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Mozilla Will Run Two Experiments This Month With Firefox To Explore Ways To Fight Push Notification Permission Spam (zdnet.com)

Mozilla said this week that it intends to run two experiments over the course of this month to determine the most adequate way of dealing with push notification spam, a growing problem that is slowly deteriorating the web experience for everyone. From a report: The experiments will run in Firefox Nightly (v68) and Firefox Beta (v67). The Firefox Nightly experiment will run from April 1 to April 29. During this time, Mozilla said Firefox Nightly would only allow websites to show a push notification permission only after the user has clicked or pressed a key while on a website. All attempts to show a push notification permission request before a click or key press will be blocked by default. [...] In the last two weeks of the experiment, Firefox will show an icon in the URL bar, but with no visible popup on the page. Users can click this icon and accept any push notification permission requests if they wish so. Further reading: Mozilla and Scroll Partner To Test Alternative Funding Models for the Web.

98 comments

  1. You can turn them off by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 0

    What are they used for? That isn't spamming with info you already know
    Also, they stop if you close the tab anyways.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    1. Re:You can turn them off by Luthair · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because its not a good experience if every single website you go to shows an asked for popup about showing you notifications, asking your location, etc. etc..

    2. Re:You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. It spawns a background process.

    3. Re:You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use Vivaldi and Pale Moon and I have not once ever seen any kind of notification garbage like that. My web browser is just that, a web browser, an application. It is not, nor will it ever be, integrated with my desktop.

    4. Re: You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This.
      The shit gets old fast.

    5. Re: You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's already very old

    6. Re:You can turn them off by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

      It does?
      Even more reason to keep them off.

      --
      http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    7. Re:You can turn them off by Solandri · · Score: 2

      Ironically, the biggest annoyance I've had lately is due to the EU GDPR ostensibly created to protect your privacy. About 80% of the websites I go to now have a GDPR pop-up I have to click through before I can read the content. If I browse in private/incognito mode, cookies are not retained so I get this pop-up every time I visit the site, which is rather annoying. If I browse in normal mode and agree that I have been informed of the site's privacy policy as per GDPR requirements, it writes a cookie to my browser telling the site not to show the notice again. And the cumulative sum of all those GDPR notification cookies makes my browser uniquely identifiable thus destroying my privacy. Catch-22.

    8. Re:You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only for the people dumb enough to browse the web and run any scripts anybody feels like offering them.

      The rest of us do not have that experience.

    9. Re:You can turn them off by pla · · Score: 1

      I think you missed the meaning of the GP.

      You can turn them off. Completely. It's really that simple.

      There are exactly zero websites I want to be able to "push" content to me. I thought we had gotten over that entire model when broadcast TV died? Why are we now revisiting a battle we won, in a medium that's essentially "pull" from the ground up?

    10. Re:You can turn them off by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      So website designers have decided that the privacy notification requirement means they need to set a cookie.
      Go figure.

    11. Re:You can turn them off by Luthair · · Score: 1

      The experience running the web without javascript stopped being viable years ago.

    12. Re:You can turn them off by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Those GDPR pop-ups are probably illegal and will hopefully go away soon.

      GDPR requires opt-in consent freely given. Making content only available if you agree is not allowed, you can't tie unnecessary data collection to provision of services. So forcing the user to click "I agree" before they can read your site is illegal.

      BTW you can block most GDPR notices with Fanboy's Annoyances List for all popular ad blockers: https://easylist.to/easylist/f...

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    13. Re:You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody said that. Feel free to create more strawmen though.

    14. Re:You can turn them off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The solution is to use a decent ad blocker. When a pop-up occurs, right click on the blocking element and create a new rule to block it. Now it'll never appear again. Don't worry if you don't know HTML, uBlock Orgin generates a few different rules and lets you preview their results before deciding which one to use.

  2. Solution by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Stop allowing websites to pop up anything, every. Seriously. For fuck sakes.

