11 ms·

No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

289 points by jacobbudin 10y ago

jasonkostempski 10y ago
NoScript unless they earn the privilege of executing code. I wish whatever spec would have covered the concern had stated script execution MUST prompt the user.
- romuloab42 10y ago
  Disabling Javascript has singlehandedly fixed several annoyances I had, even with ad blocking. No more tabs draining my battery (ok, css animations are still a problem), no more things jumping around, no more page popups, no more Intercom chat windows from people eager to talk to me, no more 3rd party crap Javascript tracking me (ublock prevented them already, but it's nice to know there's no way they can bypass adblock). Things load and render fast. Some pages still require Javascript, and SSO is usually a pain, but for those cases I have a Chrome profile with Javascript enabled and a simple Hammerspoon script that launches that profile in incognito mode for the url I have on my clipboard. Oh, and Gmail basic html mode is so snappy!
- tutanchamun 10y ago
  Yes, that's also the way I browse the web since a few years. Otherwise it's a pain to use the web today.
- oftenwrong 10y ago
  It seems like every HN thread about a "web annoyance" ends up with a comment extolling the virtues of NoScript. I don't surf the web without it!
neogodless 10y ago
I'm not sure the headline succinctly conveys the prime message of the article, which is that modals have replaced pop-ups as a nuisance. In general, I agree. My reaction to most modals is to simply close the tab. Often it's halfway through an article. I can't be bothered to finish it if I'm being interrupted rudely.
edw519 10y ago
There’s no keyboard shortcut you can use to get rid of them. Sure there is: 1. Alt-F4 2. Ctrl-Alt-Del
- Karunamon 10y ago
  I've found that many of them respond to ESC, probably for accessibility reasons. It's almost become a reflex when the page suddenly goes dim to thwack the key before whatever garbage they decided to shove in my face finishes loading.
  - Rooster61 10y ago
    That's nice when you are on a web browser designed for desktop use, but that recourse is never present on mobile, which is where I encounter a large majority of modals. It's doubly annoying when you have to press that tiny little X with sausage fingers like mine. Not to mention when they are coded to only display an image of an X rather than an actual close link and you get redirected anyways. I hate these thing with a burning passion.
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      back button works :)
- dorianm 10y ago
  2. CMD-W 4. CMD-Q etc.
morley 10y ago
The full-screen modal-with-windowshade newsletter prompts are super annoying. But I realize bloggers will always want to "expand their reach," to use the distasteful marketing term. I'd much prefer the prompted blinded in from the side quickly, or ideally, appeared in the site's sidebar. I'm guessing they're used everywhere because you could drop in a code snippet to do everything for you, and a vast majority of code snippets are the "in your face windowshade" variety. I don't know what to do about this situation other than to write my own paste-in package for newsletter signups, which I don't really have time for. I guess the best thing I can do is announce: if your newsletter prompt doesn't cover the main content of the page, I'm much more likely to subscribe (~20%) than if it's a modal + windowshade (0%).
- gkya 10y ago
  I'd sort of be okay with them if they appeared immediately and were easy to get rid of. But with them it takes me a minute to reach the content (page load time included, which is about 30 seconds on average for me nowadays with modern websites on a 16mbits ADSL connection).
digitalengineer 10y ago
Yes it's annoying but they work: "sticking a big ole pop-up in their face can be one of the most effective ways to jolt their attention & grab their email for a return visit." Peep Laja. https://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw https://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw
- petercooper 10y ago
  I'm in the newsletter business (and don't use these modals out of principle) and the folks I chat to about it confirm the same - they work really well. But, I counter, so does spamming or making 10000s of automated phone calls.. and we've agreed those things are damaging and unethical - I agree with Dave, it's about time we as an industry considered full screen modals to be dirty and unwelcome.
  - digitalengineer 10y ago
    It's about all user intent. Will you bring value? For you I'd advice experimenting with a pop-up when the user is about to leave. "A popup designed with exit-intent – in laymans terms it means that the popup only displays when you are about to leave the site." Results? "an increase of sign-ups by 600%. They went from typically 70-80 daily new subscribers to 445 – 470 new subs per day."
    - bradleyankrom 10y ago
      How would you go about detecting when a user is about to leave your site? Other than responding to a click on an external link? The two ways I typically leave a site are a) typing a URL into the address bar and b) closing a tab.
      - digitalengineer 10y ago
        Most people move to the left and up ;-) (Basically to the back button). See: http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ (WARNING: POP-UP! Ha ha
0x006A 10y ago
I started just closing the tab if a site thinks I want to signup before reading the content. If sites are do desperate for the quick fix, I do not expect them to have good content below that modal dialog.
- brainfire 10y ago
  Two step process here: 1) Subscribe "abuse@(sitedomain)" to the newsletter. I don't know if anyone still uses that convention but it reduces my frustration. 2) Add the site to my ad blocker blacklist so I don't waste my time by visiting again.
Lxr 10y ago
This is what happens when you mindlessly optimise for metrics like user signups - not surprisingly, you get more signups when you block the content with an obnoxious modal but after a few years, you wonder where all your users went. How much value do you really get from a user who was forced to sign up with a gun to their head?
- cmahler7 10y ago
  this, people are too worried about the size of their list as opposed to actual engagement. If they don't open your emails they're just costing you money with your ESP. If you have good content people will search hard for a way to get on your email list if necessary, i've done it before.
  - spinlock 10y ago
    this is why it's good to require a credit card for a free trial. it will kill the top of your funnel but the bottom will actually get fatter because those who do sign up for the free trial actually want to demo your software.
    - zipwitch 10y ago
      Are there numbers behind that reasoning? I ask, because that doesn't match up well with my (anecdotal) experience as an end user. When I'm searching for software to either replace something I'm currently using but dissatisfied with or when I'm doing something new (to me), I want to demo candidates so I can get a feel whether I like them or not. I don't mind paying for quality software (though much quality software is free), but requiring credit card info for even a demo is the exact sort of hurdle which I won't put up with. The cost (in time, and potentially wasted time in the future) is just too high.
      - dkersten 10y ago
        Yep, my experience is similar. I've bought tons of stuff online over the years and not once ever have I bought if I had to contact sales or had to fill out a lengthy form [1] in order to get a demo or price. This includes during the two startups I cofounded (ie where I was the person making the company purchase decisions). [1] I'll fill out short "email, name, company (if optional), industry" form but only if I don't think some salesperson is going to give me a call.
pabloarteel 10y ago
I think Google is fighting this by giving a lower rank to pages that do this[1]. [1]: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html?m=1 https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easi...
- peeplaja 10y ago
  That's only for full screen takeover popups - and only for search engine traffic
  - accountface 10y ago
    It's not only for full-screen — slide-outs that block X amount of content will also be punished. A lot of these popups specifically target based on various segments of Google keyword traffic. It's a good start.
- thr0waway1239 10y ago
  Gotta love it when Google claims to fight for the small guy. They are more like one of those vengeful comic villains who turn into absolute batshit psychos if rubbed the wrong way. At least with actual comic villains, you know what you did to incite their murderous rage. You cannot link out without thinking twice, you cannot get links in without worrying about consequences, you grow at exactly the pace that pleases the gods over at the google-plex, and better think twice before you do any guest blogging, and remember the 200 ranking factors at play, and finally, never, ever, ever get on their wrong side. Oh, and to keep it more fun, just wait till you need to stand in line someday for their customer support. That is a whole another level of batshit psycho crazy. Why, Thank you, Google. Without you, what will the poor little people of the world do?
angvp 10y ago
I do agree with the article, but sites continue to ask me for stuff, what I do, is fake data, nothing is painful than that.
stevesearer 10y ago
Placing the newsletter signup form at the bottom of the articles on my site is my preferred method. Only engaged readers get there, and those are the people I want subscribing. Adding double opt-in also weeds out mistaken subscribers.
PortableCode 10y ago
I usually subscribe postmaster@(domain) to the newsletter as RFC822 requires the account to be active ;)
- codazoda 10y ago
  I doubt it's actually active on most domains even though the RFC asks for it to be so. I would even guess that admin@(domain) might be more effective. Just a guess on my part though.
- korethr 10y ago
  My initial thought is that signing up abuse@(domain) would be a clever irony. My next thought is that abusing the abuse inbox is probably a dick move to the sysadmin who's job it is to keep things working.
davidgerard 10y ago
This is why Google needs to start penalising lightboxes.
designium 10y ago
You can suspend the modal pop ups, at least the majority of them, by detecting if they use Bootstrap or Foundation and add CSS code to take over the modal classes from those libraries. Most sites use one of those two framworks anyway.
pcmaffey 10y ago
No, I don't want to chat with someone either. So please stop beeping at me and popping up a chat modal.
- jrobn 10y ago
