Web Site "Lock-In" 296
Danborg writes "There's a great article over at ZDNet about annoying web sites that lock surfers inside a web site once they arrive. This practice, started by porno site operators, appears to have gone mainstream. Formerly respectable corporate sites like Home Depot now lock you in, disabling the use of the "Back" button.
Fortunately, Top9.Com has generated a list of the offending sites.
Is it a legitimate marketing technique? Or a highly annoying example of poor web site design?" I run into this dozens of times a day while reading story submissions. It never ceases to amaze me (but then again, old versions of Slashdot did the same thing, so who am I to judge?)
Javascript (Score:4)
lock-in unofficial workaround (Score:3)
(IE/Win32)RIght click to select previously visited URLS.
If you don't know this, its time to give up and become a Luddite.
Seriously, though, I was so glad when Mozilla added this, as I almost can't live without it, to deal with "lock-in".
Locking in (Score:3)
Well, I wouldn't prevent them from trying. But then, their tricks only disable the Back button, not the history list, so I just pull that down and leave the site and never come back. Rule #1 these guys need to learn: make it difficult for the customer to do what he wants, even if that's to leave, and you will lose that customer and 10 others. Marketing 101.
Just Poor Foresight (Score:3)
Hell, I've had several of these types of sites cause fatal errors in my browser and crash it. Not a smar idea if you want me to buy your products or services (or whatever)
The heart of the problem, IMHO, though is that far too many business look to the corporate website as a gimick and not a true marketing tool. I've had this fight myself--and after I left my last position, the company butchered the website I'd spent 3 months coding.
Ah well, as with all things, the proof is in the pudding (not to mention the HTML)
"Reboot the browser"? (Score:5)
-nme!
Where's the porn button?! (Score:5)
It got dubbed the "porn button" and was, unfortunately, never included.
Re:Javascript (Score:3)
--Sandy
Re:lock-in unofficial workaround (Score:2)
Shouldn't this be: :)
(IE/Win32)keep pushing back, you don't deserver better?
Jeroen
Redirecting forms (Score:5)
The reason? People are too lazy to return a 302 Moved (like Google does for the I'm Feeling Lucky button) and instead use a meta refresh. Well, it's wrong!
Browser writers (and Mozilla team): Could you let the back button disable the meta-refresh if you accidentaly back onto a meta-refresh page?
Use window.location.replace('newlocal.html'); (Score:5)
The correct way is: window.location.replace('newpage.html');. This replace the old page with the new in the browsers history.
Joke time.. (Score:5)
Ever been inside a Home Depot? Its pretty much the same story.. You cant find your way out there either.
Bowie J. Poag
The cause... (Score:2)
In some sites, like HomeDepot.com, the reasons for the 'lock-in' seem valid. i.e. setting cookies, checking cookies, so on and so forth. But most designers/developers feel that you came to their site for a specific reason and that you will be willing to put up with being redirected to a few different pages so they can give you a better "web browsing experience"
Now, just because I say this doesn't mean that I believe it or promote it. So flame me all you want..
Lock is despicable (Score:3)
Websitest that lock you in are more annoying then spam, and a pox on the face of computing.
The problem is, of course, due to marketers. It's true, these websites are obviously designed by a committee of marketers who spend days sitting around tables (or, these days, golf courses) trying to 'brainstorm' or 'strategize' ways of 'grabbing eyeballs'.
For a marketer, heaven is having a consumer strapped into a chair with his eyes held open ala A Clockwork Orange and being forced to watch commercials. In TV, they use everything from loudness to humor to try and grab those eyeballs.
So imagine, if you will, what happens when these people get access to an interactive medium like the Internet. There isn't a volume knob on websites, and most commercial humor requires reading abillities and patience, something hard to rely on in this 5 second attentionspan culture, so instead they do the equivalent of tying you into the chair and forcing you to 'experience' their website.
It's only a matter of time before this practice is identified as the embodiment of impoliteness it is, so it should disapear sooner or later.