    Why is this hard to understand?

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
    1. Re:Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop allowing websites to pop up anything, every.

      Why is this hard to understand?

    2. Re:Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      i don't know, but some group of people thought this was desirable. i hope they have no future part in developing user experiences.

    3. Re:Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Firefox allows you to block all notification requests (and thus all notifications). It's buried, but:
      Hamburger->Options->Privacy And Security->Permissions->Settings (for each of Location, Camera, Microphone, Notifications)->Block new 'x' requests.

    4. Re:Solution by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Stop allowing websites to pop up anything, every. Seriously. For fuck sakes.

      Why is this hard to understand?

      I have to assume it's because everyone working on the HTML5 stuff is too young to have learned anything from the first time around. In a lot of ways HTML5 is just version 2 of alert(), confirm(), and the embed tag. Throw in a little blink and marquee for good measure (and don't forget object and applet with WebAssembly).

      It turns out that most of these were just abused a lot more than they were used for anything worthwhile. Is anyone surprised that HTML5's allow-by-default or ask-by-default notifications, video, location, camera, microphone, canvas, etc are being abused in the same ways, by the same actors? Only the 20-somethings writing the specs, I guess.

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    5. Re:Solution by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      And bring an end to the concept of a dynamic internet. Goodbye Slashdot.

      Now back in reality there's a legitimate reason to allow popups and notifications. But preventing spam is a problem.

    6. Re:Solution by slack_justyb · · Score: 0

      I have to assume it's because everyone working on the HTML5 stuff is too young to have learned anything from the first time around

      Wow that's incredibly naive. The people who wrote HTML 5 spec are keenly aware of the first time around. Pretty much anything Web is made for commercialization. If people solely wanted information distribution, we would have implemented a copyleft version of something like Gopher. While Tim Berners-Lee may have originally made the web in the pursuit of wide distribution of information, those who have been entrusted to steer the W3 since mid 1990s have had a single goal in mind. How do we write a commercial friendly spec?

      Case in point, notifications. The spec and API for notifications once upon a time was called as such from JS.

      { window.webkitNotifications.createNotification('icon.png', 'Notification Title', 'Notification content...'); } else { window.webkitNotifications.requestPermission(); } } //dot dot dot

      Now just go look at the Notifications spec here. If you look at how it goes, you'll see pretty much the Notification API in the HTML spec is just the Webkit Notification API with "webkit" removed as the prefix for each method. That's not a mistake, Google pretty much wrote the HTML spec for Notifications. I mean shit, if you roll down to the bottom there in the "Acknowledgements" most of the names there are Google engineers. And you'll see that a lot on a lot of HTML5's different technical specs. HTML 5 was written to make Google and Apple better at what they want to serve to you. Shit, just look up what internally happened in W3 when XHTML 2 was being tossed around. You don't write a spec that no one will use and no one will use a spec if money is not to be found there or the legacy isn't completely entrenched.

      The people steering the W3 now are writing a sepc that's specifically tailored to the services that they want to serve. So yeah, they looked back at how once upon a time annoying notifications were shoved into people's faces and learned how to create a spec that makes it difficult to filter out trash from notifications all the while attempting to prevent client options for wide scale ignoring notifications and remaining in spec. That's the key here, Firefox is free to implement whatever the fuck they want to combat notification spam, but that is constrained by the fact they'd like to keep a "standards compliant" browser.

      Standards committees aren't altruistic entities, they're there to create a standard that will be used first. With fair to all somewhere long after the other goals. If the majority of folks implementing a spec are doing so for a profit or to drive a service that will net them profit, then the spec becomes profit driven. That's how every standards committee since formal standards outside the world of academia (and even then that doesn't make it immune, see the U and Gopher protocol) works. The web and the standards committee driving it are doing so at the behest of those who want to use a standards compliant client to drive profit. Hells bells, some of the voting members just let the private companies write the spec and then they just go vote yes for whatever they were handed. Thinking the web or W3 or anyone else is doing something different is ignoring reality for idealism. It is time for those who think the web is for something outside the world of profit to finally accept that the web exists only for profit and all other perceived functions are merely riding the coattails here or said person is conflating the terms Internet and Web.

