6 ms·

I accepted cookies, watched an ad, dismissed a popup for a newsletter to watch a video about ads. That really nails it.

dijit 2y ago
The funny thing is that we fought so hard against pop-ups throughout the 90's and 2000's only to re-implement pop-ups in javascript as soon as we could.
- Nursie 2y ago
  At least, generally, they no longer open hundreds of windows above or below the current window, which may or may not have browser control bars, may ‘warn’ on exit etc etc If a page wants to cover itself in noise and dialogues, sure it’s annoying but it’s not quite on the same level as back then.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Yeah sometimes you’d have to just powercycle the computer if they started cascading too fast and bogging down the system. People would make websites specifically to troll and do this.
  - Buttons840 2y ago
    Remember how wild pop-ups on the early web could be: https://youtu.be/LSgk7ctw1HY https://youtu.be/LSgk7ctw1HY
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Computing history is rife with examples of APIs that would never have existed, had the API designer stepped back for a few seconds and asked himself "Why am I letting developers do this?" Someone deliberately added the ability to move the browser window around and pop up other browser windows, yet somehow never imagined this use case???
      - anal_reactor 2y ago
        Social dynamics in the digital world are completely different from anything known to man before the internet. Imagine someone from 2090 coming over and saying "aren't you afraid that your friend will literally take a knife and stab you in the back during your birthday party". Technically he's not wrong, but come on, it doesn't happen really. And then you learn that in 2080's something similar was a major societal problem.
      - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
        Computing history is rife with examples of API designers who get attacked for building walled gardens and denying user power when they ask such questions. There was a time, for example, when "data portability" was widely understood to mean that Facebook should let Google programmatically extract your data and forward it to fourth parties (https://techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/he-said-she-said-in-google-v-facebook/ https://techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/he-said-she-said-in-google...). Today we know that there's no genuine question of user control here, because virtually every user has a mental model that a "webpage" is something different and much more scope-limited than a "program". I don't expect that steampowered.com should be able to launch the game I just bought, even though that capability is easily available from a similar-looking interface by the same developers I have installed on my computer. In 1995 it wasn't so obvious that people in 2025 would think this way.
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        Thinking of all the possible ways some assholes could abuse a new functionality is an acquired skill, and one I believe eventually makes you stop coming up with any ideas. After all, entrepreneurs can and will abuse anything and everything in this world.
        autoexec 2y ago
        It doesn't keep you from coming up with ideas, it just keeps you coming up with ideas to mitigate the harms. The obvious one that's usually neglected is giving users the power to disable/limit/control behaviors that are likely to be abused. We wouldn't need to bother with installing addons to limit javascript and block ads if those were just part of the browser to start with. Every new feature added should have options that put users in control of if, when, and how it gets used. Right now, even the browsers that give users the most control usually don't go farther than an enable/disable flag in about:config
  - krupan 2y ago
    Why do I keep seeing, "it's not as bad as that" as a defense? It's still bad!
    - theideaofcoffee 2y ago
      The one saying it’s not as bad are probably the same ones whose salary depends on their users’ engagement with those same pop ups.
    - Nursie 2y ago
      It's not a defense particularly, it's just that it's not the same sort of experience. The old popups were so bad I was regularly killing the browser process just to make them go away. Now there's a lot less they can do, thank god. We have the browser (and extension) people to thank for this of course, not advertisers who would still be doing it if they could.
- cma 2y ago
  Google began as a search engine with a popup blocker extension for a competitor's browser. Now they're a display ad company with a browser that includes a built in popup blocker extension blocker.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Google began as a company that cared about users. Now they're a company that cares about advertisers.
- no_wizard 2y ago
  I have always wondered what the web would be like if we added the scripting language later and only solidified CSS and HTML for the first 15 years or so. I wonder if things would actually be better overall. I’m not going to argue that having a scripting language for the web was a mistake, it definitely isn’t on the whole, but I think having it come at a more mature point for the web might have helped stave off a lot of really bad decisions
  - cyanydeez 2y ago
    socialism. that's what we're talking about. No one every said, "Should we try to make the internet a publish good?"
  - doublerabbit 2y ago
    TCL was to be javascript but didn't happen. Google offered to sell Google to Yahoo and AltaVista $1m for Google, but didn't happen. I wish to think all these things exist in a alternative universe and we've just not constructed the time-portal yet.
  - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