Unfortunately, that means that the wheels will start turning, more of these marketing folks will start flapping their membranous wings again, and the next generation in captive consumers will get to experience their next excreted nugget of marketing 'saavy'.
Re:Where's the porn button?! (Score:2)
NoAds
http://www.FirasE.com [firase.com]
Very handy, and free too!
Re:Javascript (Score:3)
Re:Javascript (Score:2)
9 times out of 10, this is just bad software design. "Never ascribe to malevolence..." ah, hell. You know how the quote goes.
If they were operating like the shady Java sites, then the back button would kindly open 12 windows of ads for you, to boost hit counts.
Damn these sites (or, my mouse has spoiled me) (Score:2)
I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.
-jay
Some of these lock-ins may be unintentional (Score:3)
Clumsy designs may have multiple redirects, the same way clumsy UNIX sysadmins may sometimes have a chain of symbolic links eventually pointing to a file.
The real solution is the reponsibility of the web browser designers--pages that have refresh meta tags should not be part of the browser's history, unless user-enabled.
I am not going to get in to the javascript games, since I, for security reasons, have Javascript siabled on my browser. Don't get me started on pages that need Javascript enabled to be browsed.
- Sam
Many of these sites are not trying to lock you in (Score:2)
Why? So they can offer different content depending on what browser you are using, and what plug-ins you have installed. If you have the flash plug in, they'll redirect you to a flash splash page... If you're using an older browser, they'll redirect you to a frames free page, etc.
You might find this behavior annoying, but it's hardly sinister. People in this thread have already pointed out that it's easy to overcome the limitation. It's kinda funny that slashdot is making a big deal about it.
Crap technology, too (Score:3)
+---+
Re:Javascript (Score:2)
Instead I would suggest a button on the navigation toolbar (e.g. instead of the Shop@Netscape button
Re:Just Poor Foresight (Score:2)
Totally different issues... (Score:5)
If they wanted to lock you in, I would wager they could actually disable the Back button with JavaScript (I think some on-line banks do this so they can keep you from going "back" to a page providing info that you just invalidated by performing some transaction).
I hate META http-equiv.
annoying (Score:2)
Anyone who has had any experience at marketing would know that this may cause some customers to stay an buy, but it will mainly annoy most of them and cause them to not want to return. Bad experiences with web-sites are like bad experiences at stores, if you have one you are less likely to return. The use of these tricks shows immature marketing.
A Mozilla solution? (Score:5)
The other solution would be to take pages out of the history list when they contain a META REDIRECT REFRESH. That would also cause the back button to work as expected, perhap arguably more like expected.
Do either of these solutions break any reasonable practices?
Netscape 3 workaround (Score:3)
>you don't deserver better?
I initially was moderating this as funny, then I realized that this was already implemented in Netscape 3, and is part of the reason I still use it.
In the Mac & Unix versions, alt- moves you through the history--alt-2 goes to the prior page, alt-9 goes back 8 pages, etc. And if you've only gone back, alt-1 takes you as far as you go.
For some reason, this wasn't in the darkside version, and has been removed from later versions of netscape.
[the other reason is the window-by-window setting of autoload images, rather than as a universial preference]
hawk
*SAFE* refresh... (Score:2)
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript1.1">;
//-->
<!--
location.replace("http://www.new.site/page.html")
</SCRIPT>
<META http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; URL=http://www.new.site/destination.html">
This page has moved to a <A href="http://www.new.site/page.html">new location</A>.
Using all three on the same page can help all browsers. The script works in major browsers, refresh is the older one, with which a quick back click can get past, and the message is perfect for lynx type browser [even tho refresh works in lynx]
Re:Where's the porn button?! (Score:2)
Re:Joke time.. (Score:4)
--
Even MORE annoying (Score:2)
The link will look like "http://www.randompornsite.com/movies/excellent.m
LK
Re:Locking in (Score:2)
Re:Lazy developers and dumb HTTP (Score:4)
- Cookies (example: yahoo)
- Use proper redirection (302 Found or similar) to a URL embedding a session ID (example: amazon) instead of the claptrap HTTP-equiv refresh crap these sites use.