  I see this all the time on emerging startup apps and websites. Very annoying. It beeps and pops up and covers the bottom right side of the screen and sometimes covers up content. Worst still, it pops up 10 seconds after I arrived at their site when I haven't even begun to really dig into the information, so of course I don't have questions!
- zippergz 10y ago
  Blame Intercom for this.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    We use Intercom, but not on a site that's easily discoverable - our marketing folks reach out directly to potential clients. But yes, I fucking loathe that little "plink" noise it makes. Please don't play sounds while I'm browsing.
- mercer 10y ago
  I think the chat boxes are wonderful idea; I've used them more than once to ask quick questions. The beeping and popping up of some stock image with a 'nice' name is incredibly annoying though.
- Karawebnetwork 10y ago
  You would be surprised at the number of chats e-commerce websites receive in a day. One of our clients (selling clothes targeting 40+ women) had their sales almost double when we added in a simple livechat widget. Since I discovered that they actually put helpful people behind those chats I've started to use them. Now I ask questions with all my online transactions. "How is the warranty? Do clients return this product a lot? Do you have any similar products to recommend me?", etc.
srigi 10y ago
How about extension with some kind of machine learning? You know, all 4 borders and all 4 corners going dark w/o user interaction. At the same time some kind of form input appear at highest z-index. Extension would delete that DOM subtree rightaway. + some kind of cloud harvest from users reporting false-positives.
- taco_emoji 10y ago
  Sure, but how do you do that in a way that can't be circumvented? Alice creates a page with a newsletter popup, then Bob installs a plugin with a MutationObserver [0], so Alice just adds some code to disable any such MutationObservers. Plus how do you determine when it's an unwanted modal? You don't want to block the login popup, for example. Maybe you can block all modals except for the ones generated from a "click" event, but what if the site sets a "click" listener on the <body> tag? [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationObserver https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationObs...
Lio 10y ago
...and no, I don't want to log into your walled garden Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
tlow 10y ago
From the perspective of crowdfunding 1. The crowdfunding sites themselves maintain HUGE newsletter lists and use very advanced analytics to determine what to place in those newsletters. 2. For campaigners, the size and activity of your email list is a huge factor in determining your campaign success. Just like this web tool https://www.thunderclap.it/about https://www.thunderclap.it/about sending a direct email blast to a good list can mean the difference of a successful hard launch and campaign, or a lackluster or failed campaign. The email lists of the sites themselves which feature several campaigns, are hugely influential on campaign success, and in my experience has at least once lead to the production of 4x our total raise goal in a single platform newsletter feature of our campaign. Sometimes people do want to be notified. Newsletters are something of a different issue, but the case above seems like a newsletter to me. Especially because we used our first campaign backers + second campaign + interest landing pages and social media gathering email campaigns to continually send emails about new campaigns and products. Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate [1] is both difficult and valuable. [1] CANSPAM compliance requires unsubscribe link, my personal interpretation is 1-click unsubscribe should be the rule, no loading email setting pages behind login walls. Good design is honest. Crowdfunding requiring physical good production in quantity is very difficult for the uninitiated. And then it remains difficult, time consumer over time, and requires constant attention. This is essentially scaling issues but in the physical world. So many of the failed to deliver crowdfunded projects are not so much dishonest as naive, but also consider Jobs' thoughts on the subject > great artists ship though Dieter Rams (most famous living Industrial Designer) says > designers are not fine artists who we are often confused for
- TelmoMenezes 10y ago
  > Just like this web tool https://www.thunderclap.it/about https://www.thunderclap.it/about This is not a "web tool", this is a spam tool. > Sometimes people do want to be notified. No they don't. > Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate [1] is both difficult and valuable. The web is a beautiful dream. It's being destroyed by people that talk about "attrition rates" and "targeted whatever". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemqAtxKyAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemqAtxKyAo
eXpl0it3r 10y ago
I wish popup-/ad-blockers would start picking up these modal popups as well.
jo909 10y ago
Yes, I want to subscribe to your newsletter! Automatically with a browser plugin, with an address that will even accept your mails. Unfortunately no human will read them in the end, but I'm sure your metrics will be great. I might even accept a cookie so you know I'm already subscribed to your great newsletter. Now if everybody were to do that...
- passivepinetree 10y ago
  What browser plugin do you use?
  - jo909 10y ago
    Just saying I want to, I'm not actually doing it. I hope somebody develops such a plugin now so we can fill their pretty little mailing lists with all the millions of subscribers they want and deserve.
    - passivepinetree 10y ago
      Shoot, I didn't pick up on that and got my hopes up!
- rdiddly 10y ago
  That would be an great app. The user could globally set their fake name and email address -- for example I'd use my old Yahoo mail that I keep for spam storage... in the cloud(tm)!!! The app could query and update a central store of signup sequences for known sites (the names & order of the fields to supply, or even a sequence of fake keystrokes to send when the time comes, kind of like KeePass's auto-type feature).
- franciscop 10y ago
  Just imagine a plugin that searches the page for emails and subscribes their email to themselves. PS, when forced to give an email (like 5 min ago for this Wifi) just use @mailinator.com with anything prepended.
kgwxd 10y ago
I made a add-on for myself to shun sites that behave in ways I don't like. It removes links to their sites from every page. It effectively removes them from the internet. I think that's a way scarier scenario for a website owner than just getting their ads blocked. If the list were community driven and widely used, I think site owners would start changing their behavior. I know most people just want the content and don't care if they block a few ads but I'm sure, like me, there a good chunk of people that are fine with respecting the site owners wishes and just never going to the site (by never seeing their site mentioned ever again) since I'm not going to "pay" in any form. I did publish the Firefox add-on (desktop only) just so I could avoid having to use web-ext or temporarily install it every time I run FF. It's a complete hassle to set up and configure at the moment. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ssure/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ssure/?src=se... Edit: Source is here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/files/browse/601156/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/files/browse/601156... in case you want to try and not worry about it doing something shady.
- kaybe 10y ago
  You should probably copy that comment into the description on mozilla. If I only read what is there I would not have made the connection.
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    Yeah I know. Like I said, it was only originally published so I could use it without FFs stupid rules for running local add-ons. But if people dig it, I'll spruce it up. I don't want to bill it as strictly a URL hider either, although I guess I could make a version of it that just makes that specific goal easier and keep this one as a general decorator tool. I thought it might be useful for research as well but I don't really do research so I'm not sure how useful it would be.
- howderek 10y ago
  Consensual, transparent censorship. Interesting.
rdiddly 10y ago
To put a finer point on it, no, I'm not too dumb to find a regular ordinary signup link somewhere when I'm interested, and no, I didn't accidentally forget to click yours. Face it, website, I'm just not that into you!
makecheck 10y ago
Publishers should approach everything from the point of view of a person on the street: if it wouldn’t be acceptable in real life, WHY is it acceptable online!? The equivalent of a pop-up newsletter modal is somebody on the street PULLING you aside, standing directly in front of you and preventing you from going any further until you answer their question. All without bothering to observe what you were doing beforehand. Your choice then is to step back the way you came to avoid the creepy sidewalk-blocking people. Ridiculous, creepy and unacceptable in real life but essentially exactly how web sites treat their visitors.
- morbidhawk 10y ago
  > Why is it acceptable online? I agree with you, it's not acceptable (and that is an excellent analogy). Aren't content consumers also to blame here as well though? Viewers put up with it anyway. I'm surprised by top google search results that bring up click-bait junk that requires waiting for a page-full of ads to load and then requires that you click through 10 more pages before you even get to all the information you needed. I think this is an indication that the majority of people are willing to put up with it because otherwise those sites would have a high bounce-back rates and wouldn't have ranked so high. Edit: I actually read the article and the author makes this point better than I could: > The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave. And we need to make good on that promise. By closing the browser tab, we can let the bounce rate demand what we as users cannot.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  I don't think the street analogy is accurate; it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in.
  - archon 10y ago
    > it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in. Which is exactly what many stores do, except on the way out (at the register.) They also tend to get pretty annoyed at you when you say "no thanks" to providing a number.
sklivvz1971 10y ago