    7. Re:Solution by sexconker · · Score: 1

      There is no legitimate reason to allow for these notifications. Dynamic content works just fine with background requests.

    8. Re:Solution by wierd_w · · Score: 2

      It's a novel concept:

      You already use persistent session cookies, for a raft of purposes.
      Combine a session cookie with a browser generated key pair, that gets created when a user clicks on a button on the loaded page.

      Require an actual mouse hover, and actual click. (No automatic bullshit.)

      Name the button something like "I would like notifications". Once pushed, the browser generates a signature which gets attached to the session cookie. The webpage can then check for the cookie, the browser can check the signature, and then the dynamic content can proceed-- You either get the notifications, or you dont (and get the button on the page.)

      The constant "FOO.COM wants to send notifications!" from EVERY GOD DAMN SITE is annoying as fucking hell. No, If I want you to send me notifications, I will let you know. Stop asking me like that. You dont have t be a douche like with the "We need cookies Yo" notifications, since you DO NOT actually NEED to send notifications for your site to work as intended, which is very different from cookie use-- so a simple "Notify me of new content" or similar checkbox or option for the site, with signature enforcement through the browser, would work great, and not be intrusive or abusive.

    9. Re:Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The correct response would be that the people who decided this was a good feature should be the only people who see every popup. Your site pops up ten thousand times for ten thousand people? YOU get the ten thousand popups. Watch the feature die.

      Completely impossible, of course, but still the fair outcome.

    10. Re:Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not so much the people writing the spec, it's the people actually attempting to write code using it, and not knowing what happened in the past.

    11. Re:Solution by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Just add a little icon to the URL bar when the site offers notifications. The user can then choose to click on it or not. Unobtrusive and minimal.

      Chrome already does that for blocked pop-ups, in case you need to open them for a broken site.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Solution by hawk · · Score: 1

      >You already use persistent session cookies, for a raft of purposes.

      In all seriousness . . . the reason my slashdot id is so *high* is that when the login system was put in, it required cookies.

      At the time, it was common to replace the .cookies file with a folder to defeat them.

      It was quite a while before there was a post I wanted bad enough to have to deal with this--as well as to accept a cookie.

      Back then, we recognized that writing something that didn't work without cookies *did* make you a bad person :)

      hawk

    13. Re: Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Woosh

  3. Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Firefox to the rescue again!

    1. Re:Finally! by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

      In what way?
      They aren't removing the feature from the browser..

      --
      http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
  4. I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How about just admitting that "push notifications" are a bad idea?

    1. Re:I have a better plan... by tepples · · Score: 1

      How else is a webmail user supposed to know, between when the user opens a web browser and when the user opens the user's email provider's website, whether or not the user has new mail?

    2. Re: I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I would personally much rather deal with push notifications WITH a pop up than WITHOUT, no matter how annoying they are

    3. Re: I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AOL solves this years ago.

      YOUVE GOT MAIL!!!!

    4. Re: I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh well you need a mail client for that.
      If you are a professional that relies on email throughout your work day you don't use webmail damnit.

    5. Re: I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about NEVER EVER use webmail?!

    6. Re: I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are a professional that relies on email throughout your work day you don't use webmail damnit.

      You might be surprised at how not-true this is.
      Gmail for Business is actually a thing.

    7. Re: I have a better plan... by vux984 · · Score: 1

      And so is the "Outlook connector for gmail for business" so that you aren't stuck using browser mail.

    8. Re:I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You run a local mail client like a normal person.

      Webmail sucks. It sucks hard. It sucks hard and it's not worth the shitware blast you get once you let web sites run scripts in your browser.