What kind of statefulness do you have in mind that Cookies don't deliver? (BTW: you might want to look at the most recent IETF drafts; Set-Cookie2 et al are much more mature than Netscape's hack.)Re:Redirecting forms (Score:2)
The browser already offers an answer to this. Hold down the Back button on the browser and select the page just before the index.html page you visited. Problem solved.
---
seumas.com
My solution is liberal use of the "middle button" (Score:2)
Re:Javascript (Score:2)
The real-world equivalent (Score:5)
Salesperson: No, but we do have the all-new WindowsYou 2000 v5.0 for Watches! Why don't you let me show that to you?
Me: Umm, no thanks, I think I'll just go look elsewhere.....Umm, excuse me again...
Salesperson: Yes? What is it?
Me: Umm, this door appears to be locked.
Salesperson: Oh, is that so? How odd. Perhaps you'd like to check out the latest release MacOS AquaTealMarine for CoffeePots, now with even more backgrounds!
Me: No, I'd like to leave the store. This door that I justed entered through is now locked.
Salesperson: Well, if you feel you really have to leave, you can climb that ladder into the rafters, walk across that I-beam to the far side of the store, and shimmy down the drainage pipe. But then you'd be missing our sale on OS/4 Impulse for Dishwashers...
I think it's clear that trapping sites are my biggest internet pet-peeve today. This is another reason why all marketing people should never be exposed to any new technology. Ever.
And you thought this was bad? (Score:2)
Unfortunately for IE users some functions such as "Open in new window" are _only_ available from the RMB popup. I'm glad all major browsers on Un*x use the third mouse button for this.
What about HTTP POST (Score:2)
requests expire from your browsers cache. Hitting the back button gives you the "page expired, repost form data" box.
Never use POST unless you need to (like not showing sensitive info in the location bar and web log).
Re:Javascript (Score:2)
Apples and oranges (Score:2)
The real problem, of course, are the porn and scam sites which actively and aggressively prevent you from leaving their web pages. They use JavaScript to sense when you leave their page or close your browser window, and then they bring up another window on their web site -- or, worse, several other porn and scam sites.
The porn site 'http://www.gamefaq.com/' (not to be confused with 'www.gamefaqS.com') used to do this, and it was a great example of how dangerous the web can be for kids: mistype a URL, and not only might you have pictures of women having sex with donkeys dumped onto your screen, but you might not be able to get them off your screen without quitting completely out of your browser, either. Fortunately, 'gamefaqs' bought the 'gamefaq' domain name to stop this from happening (if you can call extortion 'fortunate'), but it still happens with countless other web sites...
innovations in porn marketing (Score:2)
--
Re:And you thought this was bad? (Score:2)
Another trick you can use, but with a smaller success rate: Hold down your left mouse button for a few seconds, then click the right mouse button. I've found that this works on a few of those offending sites.
It's not just commercial sites.... (Score:2)
This [kde.org] site, for a certain well-known free-software desktop project, has the same problem - Another Damn Refresh.
Lawsuit!! (Score:2)
Well, here's how we sue the sites on the lock-in list. We get a couple hundred elderly, entry-level Windows users together in a room full of computers. We hook them all up to the Internet over a single ISDN channel. Set the default start page on each PC to www.lawsuit-target.com, and disable the cache. After writing a small script to respawn IE every time it is closed, we set the lusers loose on the 'net.
By now you're asking "Hey, technos! Annoying a room full of senile lusers is fun, but how do we make it into a good frivilous lawsuit?"
Well thanks for asking! I have noted, from my extensive experience as a tech, that the newer and more clueless the luser, the more often and serious they do something bad to the PC. Since we haven't given them any thing else to touch but IE and the contents of the Start Bar (conveniently stripped to just IE) they will eventually power cycle the machine. Some will do it repeatedly.
