window popped up in my Seamonkey browser. Not just that, but the whole site in the background went dark. There was nothing in the window, and it just sat there pegging my CPU. I had a devil of a time getting it to go away, clicking the close button, right-clicking and using context menu commands, etc. When it finally died and I regained control of my own computer, I resolved Slashdot will never be read in a graphical browser again.
This is the new age of advertising: “You will look at our ads, dammit!” Long ago I began to despise anyone involved in marketing. So very many of them are simply liars — people who tell lies habitually — I refuse to buy anything based on sales pitch. If I see an ad, I automatically assume the product is utterly worthless. Now, I realize in the background, we have suffered a very long time with saturation of consumer products, so competing to get your product out there is intense. However, nothing justifies what we have today. Since pitchmen refuse to listen, I’m almost ready to resort to physical violence. The only thing protecting them from my wrath is I usually get their lies indirectly. Door-to-door salesmen are so rare these days, and it’s wise not to approach my door.
I’ve long ago grown disgusted with scripting on websites. Frequently, I simply turn off all scripting because webpage developers seem utterly brain-dead about the effects of their work. I wrote sometime ago on a long gone blog how scripting is probably more harmful than good, and saved it as a permanent article on my static website. I have a very low opinion of people who use scripting for tasks easily accomplished some other way. All the more so when it comes to ads. I’ve always said I can tolerate images, as long as the content isn’t hidden. When it takes a second page to read a second paragraph because they just have to have all those ads to pay for the site, I refuse to play along. I’m using Elinks and Lynx a lot these days.
I’m just a single, individual idiot doing my best with a very bad situation. I don’t shrink from charging most merchants with serious lapses in morality, simply because I’ve worked in sales and I know what sort of crooks dominate the “craft.” While I don’t suffer from some religious zeal about demanding information be free, I remain convinced we haven’t tried better means of funding sharing of information because we lack the moral and cultural foundation. Sure, if the whole Net died today, I’d find something else to do, but my computer would still be an essential tool in what I do, with our without the Internet. I share my information, worthwhile or not, because I actually enjoy seeing other people benefit from my experience. I like people. Keep your money and let’s be friends. But don’t demand my money, nor should you demand I let you use my eyeballs to make money from others. That’s not friendship; that’s abuse.
I have talked about this in length and still I am met with “but when I run ads you are morally required to watch them since you are using my site.” Which is quickly followed by, then fine, you just lost traffic to your site. And if someone asks me about your site, I will tell them to avoid it.
BTW, the adblock+, noscript and flashblock combination seems to keep actions like you describe from happening. Thankfully I read /. in RSS feeds.
I agree Mark, but on my poor aging laptop, running those extensions takes extra horsepower I can’t spare. Recently I’ve begun to use Opera with everything turned off. It loads pages quickly and usually remains readable. I added extra buttons to the browser interface to turn off cookies, scripts, plugins, and images. I typically have them all off. It’s the one sure way to keep Opera from hanging or going race condition on me (evil laugh).