    I think what would have happened if the web didn't have scripting languages was that you would be forced to download java applets... which now can also run on javascript/wasm coming full circle. Also, java's dominance I guess was the reason that javascript is named after inspiration of java. What you are asking for are static pages which already exists and most people do use static pages due to it being very easy to deploy on github pages etc. , though I wonder we would've way more abundance of static pages as compared to non static pages, like there are some pages which could've been static but they aren't. Though I still think the difference would've existed & it could've been net positive IDK, I just like to go create websites as apps which can be booted on any pc,device without worrying about anything, installing and running it would likely require a setup and it would've been a bigger hassle as well. And well noone's stopping you from doing it right now. There's gopher and gemini if you are interested.
    - doublerabbit 2y ago
- trod1234 2y ago
  Well, there are really only three things that form the aggregate of the world we see today. There are accidents of history, money, and ideology. These things fit squarely in the money category. The advertising industry was subsumed by adtech during that time, which was driven by government grant and fiat debt-based financing. Advertising fraud has never been harder to account for, and the justified use of analytics for that purpose has driven surveillance capitalism with governments being the customer. Money printing is the role of the state, so technically if you remove all indirections its state apparatus which makes sense that an individual wouldn't be able to fight against it.
- delusional 2y ago
  At least these popups are restricted to the page. It's one thing for a website to decide to block my use of it for some asinine reason. It's quite another for it to block my use of everything else on my computer.
- musicale 2y ago
  > we fought so hard against pop-ups throughout the 90's and 2000's only to re-implement pop-ups in javascript as soon as we could A group of people who thought that web users should not be abused may have won the first pop-up battle, but the businesses that made money from intrusive advertisements clearly won the war. In hindsight maybe it wasn't a such a great idea for web users to switch en masse to a browser made by an advertising company. The endgame is a probably a war between web sites that are endless mazes of advertising and user agents that try to navigate the maze and extract the non-advertising content.
  - musicale 2y ago
    "OK Gemini, please take this 10-minute video on youtube and give me a version without any advertising or promotional content." "I'm sorry Dave, but I am unable to accept requests that oppose Google's business interests." "Well, send it to ChatGPT then!" "Sure thing. Here is your... 5 second video:" (Video) "Hey what's up? Be sure to like and subscribe." (end of video)
  - nirvdrum 2y ago
    I don’t know if hindsight is quite right. There were people raising alarms about this when Chrome initially came out and repeatedly as it grew in popularity. Especially when sites started requiring Chrome. It’s just they were dismissed as conspiracy theorists or brushed aside because right now Chrome is faster and the present is all that matters. This was 100% pushed by tech enthusiasts and web developers… the average person would’ve otherwise stuck with their OS default browser. I’m not trying to correct you. It’s just a sequence of events I’ve seen play out repeatedly and I’m not sure if there’s a solution. Most recently I’ve seen it with Bambu Lab locking down their 3D printers. Prior to that Autodesk yanking the Fusion 360 enthusiast licenses. Maybe there isn’t a solution. There’s a lot of UX work that isn’t fun to do and so it’s hard to get volunteers to do it. It’s hard to do product management in a distributed group of volunteers in general. So, companies that can afford to bankroll projects often gain traction with performance or usability gains and suck away attention and funding from open source options. Then when they amass enough of the user base they flip the switch and now folks are stuck. The cost of changing is often prohibitively high and the OSS option is generally far behind at that point. I think people are bad at thinking longer term. Or maybe they just prefer immediate gratification. In any event, absent a shift in human behavior I expect we’ll see this sort of situation to continue to play out. It’d just be nice if folks were less antagonistic about it when those concerned raise that alarm.
- ProllyInfamous 2y ago
  I use the following code (as a toolbar bookmarklette) for a quick button which disables all pop-overs/cookie requests: javascript:/*https://bookmarkl.ink/ashtonmeuser/849a972686e1505093c6d4fc5c6e0b1a*/(()%3D%3E%7Bvar%20e%2Co%3Ddocument.querySelectorAll(%22body%20*%22)%3Bfor(e%3D0%3Be%3Co.length%3Be%2B%2B)getComputedStyle(o%5Be%5D).position%3D%3D%3D%22fixed%22%26%26o%5Be%5D.parentNode.removeChild(o%5Be%5D)%3B%7D)()%3B%0A Doesn't always work (sometimes it kills the website functionality), and I have no clue what it's actually doing (I'm not a coder)... but usually it gets rid of hover-overs.
grg0 2y ago
You know it's gonna be good.
gusfoo 2y ago
For balance, I clicked the link and (after a moment of my browser imposing my will) the video started playing. Opera + Ghostery is quite a pleasant experience, at least when compared to mobile browsing (at the other end of the spectrum).
-__---____-ZXyw 2y ago
I'm reminded of the videos about procrastination on youtube where people seem to never, ever, ever tire of comenting to say things like: "I'm watching a video about procrastination... and I've got a test tomrrow! Lolol!" Obviously your comment is the refined HN equivalent, but still.
karmakaze 2y ago
It's also been a long while since clicking "Manage cookie preferences" shows "Opt-out..." pre-checked and "Confirm choices" button, unlike the "Reject all" button also being shown these days. Then unchecking "Opt out..." dynamically shows a "Allow all" button.