Another good use case for spam blockers. They work wonderfully for this.
bernardlunn 10y ago
I run a newsletter biz and avoid all these gimmicks. Real attention is what matters not phony metrics - even if attention is hard to measure.
gnicholas 10y ago
These are also bad for accessibility reasons — they generally have a light gray "x" on a white background, which you have to hunt for if you want to dismiss the modal. For normally-sighted individuals, this is a hassle. For people with low vision or motor impairments (e.g. Parkinson's or other tremors), this creates a much bigger problem.
- edoceo 10y ago
  Some have Aria and actually dismiss with ESC. It's rare
  - rhizome 10y ago
    It used to be much more common until FE devs figured out how to stop it.
jpalomaki 10y ago
Instead of asking "Do you want to participate ..." ask one relevant question that actually has some value for you. And put one field for entering free information. If I'm in the mood, I could actually help you to develop your business/web site by providing some highly insightful information. Can't see any value in these questionnaires, since the population who answers to them must be highly biased. If you spend many hours per day on web, there's probably a dedicated section in your brains scanning for clickable [X], "No thank you", "Close" entities on the view and giving direct commands to your mouse hand.
- ufmace 10y ago
  That would be kinda funny - a modal pop-over to ask a single question: What would you improve about this website?
  - majewsky 10y ago
    "Get rid of that annoying modal pop-over."
awwstn 10y ago
> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave. Firstly: most of these modals only show up on exit intent and only once per ~90 days (if you allow cookies), so this ultimatum is fairly hollow. Secondly: do you value your pageview so highly that you think web publishers must respond to your demands? Are you paying these sites for their content/whatever else you're looking at? If not, then maybe clicking out of a modal once per 90 days is a fair price to pay for whatever it is that you're looking at. Thirdly: as you mention, the reason these modals are all over the place is that they work. Fortunately, all highly-effective marketing tactics get repeated perpetually until consumers become immune to them...that will surely happen here, you might just need to wait a bit longer. should note that, like @petecooper below/above, I'm in the newsletter business and don't use these modals. But I also see no reason why people who want to use them shouldn't use them
watter 10y ago
I give the forms junk data now to make it expensive for them to maintain. I only ever hit the form once, but I have heard of people writing bots to hammer these forms in the realm of hundreds or thousands of submissions.
Animats 10y ago
In Firefox, right click on popups and bring up "Inspect Element". Then find the top level element of the popup in the inspector, and Delete Node. The modal disappears. This even bypasses some paywalls. Some sites won't then scroll, though. An add-on to dismiss modals should be possible. Most people do ad-removal add-ons by looking for explicit HTML text, but there are more general approaches. Look for a big box that has a high Z index. That's the modal. Then proceed up the tree until you rejoin with the main document text. Delete the subtree with the modal. Then force scrolling behavior to return to the default.
- radley 10y ago
  Hiding the element doesn't work in more than half the cases. Some plug-ins randomize the modal ids. Others hide the page scollbar unless you interact with the modal.
- techsupporter 10y ago
  Do you know of a way, say in the JavaScript console (I'm guessing?), to reset scroll behaviors? I'm not clever enough with JS or CSS to have figured it out. Deleting the modal using the inspector is what I do but I can't get around the scrolling...
  - timdavila 10y ago
    This will solve the problem for you on most sites: document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].style.overflow = "scroll"; The css property you're looking for is "overflow," usually on the body or html tag.
    - techsupporter 10y ago
      Thank you, I didn't know the property name and it wasn't obvious (to me). :)
    - Animats 10y ago
      I tried that on a page. The scroll bars reappeared, but were not draggable. Trying to drag them activated some mechanism which scrolled part of the screen. It may also be necessary to remove event listeners.
radley 10y ago
> This is because there is no single implementation of modal windows. Many are custom-built. Actually, 90% are from the same few plugins. Unfortunately, those plugs are designed with dark patterns to prevent Element Hiding Helper or Element picker from removing anything from that domain. Some use use randomized IDs each page creation. The worst offenders remove the page scrollbar during the modal so even if you can hide the modal, you can no longer any pages on that site.
maxwellito 10y ago
This problem also exists on YouTube channels. It's when the YouTuber is asking to subscribe at the end of his/her videos.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  Do you really feel so entitled that you're upset at a person asking for support at the end of a video?
old-gregg 10y ago
IMO it doesn't worth the time to discuss appropriate and inappropriate uses of JavaScript. It's way simpler to disable it entirely. I use two browsers: Firefox with "YesScript" extension which keeps the black list of sites where JS is disabled: see a popup? laggy scrolling? sticky headers? Bam! hit the button and you won't see it again. For work, where web applications like Google suite matter, I use Chrome. Some time ago browser developers realized that letting Javascript open new windows was a bad idea and every browser now has a setting (on by default) to block pop-ups. IMO now it's time to introduce a few other anti-abuse settings. My candidates are: - code execution on "scroll" events - CSS animations (web devs, your transitions are NEVER smooth, even of MBP) - position:fixed (auto-replace to position:static)
- apostacy 10y ago
  Those are all really good ideas, and I've had some similar thoughts myself. But, they won't be added to Firefox unless they are first added to Chrome, and they certainly won't be added to Chrome. Firefox was I believe the first browser to include blocking of popups, and it was said to be irresponsible and harmful to advertisers. But the days of Firefox being at all disruptive are long over.
  - tripzilch 10y ago
    > Firefox was I believe the first browser to include blocking of popups No it was Opera. Same for tabbed browsing (can you imagine not having that today? only spawning new windows?).
- rodovich 10y ago
  > position:fixed (auto-replace to position:static) I've gotten pretty good results from a bookmarklet that converts `position: fixed` elements to `display: none`.
  - tripzilch 10y ago
    Here's mine: javascript:for (let e of document.querySelectorAll('*')) if (/fixed|sticky/.test(getComputedStyle(e).position)) e.style.position = 'static'; I use it so many times a day it's not even funny (it's in my bookmarks bar, keyed to ctrl-2). I think it removes (or obscures) an element that I wanted to see in hindsight, way less than 1% of the time. It would be nice if I could just tell the browser to just ignore the `fixed` or `sticky` position properties entirely.
mindslight 10y ago
I run a whois on the domain and enter the technical contact in the subscribe box.
fdim 10y ago
How about cookie policy popups/notifications/extra-top -bar? It's getting increasingly annoying to browse the Web. Basically you have to close some signup modal, cookie warning, chat head before you can start reading the content only to get another blocking modal right after scrolling - which will 'kindly' ask you to disable ad blocker... It's getting better and better!
- GauntletWizard 10y ago
  At least with the Brexit, we'll hopefully stop seeing them on UK sites.
js2 10y ago
I use Safari and I almost always click/tap the reader view icon as soon as the page loads. This: 1) Shows the text even if a modal has already tried to obscure it. 2) Ensures a legible font and contrast. 3) Undoes stupid scroll jacking. Yay, the text scrolls smoothly again. 4) Fixes the scroll bar so that it provides an accurate indication of how far through the page I've read, since the non-text crap I don't care about isn't part of the view now. 5) Allows me to copy text w/o worrying about anything else getting inserted to the clipboard. 6) Doesn't disclose to the site how far I've scrolled, which is none of their business. And probably other good things I'm forgetting. Tapping the reader view icon as soon as the page loads has become habitual. I obviously run an ad blocker as well. This is in both iOS and macOS. Reader view FTW. It's the next best thing to disabling Javascript entirely. Chrome and Firefox should include an as good reader view built in.
- waisbrot 10y ago
  What do you call that giant banner that drops down on Medium (and other sites) every time I accidentally scroll up a pixel? I hate that thing.
  - vhost- 10y ago
    It's the header and it's super frustrating when that happens.
  - stock_toaster 10y ago
    I call it the nav teabag.
    - jimbert 10y ago
      Naming things is hard, but you've captured the essence of it really nicely.
    - CamelCaseName 10y ago
      Perfect.
  - deleted 10y ago
koonsolo 10y ago
Good thing we replaced those annoying Flash banners with javascript </irony> Old guys like me saw this coming from miles away, it's just history repeating itself. To give you all a heads-up: in the future browsers will ask you "This site wants to open a new javascript dialog. Show/block"
- drdaeman 10y ago
  Of course, not that simple. In the future, every other website will ship their own rendering engine (from some big CDN, of course) that prohibits you from messing with their precious spam. Heck, I honestly do expect some startups doing just this kind of "innovation" as soon as WebAssembly gets slightly more polished and cross-browser, so probably just another year or two from now. (That shit will be fought with AI/ML nextgen ad-blockers, that would try to "see" what that positioned <div> is - a spammy modal or some legit navigation sidebar... and I don't dare to think any further, as we approach the singularity.)
  - koonsolo 10y ago
    After that, only text will be allowed. The coolest feature of HTML7 will be the <blink> text. ;)
mmjaa 10y ago
I would be quite content if the Web became something more akin to a "Reception", i.e. that there was the opportunity to meet/chat with a Real Human, instead of automated software. Is it not true that automatic things are better when experienced at the hands of a human, than a machine? I think this factor is at play here ..