    9. Re:I have a better plan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then I want a local webmail client.

  5. Run your own experiment- by Daralantan · · Score: 1

    -of blocking all of the sites that do this.

  6. make it easier to disable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just remove the "feature" from Firefox.... problem solved.

    1. Re:make it easier to disable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah who cares about standards compliance? it's okay when it's something I don't like /s

  7. No problems here by renegade600 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't have too much of a problem with push notifications, it is those videos I want stopped. some you have to wait for it to download before you can do anything with it, some you have to look for on a page because you hear it and not see it, some blocks what you are trying to read because it won't close.

    Then there are those sites that constantly bomb you with their subscription popups. how about stopping those too. maybe if they stop the notification ones, it will stop those.

    1. Re:No problems here by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I absolutely hate auto-playing videos and sound.

      Installing NoScript solved this problem 100% for me.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  8. Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Problem solved. See how simple that was? Do you need notifications in your browser: No, not unless you're trying to use a browser as an application engine, which is your first mistake; Everything after that is just more calamity.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    1. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by JackieBrown · · Score: 2

      I can think of a few reasons - calendar reminders and email notifications

    2. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by dargaud · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      I can think of a few reasons - calendar reminders and email notifications

      Then use a callendar program and an email program. Stop trying to cook chicken and shoot rhinos with a browser.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    3. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by tepples · · Score: 2

      Then use a callendar program and an email program.

      And if your favorite calendar program and email program are not available for a given platform, or if you lack permission to install an application on your work computer, just do without.

    4. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, if you lack permission to run an app, go around IT's back by running it in a browser.

      Great suggestion.

    5. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sigh.
      Locked down machines are locked down to prevent you installing non-approved applications. They are not typically locked down to prevent you running webmail or web calendars and *If* IT want to block those, they will block gmail etc. in the browser. You're not 'going around IT's back', you're doing something they have decided to allow..

    6. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or use your damned phone.

    7. Re:Take 'push' notifications out of the browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!

  9. We need to stop the HTML5 madness by xack · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Stop adding bloat to the specification that just adds more ways for advertrackers to steal your hardware resources. If I was in charge I would go back to HTML4 with just the video tag added.. All this bloat makes browser engines complicated which is why everyone is just cloning chrome instead of making their own engines.

    1. Re:We need to stop the HTML5 madness by jfdavis668 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A comment about Chrome clones in response to one of the only browsers that doesn't use the chromium blink engine.

    2. Re:We need to stop the HTML5 madness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There are lots of nice new features in HTML5 which enable cleaner layouts with fewer dependencies on Javascript. Don't throw the kid out with the bathwater. HTML5 isn't the problem. It's the damn Javascript API extensions that need to go.

    3. Re:We need to stop the HTML5 madness by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      If I was in charge I would go back to HTML4

      I guess the entire world that considers the internet to be more than just randoms posting on Slashdot is thankful that you are not in charge.

    4. Re:We need to stop the HTML5 madness by sexconker · · Score: 1

      HTML has had <embed> for ages. It makes the browser do only sane thing: Throw the content to the OS to handle, and drop it if the OS can't handle it.

    5. Re:We need to stop the HTML5 madness by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      There is no 'cleaner layout' than plain markup with HTML.

    6. Re:We need to stop the HTML5 madness by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      Well, at least all the people who think of themselves as web 'developers' should be relieved.

  10. Firefox by vanyel · · Score: 0

    ...you mean like Firefox's nagging about updating?

    1. Re:Firefox by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

      I've never had Firefox nag. It just updates.

    2. Re:Firefox by XanC · · Score: 1

      Your browser has permission to overwrite itself? Seems like a bad idea.

    3. Re:Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefox runs a separate Mozilla Updater Agent as a service that periodically checks for updates and if one is available, installs it over the browser. The browser itself doesn't directly have this permission. This is what Chrome and others do anyway so if you have complaints, take it up with all browsers and for that matter software vendors.

