I've gone through the Portuguese language program on Duolingo twice, doing all the exercises at level 1, then level 2, and am now on level 3 (of 5 max). I agree

I've gone through the Portuguese language program on Duolingo twice, doing all the exercises at level 1, then level 2, and am now on level 3 (of 5 max). I agree the owl encouragement interstitials are very annoying and I wish they'd allow users to disable it. However, I don't let it bother me. Duolingo does change the UI a lot. During the time I've been using it, various features have come and gone. Just in the past couple months, it has changed appearance on me 3 times. It's amazing that they'll do that but won't provide a setting to allow you to disable something that's clearly and understandably annoying some users. All I can say is that I'm glad it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some people. I appreciate Duolingo and benefit from it for free, so can't begrudge one or two boneheaded features.