The funny thing is that we fought so hard against pop-ups throughout the 90's and 2000's only to re-implement pop-ups in javascript as soon as we could.

Nursie 2y ago
At least, generally, they no longer open hundreds of windows above or below the current window, which may or may not have browser control bars, may ‘warn’ on exit etc etc If a page wants to cover itself in noise and dialogues, sure it’s annoying but it’s not quite on the same level as back then.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Yeah sometimes you’d have to just powercycle the computer if they started cascading too fast and bogging down the system. People would make websites specifically to troll and do this.
- Buttons840 2y ago
  Remember how wild pop-ups on the early web could be: https://youtu.be/LSgk7ctw1HY https://youtu.be/LSgk7ctw1HY
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Computing history is rife with examples of APIs that would never have existed, had the API designer stepped back for a few seconds and asked himself "Why am I letting developers do this?" Someone deliberately added the ability to move the browser window around and pop up other browser windows, yet somehow never imagined this use case???
    - anal_reactor 2y ago
      Social dynamics in the digital world are completely different from anything known to man before the internet. Imagine someone from 2090 coming over and saying "aren't you afraid that your friend will literally take a knife and stab you in the back during your birthday party". Technically he's not wrong, but come on, it doesn't happen really. And then you learn that in 2080's something similar was a major societal problem.
    - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      Computing history is rife with examples of API designers who get attacked for building walled gardens and denying user power when they ask such questions. There was a time, for example, when "data portability" was widely understood to mean that Facebook should let Google programmatically extract your data and forward it to fourth parties (https://techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/he-said-she-said-in-google-v-facebook/ https://techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/he-said-she-said-in-google...). Today we know that there's no genuine question of user control here, because virtually every user has a mental model that a "webpage" is something different and much more scope-limited than a "program". I don't expect that steampowered.com should be able to launch the game I just bought, even though that capability is easily available from a similar-looking interface by the same developers I have installed on my computer. In 1995 it wasn't so obvious that people in 2025 would think this way.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Thinking of all the possible ways some assholes could abuse a new functionality is an acquired skill, and one I believe eventually makes you stop coming up with any ideas. After all, entrepreneurs can and will abuse anything and everything in this world.
      - autoexec 2y ago
        It doesn't keep you from coming up with ideas, it just keeps you coming up with ideas to mitigate the harms. The obvious one that's usually neglected is giving users the power to disable/limit/control behaviors that are likely to be abused. We wouldn't need to bother with installing addons to limit javascript and block ads if those were just part of the browser to start with. Every new feature added should have options that put users in control of if, when, and how it gets used. Right now, even the browsers that give users the most control usually don't go farther than an enable/disable flag in about:config
- krupan 2y ago
  Why do I keep seeing, "it's not as bad as that" as a defense? It's still bad!
  - theideaofcoffee 2y ago
    The one saying it’s not as bad are probably the same ones whose salary depends on their users’ engagement with those same pop ups.
  - Nursie 2y ago
    It's not a defense particularly, it's just that it's not the same sort of experience. The old popups were so bad I was regularly killing the browser process just to make them go away. Now there's a lot less they can do, thank god. We have the browser (and extension) people to thank for this of course, not advertisers who would still be doing it if they could.
cma 2y ago
Google began as a search engine with a popup blocker extension for a competitor's browser. Now they're a display ad company with a browser that includes a built in popup blocker extension blocker.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Google began as a company that cared about users. Now they're a company that cares about advertisers.
no_wizard 2y ago
I have always wondered what the web would be like if we added the scripting language later and only solidified CSS and HTML for the first 15 years or so. I wonder if things would actually be better overall. I’m not going to argue that having a scripting language for the web was a mistake, it definitely isn’t on the whole, but I think having it come at a more mature point for the web might have helped stave off a lot of really bad decisions
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  socialism. that's what we're talking about. No one every said, "Should we try to make the internet a publish good?"
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  TCL was to be javascript but didn't happen. Google offered to sell Google to Yahoo and AltaVista $1m for Google, but didn't happen. I wish to think all these things exist in a alternative universe and we've just not constructed the time-portal yet.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