    4. Re:Firefox by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      Your browser has permission to overwrite itself? Seems like a bad idea.

      Firefox seems to use the "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" philosophy.

      On my Linux machines, it's updates are solely under the control of apt/dpkg package manager, like everything else in the system.

      On my Windows machine, Firefox does "ambush" upgrades whenever it feels like it, but for some reason it doesn't finish them until you try to use it. So you never know whether you'll be delayed with a "Firefox is installing the latest updates" message box when you need to access something in a hurry. It's like a miniature version of the entire Windows OS update experience.

    5. Re:Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your browser has permission to overwrite itself? Seems like a bad idea.

      Firefox seems to use the "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" philosophy.

      On my Linux machines, it's updates are solely under the control of apt/dpkg package manager, like everything else in the system.

      On my Windows machine, Firefox does "ambush" upgrades whenever it feels like it, but for some reason it doesn't finish them until you try to use it. So you never know whether you'll be delayed with a "Firefox is installing the latest updates" message box when you need to access something in a hurry. It's like a miniature version of the entire Windows OS update experience.

      Well that *is* the way things generally happen on Windows including with the OS itself. So yes, when in Rome they are doing as the Romans.

      Yet another reason why the machines I own haven't run Windows in 20 years. I'd lose touch entirely with what using Windows is like except for friends of mine who seek help with their Win systems.

    6. Re:Firefox by Lanthanide · · Score: 1

      > So you never know whether you'll be delayed with a "Firefox is installing the latest updates" message box when you need to access something in a hurry.

      This is one of the main reasons I use Chrome. Seriously. It updates in the background then displays a little icon saying I need to restart the browser. When I do it shuts down and starts back up in about 2-3 seconds total and all of my tabs reload. Never have to sit through a stupid 'updating' window like Firefox forces on you periodically.

    7. Re: Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've never had Ff nag me to update. You should try using Ff before you start trashing it.

  11. How did this ever become a feature? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I understand the initial naivete, circa 1995 with popups. The web was new, developers didn't really understand how malicious people would turn something like a popup into, etc. It took a while, but we fixed that.

    But who approved this garbage feature in the teens? Anyone making a browser around 2014 when I first encountered this "feature" should have realized how it can be abused. I still occasionally get this garbage, and don't recall ever clicking "yes" to enable it.

  12. Firefox should have pushed a notification by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    To inform us about this change. Man, talk about getting blindsided.

  13. about:config dom.push.enabled=false by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There, make that the default (again). That was easy.

  14. Problem solved ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Informative

    Add these to your "user.js" file:

    user_pref("dom.push.enabled", false);
    user_pref("dom.webnotifications.enabled", false);

    Optionally these too (may be redundant with above):

    user_pref("dom.push.alwaysConnect", false);
    user_pref("dom.push.connection.enabled", false);
    user_pref("dom.webnotifications.serviceworker.enabled", false);

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Problem solved ... by thegarbz · · Score: 0

      user.js what? Is that how you give tech advice? Just tell people to go to settings, click notifications, and click disable new notification requests.

      I mean shit user.js? Why not ask people to download the source and patch out the code and recompile while you're at it? Or use a hex editor to patch the binary exe like the good old days of bypassing DRM?

    2. Re:Problem solved ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

      user.js what? Is that how you give tech advice? Just tell people to go to settings, click notifications, and click disable new notification requests.

      I mean shit user.js? Why not ask people to download the source and patch out the code and recompile while you're at it? Or use a hex editor to patch the binary exe like the good old days of bypassing DRM?

      These settings actually disable the push and web notifications altogether rather than just stopping the confirmation prompts.

