Things I Hate About the Internet The news leads and others on the websites we go to the most are getting more infuriating by the day. There used to be a time when you could go to a site and read what was on it. Today many so-called links to sites bring you to the site, but the page is almost all covered with a giant advertisement. You are put into a position where you have to wait for a timer to close the ad. This seems to take forever and sometimes I have had the experience where the ad doesn’t close at all, ruining everything. As a website owner I can’t understand why the owners of these types of sites haven’t wised up. I know a lot of people who have simply given up going to these sites, because they felt it just wasn’t worth the trouble. There are so many other ways to advertise rather than using this vulgar method. One way which is not seen often is using a box with an advertisement in it which has a link to the story, a prominent link. This might mean you would be taken to the advertisement first, but you could immediately click the link in it if you wanted to and wouldn’t have to wait for that damnable timer device. Another method is just to have the advertisement with the usual “X” in the upper right-hand corner which would close the ad and take you to your page. Okay I admit it, I could complain about the way things are done on many websites, because I find them so annoying. Another thing which seem to be happening is misleading headlines which get you to click on their link and take you to a slide show. There are so many of these. One might have the lead of a certain famous actor and show his or her photo, saying he did something awful. When you click on it to see what the person has done what do you get? Yes, you guessed it, a slide show which starts with some other person and has at least 25 slides. As you click through them you find none of this stuff you were looking for. You finally get to slide 25 but there is no mention of the original person and what they did. This is truly false news or should I say a false pretense for slide show. Why are these slide shows created? They are advertising instruments. Each page of the slide show usually has a different advertiser selling their wares. The website posting them wants the revenue from them so up they go. How about those headlines which are really sponsored adverts? They are inserted into the news headlines. They usually do say sponsored above them but in much smaller letters than the headlines and if you have rolled up your browser page you might not even notice the word sponsored. For the sake of argument let’s say you do, but you are enticed by the headline and want to see what it is all about. You go to the story or ad, whatever you want to call it and it seems to go on forever without ever getting to the point beyond the fact you can buy books on the subject or buy some device, cream or something else. They never seem to get to the point which led you to read the article in the first place. In the old days of computing this never would have been tolerated, but space was at such a premium we really didn’t have much of these long-winded things posted. You used to be able to download free software without much worry and there are still some sites you can trust, but everyone who does this must be aware of the fact they are taking a risk. The risk is you could be infecting your computer with a piece of malware. We used to say computer viruses, but now we have to say malware, because not every dangerous thing we download is a virus. Let me give you an example. There is a lot or ransomware on the internet. If you are unfortunate enough to download a piece of software or go to an infected site you could be hit with this. Ransomware does not infect your computer, it will lock up your software and the owners of the ransomware will demand you give them money to reopen it. If you haven’t backed up your computer and have something important on it you are screwed. I back up my site every day and my computer once a week and I also create a new restore point once a week. One of the things I find the most annoying is every business I buy from on the internet wants a review of their products or services. It is so bad I could spend hours just doing this. It seems my time is worth nothing to them and yet some get upset when you don’t review. Occasionally I might buy something from an individual on Ebay and in that case, I don’t mind giving them a good review, but when it comes to companies haunting me for these things, it can get quite annoying. Actually, this practice has spread further than the internet. I got a request from my bank to fill out review forms which I immediately threw away. These are the same people who pay you under 1% on an account. Have you ever looked for a particular thing to buy and were forced to put it into your cart, just to find out the price? I think most of us hate this. Apparently, the stores think this increases their chances of being able to sell the item to you. Then there is the lack of an edit button for a comment you made on a social network. Oops I didn’t mean to say that or agree with a comment, TOO LATE! I like the internet, but there sure is a lot of room for making it more people friendly. |