Here's another tech tidbit: Power cycling a Microsoft machine is BAD. For the purposes of this frivilous lawsuit, it completly corrupts the hard drive and requires several hours of expensive service to correct!
"But technos, any judge on earth will throw that out! The judge will call you and your lawyers a bunch of money grubbing slimes, and toss you out."
No! That's why we've picked on the elderly as our lusers-du-jour! Judges never rule against them! Why not? Because the elderly vote, and the judges are elected officials. Get enough old people in on the class action suit, and the judge will cave to keep his job!
Re:Just Poor Foresight (Score:2)
This is just a single example in a host of sites where marketing does not realize the full potential of a web based marketing tool. Ahh well, at least Whyte Wolf has the satisfaction of knowing he was right, and all the marketroid, Bill Gates wannabe's in our office were wrong. Aren't I right Whyte Wolf??
The ever misgued marketing minions (Score:2)
If, and this is frequently the case, you are meeting with an EMMM (see title), specially if the said EMMM consider itself a computer/internet power-user, things tend to degenerate fairly quick.
"No outside links" is just the starting point. They will then suggest tricks like this one (disable back-buttons) and go ahead to things like opening the page full-screen without address, menu or status bars (nearly hijacking the user's computer).
Sometimes it is possible to prevent this kind of crap, specially if you are dealing with a group. If, on the other hand, the EMMM is the sole or main responsible for the site, you usually end up being forced to develop a site with lots of user-enemy features.
No different from "Go" menu -- but also there's... (Score:2)
Or just right-click on a link and select "open in new window," etc, etc.
When you're done browsing, kill the window. The original one remains where you left it.
I haven't had to worry about "lock-in" for years. I don't see what the problem is.
Yes, it's fair (Score:2)
Re:Use window.location.replace('newlocal.html'); (Score:2)
Re:Totally different issues... (Score:2)
Re:Many of these sites are not trying to lock you (Score:2)
It is more appropriate to give the user the choice of using a Flash or non-Flash site. I have Flash installed, but nine times out of ten I'll opt for the non-Flash version because use of Flash tends to be gratuitious and run counter to my purpose for visiting the site. Nothing pisses me off more than being forced into a Flash interface when I know there's an HTML alternative.
And what if I'm trying to add a link to your site from my site? If you auto-redirect me you are likely to force me (whether I'm aware of it or not) into picking up a link that fits my browser specs, but not necessarily the specs of my web site visitors.
Re:Redirecting forms (Score:2)
John
Re:Some of these lock-ins may be unintentional (Score:2)
Web sites that have refresh meta tags with a 0-second refresh, or one that refreshes to a different page should not appear in the history.
A non-zero timeout, pointing to the same place should appear in the history precisely once, for each distinct time it is visited, subject to the rules above (i.e. ping-pong refreshes shouldn't appear etc. etc. etc.)
The poster appeared to forget the legitimate use of the meta-refresh tag
John
Mozilla, Please let *ME* control my browser (Score:2)
- Jed's Netscape Rant [rockchucker.com]
- Jed's JavaScript Rant [rockchucker.com]
Ok, a little shameless self-promotion, and some of it is out-of-date, but still, I've been complaining about this stuff for years.I want to be able to protect various browser components from manipulation. Simple. Don't let any web author change the function of the [BACK], [HOME], and [EXIT] buttons!
I once got trapped in a site which had used the JavaScript On_Close event to open a new browser window when I exited Netscape. Oh, and please keep my status line displaying real status messages (and latch them, please), instead of ridiculous messages from somebody's scrollit applet, or mouseover spam.
Oh, one more thing, a javascript.allow and javascript.deny type of management for which sites get it on and off.
TIA, Mozilla.