      As for using "user.js" file... This is pretty common knowledge, but ... Firefox stores its per-user configuration settings ("about:config" and the various Option settings) for that user's Firefox profile folder in a text-type file named "prefs.js" (see prefs.js) and these names/values are updated whenever Firefox exits. These settings can be overridden and permanently set by placing similar entries in a text-type file in that folder named, "user.js" (see: user.js. Any names/values specified in this file will get reset for that user every time Firefox starts -- and many, many users utilize this to ensure they or Firefox don't re-enable something.

      As for your commentary about downloading, patching and recompiling the source or patching the executable with a hex editor (which I have actually done before) -- stop being a dick. :-)

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    3. Re:Problem solved ... by antdude · · Score: 1

      How come there is no GUI options to set these?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    4. Re:Problem solved ... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      They should make a UI for this, similar to the one for blocking pop-ups.

      In Chrome you just go to Content Settings and untick "notifications", then all sites are blocked from even asking.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  15. Simple for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I NEVER want PUSH NOTIFICAITONS FROM ANY SITE. Where is that option as a global?

  16. 2nd option is the best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That way, i can activelly get notifications from a site if i want, but it's non-intrusive otherwise.
    Actually i would do that for all "extra" services, like location, browser signature, cookies, etc... aka only allow what the user activelly selects to share / consume.

  17. I always block them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have never seen a push notification on any browser.

  18. Irony by habig · · Score: 2

    TFA pops up "Will you all www.zdnet.com to send notifications?" in an article about how the things are so hateful Firefox is rolling out a way to stop them. While they can be easily ignored, I've never once clicked "yes" and can't imagine doing so. Stopping them is a feature I'd enable.

  19. Compliance through Annoyance and Irritation by quag7 · · Score: 3

    I want to see web sites stop popping up their crappy interstitial pages I have to click through to get to contact, almost all of which implore me to subscribe to their stupid e-mail lists (not happening, ever, specifically because of how they pushed).

    I want to see websites stop forcing me through "OMG LOOK AT ALL OUR NEW FEATURES" slides every time I log in.

    Put a lil.

    A lil.

    Flashing thing on the side or something. But get the fuck out of my face.

    ALL autoplay bullshit must end (fuck you cnn.com. I mean fuck you for about a hundred other reasons but especially fuck you for that.)

    The sheer number of browser extensions I install to try to protect what is left of my privacy and stop apeshit web developers from engaging in screen bukkake has become absurd.

    This is not what the Web was supposed to be.

    And *yes*, I would be fine with about 2/3rds of the damn Web collapsing for want of ad revenue if what was left was clean and user-friendly. I have reached that point.

    I'M MAD PEOPLE.

    A CRAZY, MAD, WILD-EYED, BIG-BOTTOMED ANARCHIST.

    I WAS HERE EARLY AND YOU WILL HEAR ME.

    (they will not hear me. no need to point that out.)

    1. Re:Compliance through Annoyance and Irritation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want to see web sites stop popping up their crappy interstitial pages I have to click through

      That only happens because you are volunteering to run the scripts they deliver to you.

      Stop doing that, and you won't see those any more. As far as I can tell, the Web is utterly unusable now if you don't block Javascript almost everywhere. It gets 1000X better once you do.

      This is not what the Web was supposed to be.

      Right. So say "no" already. Get everyone you know to switch off Javascript.

      We can take back the web, if enough people start saying no to all the bullshit that "web developers" [sic] are doing.

    2. Re:Compliance through Annoyance and Irritation by The+Tyro · · Score: 1

      Hallelujah, brother... preach it.

      --
      Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
    3. Re:Compliance through Annoyance and Irritation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice to know someone else rages about this bullshit as much as me. Seriously, fuck computers. They just keep getting shittier.

    4. Re:Compliance through Annoyance and Irritation by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Why do marketing and UI people think that forcing you to look at things is a good way to make you want those things?

      Not just web sites. Some apps do it, some operating systems do it, many many games do it (the forced tutorial and radio buddy).