bluetwo 10y ago
It seems to me that all these sites use the same basic code. It was some developer--one of us-- that came up with this, which has since been replicated by evil managers and complicit web developers around the globe. What we need to do, even if for purely symbolic purposes, is find the developer who coded the original modal popup and kill him (or her).
- rebuilder 10y ago
  Seems a bit disproportionate. Hoe about finding out what kind of car they drive (assuming they drive) and what the license plate is, then setting a bounty for proof of newsletter ad stickers slapped on that car's windshield when it's parked at streetlights etc?
- acheron 10y ago
  Is this a No Ontological Inertia[0] thing, where destroying the creator also destroys the creations? [0] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoOntologicalInertia http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoOntologicalIner...
- sctb 10y ago
  Please leave out threats like this from comments, even if they're made rhetorically; they're not part of a civil and substantive discussion.
rebuilder 10y ago
I'm irrationally annoyed by these popovers to the extent that I'm tempted to just start locally blocking every site that has them. Just need a handy button to add the domain of whatever page I'm viewing to hosts.deny and preferably fire off an email to the site's admin telling them I prefer never visiting their site again to having to be subjected to their method of promotion.
aendruk 10y ago
Just hit the back button when this happens. A website covering its content with trash is a good indicator that the content wasn't worth spending your time on in the first place.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  They wont do that. They feel entitled to the content. They feel entitled to someone else's work for free but only in the format they demand.
redleggedfrog 10y ago
This battle will never be won by those who oppose the pop-ups. The reason? They work. If you put one on your site the metrics show a definite upturn in conversion, be it sales or sign-ups or whatever you're pushing. Then you take it down for awhile maybe, then you put it back up with something different and you get the upturn again. I personally despise them with every bone in my body, but I don't see them ever going away.
- rcymerys 10y ago
  They work and some people really find them useful. Some time ago I've noticed that a few of my friends really enjoy going through newsletter emails and finding out about items that are on sale etc. They wouldn't necessarily look for a newsletter signup form on a website, but when a popup appears something clicks in their brains ("OMG, I really need this!") and they sign up. I don't like these popups but well, most of the time I'm just not their target. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that there were times when I actually got converted by a popup. When you think of that, if it offers something that's useful to you, clicking on it feels so natural and you don't analyze it too much.
- kristianp 10y ago
  The same can be said for Adverts. They work, but they become less effective as time goes by. In order to get the same income, they have to be more intrusive, using more bandwidth, etc. That's why ad blockers are becoming steadily more popular. I hope that soon enough a popup blocker will become available that solves the irritation of popups too.
WillyOnWheels 10y ago
If a modal box asks me to subscribe to a newsletter, I use legal@{website}
jacobsimon 10y ago
I'm not too annoyed by modals but I'm sick and tired of websites whose content shifts around due to inline ads loading. It's very frustrating when you're trying to read something and the page keeps changing its layout for 10 seconds, especially on a mobile device where you can accidentally click on a link or ad pretty easily. Makes me wonder if they do this on purpose...
davidw 10y ago
Lots of predictable complaining. OTOH, email marketing works pretty well with 'average folks', or it did in the past. So: maybe avoid it on your geek oriented site, but on something meant for regular people, it might work well.
microcolonel 10y ago
Author linked to the i hate popup modals tumblr, where I was confronted with a (subtler than most, granted) popup. http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=113889 http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=113889
soheil 10y ago
It's interesting how most of the solutions here surround just blacklisting those websites, removing them entirely like ad blocks do with ads. I'd like to point out in a lot of cases we visit those websites not because there are 20 other sites with the same content, but because we care about their content! That's why we're there. Or if there are other sites with similar content we haven't found them yet and/or that would require additional expenditure of time/energy to do so. So I'm not so sure why this is a highly shared solution here. I also think we have to differentiate between behavior that is user action based vs. default case. Pop ups were stopped by browsers because they were triggered on page load for example, it was an action that should have produced a deterministic outcome. If part of a page that is not tied to a user action is blocked that is a passively executed scenario and can be used arbitrarily to censor anything by anyone and that's not a place we should move to.
battlebot 10y ago
My solution to any site that tells me to disable my adblocker is to just bail out of whatever article I was going to read. It is often the NYTimes or WaPo anyways, and they have destroyed their own credibility. I long for the NY Times of my youth where I would read the science and technology section of the Sunday Times and back when they had real journalists, not these partisan hacks who only see the world in one color.
rectangletangle 10y ago
CSS `display: none` works a surprising amount of the time with those pesky overlays, unless they're using their backend to govern access.
goatherders 10y ago
If you don't want to see my pop up asking you to subscribe to my newsletter after you've scrolled through half the article I wrote (that you have shown to be interested) then you are free to leave and not come back. Deal.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  And I often do, thanks for the invitation. On the other hand, if there's a non-popup at the end of post that asks for my email address, and if I liked the content and think more would be useful ... I'll provide it.
joshuak 10y ago
Why can't we just agree to do away with popup windows/overlays altogether? Then this kind of thing would be harder, and hacking a workaround would be more obviously bad practice. Software interfaces are becoming common even in car consoles and heavy equipment. Bad UI is moving from annoying to life threatening. '9' != 'yes' Is a life threatening inequality if the '9' on a phone keypad, and the 'yes' is the confirmation of a popup. Are you calling 911 or agreeing to upgrade the os? Dramatically different intents yet indistinguishable if they should occur at the same time. Popops are perhaps one of the best known examples of user hostile GUI patterns. Popups induce 'mode errors' and violate user security and safety by redirecting input at random and potentially critical moments of user interactions. We've known for a very long time, perhaps since the 90s that the correct way to notify a user must not assume user awareness and must not steal focus. Notifications should be added to a list that can be reviewed buy the user at any time. Never steel focus, never obscure users activity, never assume you have the users full attention or or mental capacity to make choices. The time for such considerations must be chosen by the user.
matell 10y ago
first I hated those popups, but then I turned it into a funny game -- in every popup which asks for email I fill in email address like "f*ck-off@this-popup.com" :)
dorianm 10y ago
> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave Another solution is to have ad blockers also block modals, like there is to be for popups
- mirimir 10y ago
  The article explains why that's nontrivial.
  - dorianm 10y ago
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modal-remover/affkdfhjkjmeedminjfcdehjjiifpghf?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modal-remover/affk... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stoppity-poppity/abckjldgppcaijlhpdjipckhehlpenbf?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stoppity-poppity/a... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/ljipkdpcjbmhkdjjmbbaggebcednbbme?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/l... I personally only install highly trusted Chrome Extension, I will review those at some point.
netrap 10y ago
Why I don't want to become a member or join your newsletter? Because some asshole is going to hack it and steal my information!
bsmith 10y ago
I think the OP here hit the nail on the head: if you don't like it, leave. He has no right to demand a web property owner appease his every whim. The owner has every right to have modals on their site. Just like Walmart has every (legal) right to mistreat their employees. So I don't shop there.
potomak 10y ago
A post against modal windows usability that contains a link to a site that use one, that's incoherent.
hawski 10y ago
I have to try with having special gmail e-mail address and set every mail that gets there as spam. If more people would do this they could penalize the host.
scott00 10y ago
Anybody know an FTC commisioner's email address? I've always thought it would be funny to put that into every subscription nag I see. (The FTC is in charge of enforcing US spam laws.)
codedokode 10y ago
Old Opera browser used to have a button to disable CSS that would return page to a readable state. Also it was helpful on websites with white-on-black color scheme.
tehno 10y ago
My default action with these popovers is to Cmd+Opt+C to trigger DevTools Select Element feature, click on the modal background div and just delete it from DOM. Most of the times quicker than hunting for the small X button somewhere.
dongslol 10y ago
Why don't adblockers work on these? Don't they just block elements based on CSS selectors? If so, why can't we collect a database of CSS selectors for the top 1000 sites, CSS classes used by popular modal popup libraries, etc.?
tra3 10y ago
Since we're talking about ads and such, has anyone tried AdNauseam [0]? It's an extension based on uBlock that clicks ALL ad links in the background. I find the idea fascinating because flooding my ad profile with random noise sounds appealing. [0]: https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/