Home Depot's Offical Response (Score:5)
Becoming a Luddite (Score:3)
Re:lock-in unofficial workaround (Score:2)
Re:Totally different issues... (Score:2)
PHP: Header("Location: $url");
Python: print "Location: %s" % url
Perl: print "Location: $url\n\n";
et cetera
sheesh.
Paul
Re:Javascript (Score:3)
Personally, I find all the lame-ass javascript and meta-refresh redirects a serious pain in the ass. It's ranked just below setting the expiration tags on pages to before you download the page. And a recent addition (landing at number three) is the "neat trick" some assholes put in their page(s) to resize the browser to the size of your screen. (This little "feature" has forced me to make fvwm an absolute nazi.)
IKEA has been doing that for ages. (Score:3)
Once you get in, you can't possibly get out unless you walk through the *whole* store, through every possible department - preferrably with hordes of people blocking your way.
It's a tested idea, and it works wonders (in Ikea, anyway) for the sheople walking through. :-)
Quite miraculous how I always seem to end up buying more stuff than I actually came for.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Continually refreshing ads... (Score:2)
So many times at sites like this I've wished the Stop button would also stop the timer for meta refresh tags (and I think it should - everything should stop: loading, animations, refresh timers, javascript timers, etc). This small feature would be a godsend for such situations.
Re:The real-world equivalent (Score:2)
"If anyone here tonight is in advertising or marketing... Kill yourself. No, seriously. If you are, do. You're fucked and you're fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your soul." -Bill Hicks [pigpog.com]
Re:Joke time.. (Score:2)
I was in there today on my lunch hour getting advice on my plumbing project
---
Re:Home Depot's Offical Response (Score:2)
Re:innovations in porn marketing (Score:2)
Re:Becoming a Luddite (Score:2)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
Such sites hate me (Score:2)
I also have my cookie file set read-only with just a slashdot cookie in there. I've yet to find anyone else worthy of being allowed a permanent cookie (And the only reason I allow the Slashdot cookie is so that I NEVER get presented with anything by John Katz.)
If a site is too obtrusive or bitches about my set up, I just don't visit it. It's that easy.
Re:Home Depot's Offical Response (Score:2)
Worse, they're running (according to netcraft) Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on HP-UX, so there is NO excuse. a symbolic link to the 'real' page they're concerned about named index.html in the publuc_html directory will work just fine. yeesh.
Re:Apples and oranges (Score:3)
(yes, i'm kidding)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
I've done this by accident... (Score:2)
Whilst first learning the language, I created a re-director page the detected browser types. Since I made the mistake of placing it on a separate page, users could not get out.
I found that Netscape was also far more susceptible to the problem as I attempted to tweak my code.
Perhaps someone could post the source to a workable re-direct solution, and e-mail it to the webmasters of the offending sites?
I'd hate to think that such an annoying effect was entirely accidental and/or caused by ignorance, and that we didn't say anything about it to ^them^ before we started complaining...
~wmaheriv
What is the big deal?! (Score:4)
Both browsers have an option in the back button to skip several pages back.
- In IE, it's the little down arrow next to the button.
- In Netscape, you just hold down the button for a few seconds.
Is it annoying, YES but is it really that big of a deal?
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
Re:Home Depot's Offical Response (Score:4)
Well, hitting the URL http://www.homedepot.com/ [homedepot.com] redirects you to the page index1.html. This page uses Javascript (uggh) to determine whether the user (ironically) has Javascript enabled in their browser:
if ( browserSupp )
window.location = "/" + siteName + "/HDUS/EN_US/pg_start.jsp";
else
window.location = "noscript.html";
In pg_start.jsp, I can only speculate that a new session is created (the next URL has a session ID field) and various startup routines are executed.
When you arrive at the homepage, the URL contains something similar to this:
pg_diy.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1850957283.0963009276@ @@@&BV_EngineID=cal ieli dldjbemfcfkmcficgkj.0">
Given this information, I can make the following statements:
In all seriousness, this sort of thing can be avoided with a proper design. And the sheer difficulty of the whole process is nil.