      If they must do it at least offer a way to skip with one click.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  20. How about a default "no" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...because I have never, ever allowed a website to serve me push notifications. And I never expect to. Period. Full stop.

  21. Fight the Good Fight! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yea, Mozilla! Doing God's Work!!!!

  22. Just disable the feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would just take a browser wide option to disable them, I'm fairly sure I always refused... unless I made a mistake, which forced me to hunt the option and revoke the permission.

    Also, the other modern plague is ANY automatically playing video, bonus points if the audio is not muted - there are a couple of sites that got kicked out of my bookmarks for this.

  23. So? by BitztreamNotARealNam · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How's life in the hypocrite lane?

  24. Who here allows any and why? by sabbede · · Score: 1
    I'm legitimately curious. I've never allowed a site to push anything, but the feature exists and presumably some people use it. Including people here.

    So, what notifications do you allow?

  25. those cookie-consent popups... by votsalo · · Score: 1

    Those cookie consent popups existed before GDPR and they decrease privacy rather than increase it. They annoy people who delete cookies frequently, in order to convince them not to delete cookies. It seems to me that this is by design. The big tech companies must be happy with this arrangement, which they probably helped create, precisely because of this side effect.

  26. Fork the Web. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The real solution to this is to fork the web.

    Seriously. It is time to codify the TECHNICAL (not social) boundaries we expect to have, and either modify existing code to fit, or write it from scratch.

    Devuan's April Fool's joke was running a 'hacked' webpage and pointing everyone to a gopher version of their main web page. Honestly it worked quite well in lynx, although it was converting it all into html for display.

    While the original gopher protocol is sadly constrained due to 1 character filetype choices, the potential is there for lots of content over display oriented protocols, something which HTML has been utterly perverted away from. (For those too young to remember, HTML was intended as a DISPLAY AGNOSTIC METHOD OF INFORMATION TRANSFER. HTML5 and Javascript-mandatory pages are the ultimate and final perversion away from that.)

    Furthermore eliminating Javascript and returning to text, rather than script, oriented generation and processing of a page would dramatically speed up the capabilities of any expert systems or 'AI' systems attempting to learn and explore the publicly accessable web. The fear I have is a future where privacy is dead, all information is paywalled, and the only AIs on the planet are controlled by wealthy authoritarians to keep us plebs in our place. Two out of the three are almost there, and without a major social push to change it, our collective freedom will be shackled away from us, through methods both visible today and only discovered or understood tomorrow.

    Do your part for a brighter future, or prepare for something that is even worse than a cyberpunk dystopia.

  27. Externally imposed platform by tepples · · Score: 1

    Why use calendar/email that isn't compatible with the platform you use and vice-versa?

    Because an outside factor has suddenly imposed a specific "platform you use" on you. How practical is it for a user to switch to a completely different calendar/email provider every time the user changes operating system?

    And do all operating systems even have calendar software? Could, say, a user of the operating system called "Xbox One system software" use a calendaring application to schedule online play dates with another Xbox Live subscriber?

    Why use a work computer for personal business?

    For one thing, break time exists. For another, not having permission to install applications does not necessarily imply use of a work computer for personal business. Many especially larger companies' IT departments are so dysfunctionally lethargic that they have built a record of taking the most blame for other employees not being able to complete projects on time due to lack of authorization to install required applications. What should an employee who discovers this deep dysfunction do while polishing his or her resume?

  28. Work-related apps on personal phone? by tepples · · Score: 1

    In many of these cases, dysfunctional IT has blocked the use of work devices to run even work applications for work purposes in a timely manner. IT has imposed a two-week waiting period for work-related native applications or a zero waiting period for work-related web applications. This means end users are likely to do one of two things: use web applications, or bring personal devices just to be able to accomplish their work. How responsible would it be for IT to allow this dysfunction to continue to happen?

  29. lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's an idea.

    Remove the functionality?

    There's literally no useful purpose for push notifications from your browser, in the first place.