289 points by jacobbudin 10y ago

NoScript unless they earn the privilege of executing code. I wish whatever spec would have covered the concern had stated script execution MUST prompt the user.

romuloab42 10y ago
Disabling Javascript has singlehandedly fixed several annoyances I had, even with ad blocking. No more tabs draining my battery (ok, css animations are still a problem), no more things jumping around, no more page popups, no more Intercom chat windows from people eager to talk to me, no more 3rd party crap Javascript tracking me (ublock prevented them already, but it's nice to know there's no way they can bypass adblock). Things load and render fast. Some pages still require Javascript, and SSO is usually a pain, but for those cases I have a Chrome profile with Javascript enabled and a simple Hammerspoon script that launches that profile in incognito mode for the url I have on my clipboard. Oh, and Gmail basic html mode is so snappy!
tutanchamun 10y ago
Yes, that's also the way I browse the web since a few years. Otherwise it's a pain to use the web today.
oftenwrong 10y ago
It seems like every HN thread about a "web annoyance" ends up with a comment extolling the virtues of NoScript. I don't surf the web without it!

neogodless 10y ago

I'm not sure the headline succinctly conveys the prime message of the article, which is that modals have replaced pop-ups as a nuisance. In general, I agree. My reaction to most modals is to simply close the tab. Often it's halfway through an article. I can't be bothered to finish it if I'm being interrupted rudely.

edw519 10y ago

There’s no keyboard shortcut you can use to get rid of them. Sure there is: 1. Alt-F4 2. Ctrl-Alt-Del

Karunamon 10y ago
I've found that many of them respond to ESC, probably for accessibility reasons. It's almost become a reflex when the page suddenly goes dim to thwack the key before whatever garbage they decided to shove in my face finishes loading.
- Rooster61 10y ago
  That's nice when you are on a web browser designed for desktop use, but that recourse is never present on mobile, which is where I encounter a large majority of modals. It's doubly annoying when you have to press that tiny little X with sausage fingers like mine. Not to mention when they are coded to only display an image of an X rather than an actual close link and you get redirected anyways. I hate these thing with a burning passion.
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    back button works :)
dorianm 10y ago
2. CMD-W 4. CMD-Q etc.

morley 10y ago

The full-screen modal-with-windowshade newsletter prompts are super annoying. But I realize bloggers will always want to "expand their reach," to use the distasteful marketing term. I'd much prefer the prompted blinded in from the side quickly, or ideally, appeared in the site's sidebar. I'm guessing they're used everywhere because you could drop in a code snippet to do everything for you, and a vast majority of code snippets are the "in your face windowshade" variety. I don't know what to do about this situation other than to write my own paste-in package for newsletter signups, which I don't really have time for. I guess the best thing I can do is announce: if your newsletter prompt doesn't cover the main content of the page, I'm much more likely to subscribe (~20%) than if it's a modal + windowshade (0%).

gkya 10y ago
I'd sort of be okay with them if they appeared immediately and were easy to get rid of. But with them it takes me a minute to reach the content (page load time included, which is about 30 seconds on average for me nowadays with modern websites on a 16mbits ADSL connection).

digitalengineer 10y ago

Yes it's annoying but they work: "sticking a big ole pop-up in their face can be one of the most effective ways to jolt their attention & grab their email for a return visit." Peep Laja. https://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw https://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw

petercooper 10y ago
I'm in the newsletter business (and don't use these modals out of principle) and the folks I chat to about it confirm the same - they work really well. But, I counter, so does spamming or making 10000s of automated phone calls.. and we've agreed those things are damaging and unethical - I agree with Dave, it's about time we as an industry considered full screen modals to be dirty and unwelcome.
- digitalengineer 10y ago
  It's about all user intent. Will you bring value? For you I'd advice experimenting with a pop-up when the user is about to leave. "A popup designed with exit-intent – in laymans terms it means that the popup only displays when you are about to leave the site." Results? "an increase of sign-ups by 600%. They went from typically 70-80 daily new subscribers to 445 – 470 new subs per day."
  - bradleyankrom 10y ago
    How would you go about detecting when a user is about to leave your site? Other than responding to a click on an external link? The two ways I typically leave a site are a) typing a URL into the address bar and b) closing a tab.
    - digitalengineer 10y ago
      Most people move to the left and up ;-) (Basically to the back button). See: http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ http://optinmonster.com/how-it-works/ (WARNING: POP-UP! Ha ha

0x006A 10y ago

I started just closing the tab if a site thinks I want to signup before reading the content. If sites are do desperate for the quick fix, I do not expect them to have good content below that modal dialog.

brainfire 10y ago
Two step process here: 1) Subscribe "abuse@(sitedomain)" to the newsletter. I don't know if anyone still uses that convention but it reduces my frustration. 2) Add the site to my ad blocker blacklist so I don't waste my time by visiting again.

Lxr 10y ago

This is what happens when you mindlessly optimise for metrics like user signups - not surprisingly, you get more signups when you block the content with an obnoxious modal but after a few years, you wonder where all your users went. How much value do you really get from a user who was forced to sign up with a gun to their head?

cmahler7 10y ago
this, people are too worried about the size of their list as opposed to actual engagement. If they don't open your emails they're just costing you money with your ESP. If you have good content people will search hard for a way to get on your email list if necessary, i've done it before.
- spinlock 10y ago
  this is why it's good to require a credit card for a free trial. it will kill the top of your funnel but the bottom will actually get fatter because those who do sign up for the free trial actually want to demo your software.
  - zipwitch 10y ago
    Are there numbers behind that reasoning? I ask, because that doesn't match up well with my (anecdotal) experience as an end user. When I'm searching for software to either replace something I'm currently using but dissatisfied with or when I'm doing something new (to me), I want to demo candidates so I can get a feel whether I like them or not. I don't mind paying for quality software (though much quality software is free), but requiring credit card info for even a demo is the exact sort of hurdle which I won't put up with. The cost (in time, and potentially wasted time in the future) is just too high.
    - dkersten 10y ago
      Yep, my experience is similar. I've bought tons of stuff online over the years and not once ever have I bought if I had to contact sales or had to fill out a lengthy form [1] in order to get a demo or price. This includes during the two startups I cofounded (ie where I was the person making the company purchase decisions). [1] I'll fill out short "email, name, company (if optional), industry" form but only if I don't think some salesperson is going to give me a call.

pabloarteel 10y ago

I think Google is fighting this by giving a lower rank to pages that do this[1]. [1]: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html?m=1 https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easi...

peeplaja 10y ago
That's only for full screen takeover popups - and only for search engine traffic
- accountface 10y ago
  It's not only for full-screen — slide-outs that block X amount of content will also be punished. A lot of these popups specifically target based on various segments of Google keyword traffic. It's a good start.
thr0waway1239 10y ago
Gotta love it when Google claims to fight for the small guy. They are more like one of those vengeful comic villains who turn into absolute batshit psychos if rubbed the wrong way. At least with actual comic villains, you know what you did to incite their murderous rage. You cannot link out without thinking twice, you cannot get links in without worrying about consequences, you grow at exactly the pace that pleases the gods over at the google-plex, and better think twice before you do any guest blogging, and remember the 200 ranking factors at play, and finally, never, ever, ever get on their wrong side. Oh, and to keep it more fun, just wait till you need to stand in line someday for their customer support. That is a whole another level of batshit psycho crazy. Why, Thank you, Google. Without you, what will the poor little people of the world do?

angvp 10y ago

I do agree with the article, but sites continue to ask me for stuff, what I do, is fake data, nothing is painful than that.

stevesearer 10y ago

Placing the newsletter signup form at the bottom of the articles on my site is my preferred method. Only engaged readers get there, and those are the people I want subscribing. Adding double opt-in also weeds out mistaken subscribers.