Re:Where's the porn button?! (Score:2)
This sucks. If the site requires javascript to run, and you add it to restricted, you can't just remove it (IE, un-curse it) without blessing it. This is not a solution.
Re:Javascript (Score:5)
In fact, Microsoft offers a freebie add-on called IE5 PowerTweaks [microsoft.com]. Among other things, the handful of tools includes menu items (on the Tools menu) called "Add to Restricted Zone" and "Add to Trusted Zone". This lets you manage your cookie-and-javascript-enabled sites without messing around in the "Security" dialog box for five minutes.
----
Unlawful Business Practice (Score:5)
(Note: The summaries say that this is a "Class 6 Felony". This is incorrect.)
13-2316. Computer tampering; venue; forfeiture; classification
A. A person WHO ACTS WITHOUT AUTHORITY OR WHO EXCEEDS AUTHORIZATION OF USE commits computer TAMPERING BY:
6. PREVENTING A COMPUTER USER FROM EXITING A SITE, COMPUTER SYSTEM OR NETWORK-CONNECTED LOCATION IN ORDER TO COMPEL THE USER'S COMPUTER TO CONTINUE COMMUNICATING WITH, CONNECTING TO OR DISPLAYING THE CONTENT OF THE SERVICE, SITE OR SYSTEM.
D. A VIOLATION OF SUBSECTION A, PARAGRAPH 6 OF THIS SECTION CONSTITUTES AN UNLAWFUL PRACTICE UNDER SECTION 44-1522 AND IS IN ADDITION TO ALL OTHER CAUSES OF ACTION, REMEDIES AND PENALTIES THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO THIS STATE. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL MAY INVESTIGATE AND TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION PURSUANT TO TITLE 44, CHAPTER 10, ARTICLE 7.
Section 44-1522 is currently in effect, and reads in relevant part:
44-1522. Unlawful practices; intended interpretation of provisions
A. The act, use, or employment by any person of any deception, deceptive act or practice, fraud, false pretense, false promise, misrepresentation, or concealment, suppression or omission of any material fact with intent that others rely upon such concealment, suppression or omission, in connection with the sale or advertisement of any merchandise whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived, or damaged thereby, is declared to be an unlawful practice.
Yes, I work for the Arizona Attorney General, but I am not a spokesman for them. I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. Please consult your own attorney before taking any actions based upon information in this posting.
==
"This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first."
Re:Where's the porn button?! (Score:3)
It's called IE5 PowerTweaks [microsoft.com]. If you turn off Active Scripts for the Internet Zone, you can then go to a site and decide if you trust it to run Javascript or leave a cookie and pull down your menu. Boom! Instant Javascript.
----
Re:annoying (Score:2)
$r->header_out(Location => $url);
return REDIRECT;
Re:And you thought this was bad? (Score:2)
In any case, IE users should be familiar with the security zones scheme. Not great, but better than nothing. Any site evil enough to try braindead marketeering schemes like that can be put in the Restricted zone, which you can configure to turn off all scripting.
Re:Lock is despicable (Score:2)
Definately rude.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Re:Unlawful Business Practice (Score:4)
While I do agree that this is bad practice on the site developers side, I do not think that it is against the law. Also how are you going to sue someone or take legal action if they are not in Arazona, or even the US? I imagine that since these sites have basically ben blacklisted on slashdot it is only a matter of time before most of them stop that practice anyway. I know that it is a cheezy way to keep visitors. Obviously if a site needs to do something like this then they have no content that will make people want to return.
send flames > /dev/null
Re:Damn these sites (or, my mouse has spoiled me) (Score:4)
Re:Javascript (Score:3)
Name = "Allow Right Click"
Active = TRUE
Bounds = "<script*</script>"
Limit = 256
Match = "*document.onmousedown=*"
Something I find very handy as lots of sites have picked this annoy habit up. I notice because I have no standard tool bar showing on IE; I use right mouse clicks to move back/forward
Re:What about HTTP POST (Score:2)
Ask Dr. Jakob Nielsen (Score:3)
The back button is the most often used widget in the browser. If a user hits a site they don't want to see, or make a mistake -- boom, off they go. Locking them in to a site once they get in agrivates them (it sure pisses me off).