  I think what would have happened if the web didn't have scripting languages was that you would be forced to download java applets... which now can also run on javascript/wasm coming full circle. Also, java's dominance I guess was the reason that javascript is named after inspiration of java. What you are asking for are static pages which already exists and most people do use static pages due to it being very easy to deploy on github pages etc. , though I wonder we would've way more abundance of static pages as compared to non static pages, like there are some pages which could've been static but they aren't. Though I still think the difference would've existed & it could've been net positive IDK, I just like to go create websites as apps which can be booted on any pc,device without worrying about anything, installing and running it would likely require a setup and it would've been a bigger hassle as well. And well noone's stopping you from doing it right now. There's gopher and gemini if you are interested.
  - doublerabbit 2y ago
trod1234 2y ago
Well, there are really only three things that form the aggregate of the world we see today. There are accidents of history, money, and ideology. These things fit squarely in the money category. The advertising industry was subsumed by adtech during that time, which was driven by government grant and fiat debt-based financing. Advertising fraud has never been harder to account for, and the justified use of analytics for that purpose has driven surveillance capitalism with governments being the customer. Money printing is the role of the state, so technically if you remove all indirections its state apparatus which makes sense that an individual wouldn't be able to fight against it.
delusional 2y ago
At least these popups are restricted to the page. It's one thing for a website to decide to block my use of it for some asinine reason. It's quite another for it to block my use of everything else on my computer.
musicale 2y ago
> we fought so hard against pop-ups throughout the 90's and 2000's only to re-implement pop-ups in javascript as soon as we could A group of people who thought that web users should not be abused may have won the first pop-up battle, but the businesses that made money from intrusive advertisements clearly won the war. In hindsight maybe it wasn't a such a great idea for web users to switch en masse to a browser made by an advertising company. The endgame is a probably a war between web sites that are endless mazes of advertising and user agents that try to navigate the maze and extract the non-advertising content.
- musicale 2y ago
  "OK Gemini, please take this 10-minute video on youtube and give me a version without any advertising or promotional content." "I'm sorry Dave, but I am unable to accept requests that oppose Google's business interests." "Well, send it to ChatGPT then!" "Sure thing. Here is your... 5 second video:" (Video) "Hey what's up? Be sure to like and subscribe." (end of video)
- nirvdrum 2y ago
  I don’t know if hindsight is quite right. There were people raising alarms about this when Chrome initially came out and repeatedly as it grew in popularity. Especially when sites started requiring Chrome. It’s just they were dismissed as conspiracy theorists or brushed aside because right now Chrome is faster and the present is all that matters. This was 100% pushed by tech enthusiasts and web developers… the average person would’ve otherwise stuck with their OS default browser. I’m not trying to correct you. It’s just a sequence of events I’ve seen play out repeatedly and I’m not sure if there’s a solution. Most recently I’ve seen it with Bambu Lab locking down their 3D printers. Prior to that Autodesk yanking the Fusion 360 enthusiast licenses. Maybe there isn’t a solution. There’s a lot of UX work that isn’t fun to do and so it’s hard to get volunteers to do it. It’s hard to do product management in a distributed group of volunteers in general. So, companies that can afford to bankroll projects often gain traction with performance or usability gains and suck away attention and funding from open source options. Then when they amass enough of the user base they flip the switch and now folks are stuck. The cost of changing is often prohibitively high and the OSS option is generally far behind at that point. I think people are bad at thinking longer term. Or maybe they just prefer immediate gratification. In any event, absent a shift in human behavior I expect we’ll see this sort of situation to continue to play out. It’d just be nice if folks were less antagonistic about it when those concerned raise that alarm.
ProllyInfamous 2y ago
I use the following code (as a toolbar bookmarklette) for a quick button which disables all pop-overs/cookie requests: javascript:/*https://bookmarkl.ink/ashtonmeuser/849a972686e1505093c6d4fc5c6e0b1a*/(()%3D%3E%7Bvar%20e%2Co%3Ddocument.querySelectorAll(%22body%20*%22)%3Bfor(e%3D0%3Be%3Co.length%3Be%2B%2B)getComputedStyle(o%5Be%5D).position%3D%3D%3D%22fixed%22%26%26o%5Be%5D.parentNode.removeChild(o%5Be%5D)%3B%7D)()%3B%0A Doesn't always work (sometimes it kills the website functionality), and I have no clue what it's actually doing (I'm not a coder)... but usually it gets rid of hover-overs.

grg0 2y ago

You know it's gonna be good.

gusfoo 2y ago

For balance, I clicked the link and (after a moment of my browser imposing my will) the video started playing. Opera + Ghostery is quite a pleasant experience, at least when compared to mobile browsing (at the other end of the spectrum).

-__---____-ZXyw 2y ago

I'm reminded of the videos about procrastination on youtube where people seem to never, ever, ever tire of comenting to say things like: "I'm watching a video about procrastination... and I've got a test tomrrow! Lolol!" Obviously your comment is the refined HN equivalent, but still.

karmakaze 2y ago

It's also been a long while since clicking "Manage cookie preferences" shows "Opt-out..." pre-checked and "Confirm choices" button, unlike the "Reject all" button also being shown these days. Then unchecking "Opt out..." dynamically shows a "Allow all" button.