PortableCode 10y ago

I usually subscribe postmaster@(domain) to the newsletter as RFC822 requires the account to be active ;)

codazoda 10y ago
I doubt it's actually active on most domains even though the RFC asks for it to be so. I would even guess that admin@(domain) might be more effective. Just a guess on my part though.
korethr 10y ago
My initial thought is that signing up abuse@(domain) would be a clever irony. My next thought is that abusing the abuse inbox is probably a dick move to the sysadmin who's job it is to keep things working.

davidgerard 10y ago

This is why Google needs to start penalising lightboxes.

designium 10y ago

You can suspend the modal pop ups, at least the majority of them, by detecting if they use Bootstrap or Foundation and add CSS code to take over the modal classes from those libraries. Most sites use one of those two framworks anyway.

pcmaffey 10y ago

No, I don't want to chat with someone either. So please stop beeping at me and popping up a chat modal.

jrobn 10y ago
I see this all the time on emerging startup apps and websites. Very annoying. It beeps and pops up and covers the bottom right side of the screen and sometimes covers up content. Worst still, it pops up 10 seconds after I arrived at their site when I haven't even begun to really dig into the information, so of course I don't have questions!
zippergz 10y ago
Blame Intercom for this.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  We use Intercom, but not on a site that's easily discoverable - our marketing folks reach out directly to potential clients. But yes, I fucking loathe that little "plink" noise it makes. Please don't play sounds while I'm browsing.
mercer 10y ago
I think the chat boxes are wonderful idea; I've used them more than once to ask quick questions. The beeping and popping up of some stock image with a 'nice' name is incredibly annoying though.
Karawebnetwork 10y ago
You would be surprised at the number of chats e-commerce websites receive in a day. One of our clients (selling clothes targeting 40+ women) had their sales almost double when we added in a simple livechat widget. Since I discovered that they actually put helpful people behind those chats I've started to use them. Now I ask questions with all my online transactions. "How is the warranty? Do clients return this product a lot? Do you have any similar products to recommend me?", etc.

srigi 10y ago

How about extension with some kind of machine learning? You know, all 4 borders and all 4 corners going dark w/o user interaction. At the same time some kind of form input appear at highest z-index. Extension would delete that DOM subtree rightaway. + some kind of cloud harvest from users reporting false-positives.

taco_emoji 10y ago
Sure, but how do you do that in a way that can't be circumvented? Alice creates a page with a newsletter popup, then Bob installs a plugin with a MutationObserver [0], so Alice just adds some code to disable any such MutationObservers. Plus how do you determine when it's an unwanted modal? You don't want to block the login popup, for example. Maybe you can block all modals except for the ones generated from a "click" event, but what if the site sets a "click" listener on the <body> tag? [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationObserver https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MutationObs...

Lio 10y ago

...and no, I don't want to log into your walled garden Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

tlow 10y ago

From the perspective of crowdfunding 1. The crowdfunding sites themselves maintain HUGE newsletter lists and use very advanced analytics to determine what to place in those newsletters. 2. For campaigners, the size and activity of your email list is a huge factor in determining your campaign success. Just like this web tool https://www.thunderclap.it/about https://www.thunderclap.it/about sending a direct email blast to a good list can mean the difference of a successful hard launch and campaign, or a lackluster or failed campaign. The email lists of the sites themselves which feature several campaigns, are hugely influential on campaign success, and in my experience has at least once lead to the production of 4x our total raise goal in a single platform newsletter feature of our campaign. Sometimes people do want to be notified. Newsletters are something of a different issue, but the case above seems like a newsletter to me. Especially because we used our first campaign backers + second campaign + interest landing pages and social media gathering email campaigns to continually send emails about new campaigns and products. Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate [1] is both difficult and valuable. [1] CANSPAM compliance requires unsubscribe link, my personal interpretation is 1-click unsubscribe should be the rule, no loading email setting pages behind login walls. Good design is honest. Crowdfunding requiring physical good production in quantity is very difficult for the uninitiated. And then it remains difficult, time consumer over time, and requires constant attention. This is essentially scaling issues but in the physical world. So many of the failed to deliver crowdfunded projects are not so much dishonest as naive, but also consider Jobs' thoughts on the subject > great artists ship though Dieter Rams (most famous living Industrial Designer) says > designers are not fine artists who we are often confused for

TelmoMenezes 10y ago
> Just like this web tool https://www.thunderclap.it/about https://www.thunderclap.it/about This is not a "web tool", this is a spam tool. > Sometimes people do want to be notified. No they don't. > Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate [1] is both difficult and valuable. The web is a beautiful dream. It's being destroyed by people that talk about "attrition rates" and "targeted whatever". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemqAtxKyAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemqAtxKyAo

eXpl0it3r 10y ago

I wish popup-/ad-blockers would start picking up these modal popups as well.

jo909 10y ago

Yes, I want to subscribe to your newsletter! Automatically with a browser plugin, with an address that will even accept your mails. Unfortunately no human will read them in the end, but I'm sure your metrics will be great. I might even accept a cookie so you know I'm already subscribed to your great newsletter. Now if everybody were to do that...

passivepinetree 10y ago
What browser plugin do you use?
- jo909 10y ago
  Just saying I want to, I'm not actually doing it. I hope somebody develops such a plugin now so we can fill their pretty little mailing lists with all the millions of subscribers they want and deserve.
  - passivepinetree 10y ago
    Shoot, I didn't pick up on that and got my hopes up!
rdiddly 10y ago
That would be an great app. The user could globally set their fake name and email address -- for example I'd use my old Yahoo mail that I keep for spam storage... in the cloud(tm)!!! The app could query and update a central store of signup sequences for known sites (the names & order of the fields to supply, or even a sequence of fake keystrokes to send when the time comes, kind of like KeePass's auto-type feature).
franciscop 10y ago
Just imagine a plugin that searches the page for emails and subscribes their email to themselves. PS, when forced to give an email (like 5 min ago for this Wifi) just use @mailinator.com with anything prepended.

kgwxd 10y ago

I made a add-on for myself to shun sites that behave in ways I don't like. It removes links to their sites from every page. It effectively removes them from the internet. I think that's a way scarier scenario for a website owner than just getting their ads blocked. If the list were community driven and widely used, I think site owners would start changing their behavior. I know most people just want the content and don't care if they block a few ads but I'm sure, like me, there a good chunk of people that are fine with respecting the site owners wishes and just never going to the site (by never seeing their site mentioned ever again) since I'm not going to "pay" in any form. I did publish the Firefox add-on (desktop only) just so I could avoid having to use web-ext or temporarily install it every time I run FF. It's a complete hassle to set up and configure at the moment. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ssure/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ssure/?src=se... Edit: Source is here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/files/browse/601156/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/files/browse/601156... in case you want to try and not worry about it doing something shady.

kaybe 10y ago
You should probably copy that comment into the description on mozilla. If I only read what is there I would not have made the connection.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Yeah I know. Like I said, it was only originally published so I could use it without FFs stupid rules for running local add-ons. But if people dig it, I'll spruce it up. I don't want to bill it as strictly a URL hider either, although I guess I could make a version of it that just makes that specific goal easier and keep this one as a general decorator tool. I thought it might be useful for research as well but I don't really do research so I'm not sure how useful it would be.
howderek 10y ago
Consensual, transparent censorship. Interesting.

rdiddly 10y ago

To put a finer point on it, no, I'm not too dumb to find a regular ordinary signup link somewhere when I'm interested, and no, I didn't accidentally forget to click yours. Face it, website, I'm just not that into you!

makecheck 10y ago

Publishers should approach everything from the point of view of a person on the street: if it wouldn’t be acceptable in real life, WHY is it acceptable online!? The equivalent of a pop-up newsletter modal is somebody on the street PULLING you aside, standing directly in front of you and preventing you from going any further until you answer their question. All without bothering to observe what you were doing beforehand. Your choice then is to step back the way you came to avoid the creepy sidewalk-blocking people. Ridiculous, creepy and unacceptable in real life but essentially exactly how web sites treat their visitors.

morbidhawk 10y ago
> Why is it acceptable online? I agree with you, it's not acceptable (and that is an excellent analogy). Aren't content consumers also to blame here as well though? Viewers put up with it anyway. I'm surprised by top google search results that bring up click-bait junk that requires waiting for a page-full of ads to load and then requires that you click through 10 more pages before you even get to all the information you needed. I think this is an indication that the majority of people are willing to put up with it because otherwise those sites would have a high bounce-back rates and wouldn't have ranked so high. Edit: I actually read the article and the author makes this point better than I could: > The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave. And we need to make good on that promise. By closing the browser tab, we can let the bounce rate demand what we as users cannot.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
I don't think the street analogy is accurate; it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in.
- archon 10y ago
  > it's more like having someone at the door of every store you go into asking for your phone number as you walk in. Which is exactly what many stores do, except on the way out (at the register.) They also tend to get pretty annoyed at you when you say "no thanks" to providing a number.

sklivvz1971 10y ago

Another good use case for spam blockers. They work wonderfully for this.

bernardlunn 10y ago

I run a newsletter biz and avoid all these gimmicks. Real attention is what matters not phony metrics - even if attention is hard to measure.