My suggestion: turn off Javascript in any browser which allows you to (except Netscape, because that kills CSS [why?]).
So what happens to sites which still do disable the back button, or otherwise lock you in? Well, I tend to just kill my browser process. It's simply easier than dealing with BS websites. Plus, I know to never go to that site again (it'd be nice if Mozilla had a dynamic blocklist which would mark down sites which do this, and block them).
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Re:Unlawful Business Practice (Score:2)
If a technical solution exists, legal solutions will ultimately be harmful, because they discourage people from actually solving the problem. Prosecuting people because they served you a stream of bytes you consider "harmful" to you, in response to YOUR request to THEM, is an affront to logic as well as free speech.
For God's sake, man -- web sites are going to the trouble of advertising to us that they're poorly or maliciously designed, and we're COMPLAINING about it? I'd love it if there were an HTML tag that inserted subliminal advertising on my desktop. Junkbuster would start telling me, "IBM is trying to steal your money," and I would know never to buy anything from them again.
you're someone with experience. (Score:2)
you're someone with experience as a webmaster of a high-profile website. you're under more criticism than any of the companies you criticize. you've learned what people want and what works. (you are missing a few things... why is the search box all the way at the bottom? an empty white box in the left-hand side would break up the menu nicely, adding some white space and some functionality...oh yeah, criticism. right. it keeps you on your toes, though.)
generally, companies care more about graphic design than function. they like splash, and don't understand the web user's habits... and web use is definitely a habit. capturing the user is the worst thing you can do to someone with the habit.
it's a young industry, and it's earliest denizens are getting older. there's a major emphasis on young guys who will burn for the big bucks, but there's nothing as valuable as experience.
so screw 'em. judge.
Re:No different from "Go" menu -- but also there's (Score:3)
Re: "Technical Experts" (Score:2)
My website once had this unintentional problem (Score:2)
For four years, my web site was hosted by the Oregon State University Electrical Engineering Webserver [orst.edu], at this url [orst.edu] that was widely linked and in all the search engines' first result page for a number of keywords.
Well, all good things (actually their server was not very reliable) come to an end, and the university was under a big scare, supposedly because of some lawsuit somewhere, regarding old accounts from former students. I got a message that I would need to move my site.
I did indeed move the page, to it's new and permanent location [pjrc.com], but even after over a year, the old site still gets lots of hits. Forunately, they have been nice enough to keep my redirector page [orst.edu] in place all this time.
At first, I did what seemed like the obvious thing and I set the HTTP-EQUIV meta tag to redirect, in zero seconds. Seemed like a good idea. It was actually like that for months, and I was totally unaware of the problem. I finally got an angry e-mail from someone who was upset that I messed with his back button, but as far as I could tell, nothing on my site would do that. Indeed, nothing on my site was doing anything with the back button.... by that time I hardly gave any though to the old urls anymore, so it didn't even occur to me at the time to try going to the old url and then seeing if the back button still worked. Even if I'd typed the old URL, to experience what an ordinary web surfer got, I would have had to find my url from a link (not hard, since the search engines don't update well anymore, even if you fill out their forms to rescan your url).
Well, several weeks later, I learned what had happened while reading Jokob Nielsen's Alertbox Column, Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design [useit.com]. Breaking the back button was his number 1 offense, and I was guilty... and until that moment I didn't even know it.
My point in all this, dear reader (and you're still reading after all this rambling), is that it's easy to need to redirect users, because old URLs don't stop getting hits, even after a year.