gnicholas 10y ago

These are also bad for accessibility reasons — they generally have a light gray "x" on a white background, which you have to hunt for if you want to dismiss the modal. For normally-sighted individuals, this is a hassle. For people with low vision or motor impairments (e.g. Parkinson's or other tremors), this creates a much bigger problem.

edoceo 10y ago
Some have Aria and actually dismiss with ESC. It's rare
- rhizome 10y ago
  It used to be much more common until FE devs figured out how to stop it.

jpalomaki 10y ago

Instead of asking "Do you want to participate ..." ask one relevant question that actually has some value for you. And put one field for entering free information. If I'm in the mood, I could actually help you to develop your business/web site by providing some highly insightful information. Can't see any value in these questionnaires, since the population who answers to them must be highly biased. If you spend many hours per day on web, there's probably a dedicated section in your brains scanning for clickable [X], "No thank you", "Close" entities on the view and giving direct commands to your mouse hand.

ufmace 10y ago
That would be kinda funny - a modal pop-over to ask a single question: What would you improve about this website?
- majewsky 10y ago
  "Get rid of that annoying modal pop-over."

awwstn 10y ago

> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave. Firstly: most of these modals only show up on exit intent and only once per ~90 days (if you allow cookies), so this ultimatum is fairly hollow. Secondly: do you value your pageview so highly that you think web publishers must respond to your demands? Are you paying these sites for their content/whatever else you're looking at? If not, then maybe clicking out of a modal once per 90 days is a fair price to pay for whatever it is that you're looking at. Thirdly: as you mention, the reason these modals are all over the place is that they work. Fortunately, all highly-effective marketing tactics get repeated perpetually until consumers become immune to them...that will surely happen here, you might just need to wait a bit longer. should note that, like @petecooper below/above, I'm in the newsletter business and don't use these modals. But I also see no reason why people who want to use them shouldn't use them

watter 10y ago

I give the forms junk data now to make it expensive for them to maintain. I only ever hit the form once, but I have heard of people writing bots to hammer these forms in the realm of hundreds or thousands of submissions.

Animats 10y ago

In Firefox, right click on popups and bring up "Inspect Element". Then find the top level element of the popup in the inspector, and Delete Node. The modal disappears. This even bypasses some paywalls. Some sites won't then scroll, though. An add-on to dismiss modals should be possible. Most people do ad-removal add-ons by looking for explicit HTML text, but there are more general approaches. Look for a big box that has a high Z index. That's the modal. Then proceed up the tree until you rejoin with the main document text. Delete the subtree with the modal. Then force scrolling behavior to return to the default.

radley 10y ago
Hiding the element doesn't work in more than half the cases. Some plug-ins randomize the modal ids. Others hide the page scollbar unless you interact with the modal.
techsupporter 10y ago
Do you know of a way, say in the JavaScript console (I'm guessing?), to reset scroll behaviors? I'm not clever enough with JS or CSS to have figured it out. Deleting the modal using the inspector is what I do but I can't get around the scrolling...
- timdavila 10y ago
  This will solve the problem for you on most sites: document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].style.overflow = "scroll"; The css property you're looking for is "overflow," usually on the body or html tag.
  - techsupporter 10y ago
    Thank you, I didn't know the property name and it wasn't obvious (to me). :)
  - Animats 10y ago
    I tried that on a page. The scroll bars reappeared, but were not draggable. Trying to drag them activated some mechanism which scrolled part of the screen. It may also be necessary to remove event listeners.

radley 10y ago

> This is because there is no single implementation of modal windows. Many are custom-built. Actually, 90% are from the same few plugins. Unfortunately, those plugs are designed with dark patterns to prevent Element Hiding Helper or Element picker from removing anything from that domain. Some use use randomized IDs each page creation. The worst offenders remove the page scrollbar during the modal so even if you can hide the modal, you can no longer any pages on that site.

maxwellito 10y ago

This problem also exists on YouTube channels. It's when the YouTuber is asking to subscribe at the end of his/her videos.

jmcdiesel 10y ago
Do you really feel so entitled that you're upset at a person asking for support at the end of a video?

old-gregg 10y ago

IMO it doesn't worth the time to discuss appropriate and inappropriate uses of JavaScript. It's way simpler to disable it entirely. I use two browsers: Firefox with "YesScript" extension which keeps the black list of sites where JS is disabled: see a popup? laggy scrolling? sticky headers? Bam! hit the button and you won't see it again. For work, where web applications like Google suite matter, I use Chrome. Some time ago browser developers realized that letting Javascript open new windows was a bad idea and every browser now has a setting (on by default) to block pop-ups. IMO now it's time to introduce a few other anti-abuse settings. My candidates are: - code execution on "scroll" events - CSS animations (web devs, your transitions are NEVER smooth, even of MBP) - position:fixed (auto-replace to position:static)

apostacy 10y ago
Those are all really good ideas, and I've had some similar thoughts myself. But, they won't be added to Firefox unless they are first added to Chrome, and they certainly won't be added to Chrome. Firefox was I believe the first browser to include blocking of popups, and it was said to be irresponsible and harmful to advertisers. But the days of Firefox being at all disruptive are long over.
- tripzilch 10y ago
  > Firefox was I believe the first browser to include blocking of popups No it was Opera. Same for tabbed browsing (can you imagine not having that today? only spawning new windows?).
rodovich 10y ago
> position:fixed (auto-replace to position:static) I've gotten pretty good results from a bookmarklet that converts `position: fixed` elements to `display: none`.
- tripzilch 10y ago
  Here's mine: javascript:for (let e of document.querySelectorAll('*')) if (/fixed|sticky/.test(getComputedStyle(e).position)) e.style.position = 'static'; I use it so many times a day it's not even funny (it's in my bookmarks bar, keyed to ctrl-2). I think it removes (or obscures) an element that I wanted to see in hindsight, way less than 1% of the time. It would be nice if I could just tell the browser to just ignore the `fixed` or `sticky` position properties entirely.

mindslight 10y ago

I run a whois on the domain and enter the technical contact in the subscribe box.

fdim 10y ago

How about cookie policy popups/notifications/extra-top -bar? It's getting increasingly annoying to browse the Web. Basically you have to close some signup modal, cookie warning, chat head before you can start reading the content only to get another blocking modal right after scrolling - which will 'kindly' ask you to disable ad blocker... It's getting better and better!

GauntletWizard 10y ago
At least with the Brexit, we'll hopefully stop seeing them on UK sites.

js2 10y ago

I use Safari and I almost always click/tap the reader view icon as soon as the page loads. This: 1) Shows the text even if a modal has already tried to obscure it. 2) Ensures a legible font and contrast. 3) Undoes stupid scroll jacking. Yay, the text scrolls smoothly again. 4) Fixes the scroll bar so that it provides an accurate indication of how far through the page I've read, since the non-text crap I don't care about isn't part of the view now. 5) Allows me to copy text w/o worrying about anything else getting inserted to the clipboard. 6) Doesn't disclose to the site how far I've scrolled, which is none of their business. And probably other good things I'm forgetting. Tapping the reader view icon as soon as the page loads has become habitual. I obviously run an ad blocker as well. This is in both iOS and macOS. Reader view FTW. It's the next best thing to disabling Javascript entirely. Chrome and Firefox should include an as good reader view built in.

waisbrot 10y ago
What do you call that giant banner that drops down on Medium (and other sites) every time I accidentally scroll up a pixel? I hate that thing.
- vhost- 10y ago
  It's the header and it's super frustrating when that happens.
- stock_toaster 10y ago
  I call it the nav teabag.
  - jimbert 10y ago
    Naming things is hard, but you've captured the essence of it really nicely.
  - CamelCaseName 10y ago
    Perfect.
- deleted 10y ago

koonsolo 10y ago

Good thing we replaced those annoying Flash banners with javascript </irony> Old guys like me saw this coming from miles away, it's just history repeating itself. To give you all a heads-up: in the future browsers will ask you "This site wants to open a new javascript dialog. Show/block"

drdaeman 10y ago
Of course, not that simple. In the future, every other website will ship their own rendering engine (from some big CDN, of course) that prohibits you from messing with their precious spam. Heck, I honestly do expect some startups doing just this kind of "innovation" as soon as WebAssembly gets slightly more polished and cross-browser, so probably just another year or two from now. (That shit will be fought with AI/ML nextgen ad-blockers, that would try to "see" what that positioned <div> is - a spammy modal or some legit navigation sidebar... and I don't dare to think any further, as we approach the singularity.)
- koonsolo 10y ago
  After that, only text will be allowed. The coolest feature of HTML7 will be the <blink> text. ;)

mmjaa 10y ago

I would be quite content if the Web became something more akin to a "Reception", i.e. that there was the opportunity to meet/chat with a Real Human, instead of automated software. Is it not true that automatic things are better when experienced at the hands of a human, than a machine? I think this factor is at play here ..

bluetwo 10y ago

It seems to me that all these sites use the same basic code. It was some developer--one of us-- that came up with this, which has since been replicated by evil managers and complicit web developers around the globe. What we need to do, even if for purely symbolic purposes, is find the developer who coded the original modal popup and kill him (or her).

rebuilder 10y ago
Seems a bit disproportionate. Hoe about finding out what kind of car they drive (assuming they drive) and what the license plate is, then setting a bounty for proof of newsletter ad stickers slapped on that car's windshield when it's parked at streetlights etc?
acheron 10y ago
Is this a No Ontological Inertia[0] thing, where destroying the creator also destroys the creations? [0] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoOntologicalInertia http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoOntologicalIner...
sctb 10y ago
Please leave out threats like this from comments, even if they're made rhetorically; they're not part of a civil and substantive discussion.

rebuilder 10y ago

I'm irrationally annoyed by these popovers to the extent that I'm tempted to just start locally blocking every site that has them. Just need a handy button to add the domain of whatever page I'm viewing to hosts.deny and preferably fire off an email to the site's admin telling them I prefer never visiting their site again to having to be subjected to their method of promotion.

aendruk 10y ago

Just hit the back button when this happens. A website covering its content with trash is a good indicator that the content wasn't worth spending your time on in the first place.

jmcdiesel 10y ago
They wont do that. They feel entitled to the content. They feel entitled to someone else's work for free but only in the format they demand.

redleggedfrog 10y ago

This battle will never be won by those who oppose the pop-ups. The reason? They work. If you put one on your site the metrics show a definite upturn in conversion, be it sales or sign-ups or whatever you're pushing. Then you take it down for awhile maybe, then you put it back up with something different and you get the upturn again. I personally despise them with every bone in my body, but I don't see them ever going away.

rcymerys 10y ago
They work and some people really find them useful. Some time ago I've noticed that a few of my friends really enjoy going through newsletter emails and finding out about items that are on sale etc. They wouldn't necessarily look for a newsletter signup form on a website, but when a popup appears something clicks in their brains ("OMG, I really need this!") and they sign up. I don't like these popups but well, most of the time I'm just not their target. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that there were times when I actually got converted by a popup. When you think of that, if it offers something that's useful to you, clicking on it feels so natural and you don't analyze it too much.
kristianp 10y ago
The same can be said for Adverts. They work, but they become less effective as time goes by. In order to get the same income, they have to be more intrusive, using more bandwidth, etc. That's why ad blockers are becoming steadily more popular. I hope that soon enough a popup blocker will become available that solves the irritation of popups too.

WillyOnWheels 10y ago

If a modal box asks me to subscribe to a newsletter, I use legal@{website}

jacobsimon 10y ago

I'm not too annoyed by modals but I'm sick and tired of websites whose content shifts around due to inline ads loading. It's very frustrating when you're trying to read something and the page keeps changing its layout for 10 seconds, especially on a mobile device where you can accidentally click on a link or ad pretty easily. Makes me wonder if they do this on purpose...

davidw 10y ago

Lots of predictable complaining. OTOH, email marketing works pretty well with 'average folks', or it did in the past. So: maybe avoid it on your geek oriented site, but on something meant for regular people, it might work well.

microcolonel 10y ago

Author linked to the i hate popup modals tumblr, where I was confronted with a (subtler than most, granted) popup. http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=113889 http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=113889

soheil 10y ago

It's interesting how most of the solutions here surround just blacklisting those websites, removing them entirely like ad blocks do with ads. I'd like to point out in a lot of cases we visit those websites not because there are 20 other sites with the same content, but because we care about their content! That's why we're there. Or if there are other sites with similar content we haven't found them yet and/or that would require additional expenditure of time/energy to do so. So I'm not so sure why this is a highly shared solution here. I also think we have to differentiate between behavior that is user action based vs. default case. Pop ups were stopped by browsers because they were triggered on page load for example, it was an action that should have produced a deterministic outcome. If part of a page that is not tied to a user action is blocked that is a passively executed scenario and can be used arbitrarily to censor anything by anyone and that's not a place we should move to.

battlebot 10y ago

My solution to any site that tells me to disable my adblocker is to just bail out of whatever article I was going to read. It is often the NYTimes or WaPo anyways, and they have destroyed their own credibility. I long for the NY Times of my youth where I would read the science and technology section of the Sunday Times and back when they had real journalists, not these partisan hacks who only see the world in one color.

rectangletangle 10y ago

CSS `display: none` works a surprising amount of the time with those pesky overlays, unless they're using their backend to govern access.

goatherders 10y ago

If you don't want to see my pop up asking you to subscribe to my newsletter after you've scrolled through half the article I wrote (that you have shown to be interested) then you are free to leave and not come back. Deal.

GrinningFool 10y ago
And I often do, thanks for the invitation. On the other hand, if there's a non-popup at the end of post that asks for my email address, and if I liked the content and think more would be useful ... I'll provide it.

joshuak 10y ago

Why can't we just agree to do away with popup windows/overlays altogether? Then this kind of thing would be harder, and hacking a workaround would be more obviously bad practice. Software interfaces are becoming common even in car consoles and heavy equipment. Bad UI is moving from annoying to life threatening. '9' != 'yes' Is a life threatening inequality if the '9' on a phone keypad, and the 'yes' is the confirmation of a popup. Are you calling 911 or agreeing to upgrade the os? Dramatically different intents yet indistinguishable if they should occur at the same time. Popops are perhaps one of the best known examples of user hostile GUI patterns. Popups induce 'mode errors' and violate user security and safety by redirecting input at random and potentially critical moments of user interactions. We've known for a very long time, perhaps since the 90s that the correct way to notify a user must not assume user awareness and must not steal focus. Notifications should be added to a list that can be reviewed buy the user at any time. Never steel focus, never obscure users activity, never assume you have the users full attention or or mental capacity to make choices. The time for such considerations must be chosen by the user.

matell 10y ago

first I hated those popups, but then I turned it into a funny game -- in every popup which asks for email I fill in email address like "f*ck-off@this-popup.com" :)

dorianm 10y ago

> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave Another solution is to have ad blockers also block modals, like there is to be for popups

mirimir 10y ago
The article explains why that's nontrivial.
- dorianm 10y ago
  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modal-remover/affkdfhjkjmeedminjfcdehjjiifpghf?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modal-remover/affk... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stoppity-poppity/abckjldgppcaijlhpdjipckhehlpenbf?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stoppity-poppity/a... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/ljipkdpcjbmhkdjjmbbaggebcednbbme?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/l... I personally only install highly trusted Chrome Extension, I will review those at some point.

netrap 10y ago

Why I don't want to become a member or join your newsletter? Because some asshole is going to hack it and steal my information!

bsmith 10y ago

I think the OP here hit the nail on the head: if you don't like it, leave. He has no right to demand a web property owner appease his every whim. The owner has every right to have modals on their site. Just like Walmart has every (legal) right to mistreat their employees. So I don't shop there.

potomak 10y ago

A post against modal windows usability that contains a link to a site that use one, that's incoherent.

hawski 10y ago

I have to try with having special gmail e-mail address and set every mail that gets there as spam. If more people would do this they could penalize the host.

scott00 10y ago

Anybody know an FTC commisioner's email address? I've always thought it would be funny to put that into every subscription nag I see. (The FTC is in charge of enforcing US spam laws.)

codedokode 10y ago

Old Opera browser used to have a button to disable CSS that would return page to a readable state. Also it was helpful on websites with white-on-black color scheme.

tehno 10y ago

My default action with these popovers is to Cmd+Opt+C to trigger DevTools Select Element feature, click on the modal background div and just delete it from DOM. Most of the times quicker than hunting for the small X button somewhere.

dongslol 10y ago

Why don't adblockers work on these? Don't they just block elements based on CSS selectors? If so, why can't we collect a database of CSS selectors for the top 1000 sites, CSS classes used by popular modal popup libraries, etc.?

tra3 10y ago

Since we're talking about ads and such, has anyone tried AdNauseam [0]? It's an extension based on uBlock that clicks ALL ad links in the background. I find the idea fascinating because flooding my ad profile with random noise sounds appealing. [0]: https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/