Some people have said that the web design should use a location redirect in the HTTP header. I tried this, but the browsers generally don't honor that from within the HTTP-EQUIV meta tag (even though they should), and I have no control over the configuration of the server itself, only the html content.
It's easy to say the commercial companies are different, since their web servers are for their corporate missing (whatever that is), but I can easily see how the "web designer" only has control over the content within the html file itself, and not the web server config... often times controlled by an admin who isn't helpful, or a third party hosting company.
Webwasher (Score:2)
Webwasher [webwasher.com] filters all incoming HTML and will remove annoying Javascript as well as ads, and will on request deanimate all animated gifs.
© Copyright 2000 Kristian Köhntopp
A more effective trick (Score:2)
- opens a new window and sends it to the homepage, and
- closes this window,
erasing the Back button's popup menu.What if I don't have root on the server? (Score:2)
The correct way is to send a 301 or 302 HTTP response
How do I do this with XOOM.com, Geocities, or Tripod?
So how do I do 302 on a free web server? (Score:2)
Turn off CSS? (Score:2)
Some things I'd like to turn on and off: ... CSS with version selection
Motion picture studio web sites do not want you to turn off CSS :-)
Oh, that CSS. But they still don't want you to turn CSS off and make their eye-catching promotional pages look dull.
Contra dicted yourself. (Score:2)
I've seen a few browsers trying to access /index.htm for some reason, /index.shtml is there and the first under Apache's default document list.
But...
I don't want to use javascript because people use lynx.
I thought Lynx adhered to the standards. Is Lynx one of the browsers that's going straight to index.htm?
Contra: ^ ^ v v < > < > b a b a sel staRe:The real-world equivalent (Score:2)
What one does in that situation in the real world, if the exit door is sufficiently difficult to reach, is demand a manager and then begin one's next sentence with "open this fucking door now or..."
That can be acheived quite nicely in the Internet world with an email, although I recommend leaving out the profanity since email is so easily deleted.
(Whereas, to delete you in person requires ejecting you from the building, which is what you wanted to acheive anyway.)
--
Fake hit inflation (Score:2)
Re:What if I don't have root on the server? (Score:2)
XOOM.com, Geocities, and Tripod don't allow user-friendly Web sites. But you don't need root access to be able to send 301 or 302 HTTP responses; most non-free Web space providers allow it.
Re:Where's the porn button?! (Score:2)
windows _and_ NT suck because:
the metaphor provided to interact with basic OS internals is only a programmatic API. This means that one cannot interact in any meaningful way with the OS w/o programming, and w/o using MS Dev, as any other IDE does not have the APIs precoded, and there is no decent documentation for using those APIs (compare the win32 books to Adv Prog in the Unix Env by Stevens)
The lack of a metaphor like the Unix file representation also means that there is no consistancy to the interaction w/ the OS. Elegance is the only way to describe the ease with which one can interact with core OS internals in a Unix Environment. To be able to `cat
Does the open-source nature of Linux mean I read kernel source. Well actually I do from time to time, but leave that aside. Say I don't. I still get the benefit of documentation provided by people who have _who are not the programmers involved_. People always understand their own code too much to document it well.
Why like windows NT? Because its not based on Unix, a 20+ year old technology? You are right, its not. Its based on _VMS_ the precursor to Unix, a 30+ year old technology, but unlike UNIX, one that was retired (for good reason).
Apps and ISV support are not a reason to prefer an OS. Perhaps one to use it, but not prefer it.
-RS
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
Re:Where's the porn button?! (Score:2)
just tried browsing at +2, and realized, this comment makes no sense unless you read at at least +0. Oh well
it is a response to someone bitching about Linux advocates, challenging that since apparently the only reason to dislike windows is its crashability, when the NT core is used in the mainstream version of Windows, will we all go back.
Not all of us came from there, and if one did (as I did), well...
sometimes there is no going back, obviously for more reasons than I listed, others include
security
remote useability
CLI power (vs NT CLI weakness)
and more
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde