NO I DO NOT WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOGGER WITH A RECIPE I NO LONGER WANT
Agreed. So many websites want you to sign up for their newsletter before you've even read the first line of text.
Even they aren't as bad as the sites that ask for feedback as soon as they open >.<
Also: THIS SITE IS BETTER IN THE APP! Every time you open the site.
If I wanted to use the app, I'd have it installed by now.
This was reddit. Pissed me off so much.
Agreed. Anything that pops up in front of the content I want to see, can fuck off!
I fucking hate this.
Those were popup windows years ago and every browser started blocking them and does to this day. I wish they would start blocking overlays too.
When they ask you about cookies and you can "accept all" in one click, but if you want to reject all that aren't strictly necessary you have to navigate to a different page
Oh man, especially those that have like 100 toggle switches you have to manually switch. I hate those so much.
Yeah, this should be illegal. I predict California and/or the EU will get rid of it soonish (within the next 10 years maybe? not the most experienced forecaster).
It is IIRC. In the eu I think its mandatory that declining cookies is as easy as accepting.
Which is better but still sucks. The whole thing is flawed from the ground up: In order to remember you opted out of cookies, it is necessary to store a cookie in your browser. Cookies should be op-in but I think it's obvious this is not gonna happen
Pretty sure a cookie like that would fall under strictly necessary, so you're still allowed to save it without consent.
Protip: Use a VPN and connect to an EU country. You'll see more of the single "Reject All" buttons.
Does California have any of these types of tech laws?
Yes, it mandates a Do Not Sell My Personal Information toggle, as I understand it.
Which usually requires an email address, in my experience, so it's really only worth doing that if you already have an account at that site.
I've never been asked for an email address. That sucks.
Chat boxes that popup so that a bot can "help" you find products
Bonus points if it plays audio
Ok god yes, kill it with fire. Any pop-ups that open on the home page of a website actually. Are you trying to get me to immediately leave your site??
Would be cool if it said anything other than something like "I'm sorry I do not understand your request".
For me it's Google search's tab order. They always switch up the tabs for web, images, videos, etc. depending on what you search for. It makes the experience very unpredictable and annoying.
Recently they've also started putting related searches next to the tabs 🤦
ok i thought i was going crazy, that's the most frustrating thing
i only ever use regular search and image search
if i want shopping results i'll look at walmart or amazon
if i want video results im just searching right on youtube
i don't need a million different tabs
This is so frustrating, and another reason I'm going to try to stop using Google.
On mobile browser: the ad that "loads" under your finger when you tap on something.
Without counting user-hostile design: automatically playing any sort of sound as soon as you enter the website. Specially radio. Thankfully at least Firefox doesn't allow this crap any more,
Oh my god I hate twitch for autoplaying some random stream I don't want to watch on the front page
Anti adblockers, specially when the page is riddled with porn ads
Most of them can be bypassed with uBlock Origin, and if they can't then I treat that site as if it doesn't exist
I decide how many lines I want to scroll with the wheel and I also intentionally disabled "smooth scrolling". No need to change that, thank you, stupid website!
Same thing with instagram, like when youre scrolling through reels or something it just straight goes to the next one. Ffs.
Use consent-o-matic extension in Firefox
Firefox seems to block auto playing videos
I don't know any way to fix it, it's website's fault
cookie banner
there's an extension called "I don't care about cookie" that removes that popup and automatically accept or reject them based on how you set it up
What’s the issue with sideways scrolling?
It's mostly annoying because there's no easy way to sidescroll and also, why would you even need to?
I just use my mouses scroll wheel + shift. I’m not saying horizontal scrolling is good but it’s far from the most annoying thing on websites.
Mobile web sites that disable pinch to zoom. I've always enabled the setting in Firefox to allow it on all sites, but I still occasionally find one that somehow manages to override my preference.
Dear devs: There is no reason to ever disable it. It's hostile to all users, and especially those with impaired vision.
As a developer: trust me, we don't want these features either. It's project managers and clients who force us to do such things.
Same with links that open in new tabs. Except on pages with inputs that you can fill in, I rarely see any justification for those.
As a user, if I want a page to open in a new tab, I press the middle mouse button. If I press the left mouse button, I don't want a new tab.
You're right, I shouldn't have said devs since it's usually something from above.
Same with "x" meaning anything except "exit this application," which isn't a web issue, but is one of my pet peeves as a user.
As a user As a developer, if I want a page to open in a new tab, I press the middle mouse button.
Ftfy
Most regular users I've seen use the internet don't even know middle-click or ctrl+click opens in a new tab, or any other useful shortcuts for that matter.
The ones names already are worst than this one but it needs to be here
Hello, I am a useless Chat Bot, you can ask me any questions but I will certainly not know what you want
This "mobile first" thing. No, I don't want 20px fonts for text or absurdly large buttons to click on with my mouse cursor.
And scrolling up and down constantly cause there's not enough screenspace to show all the information (because 90% of the screenspace is empty or used for enourmous padding)
When the site hijacks the scroll to play some animation as you scroll down the page
Autoplay while scrolling.
Literally why do news websites play some random unrelated video when I'm trying to read an article...
Those horrible news sites where they show these ads for all kinds of garbage as you try to go back to the previous page you were on.
Designing an absolutely hostile mobile experience intentionally then displaying a pop up on how much better the experience in their app is (it isn't) - 99% of apps could be a webpage or a PWA.
Another mobile website annoyance of mine is where common features aren't present from the desktop version, forcing me to switch to desktop view and try to navigate on a small screen or making me boot up my PC just to perform the simplest task.
Conversely, websites that are missing features from the mobile version or app on the desktop version. I don't want to do everything on a phone. I want to use my PC. I want to use Linux phone which is a pocketable PC. Screw your stupid app.
When a website changes the scrolling to be smooth and slow. Like I don't want my scrolling to accelerate really slowly for ages and then decelerate for the same amount of time, I want my scrolling to be quick and responsive.
Also when websites change scrolling to be anything other than scrolling, like the iMac 24-inch Website when the scrolling animates the screen and stand instead of just scrolling.
I had to go there to see what you mean - and I see what you mean! How very annoying.
"would you like to receive notifications in your browser from this site?"
No. No I would not.
Mousing over a UI element causes it to expand and cover neighboring UI elements.
Floating menu bars that scroll with the page.
Overriding the browser's built in keyboard combos and context menus.
"Hero" header images.
Requiring Javascript to render static text.
Styling the scrollbar.
Modal dialogs of any kind.
Breaking the "Back" button.
I used a shopping website today, where mousing over the header pops up a fullscreen navigation menu, and the only way to close it is to mouse over an empty part of the header. Made me do a lot of cursor gymnastics when trying to switch tabs while avoiding the damn menu.
Algoritmes that make sure u can't find a post again when u mis click or something. Facebook/Instagram drive me nuts because of this.
That popup asking about cookies because they cause cancer in California or whatever. It should auto decline cookies and have a button at the bottom to manually sign over your first born child if you choose to do so.
This modern one-page website style, where when you click on a Link in the menu it just scrolls you down to that part.
I mean it's ok for Wikipedia where you basically have a document, but I hate it for multimedia or company stuff.
Most of the time it's coupled with these animation instead of actually scrolling shit.
When it has an overlay video that fills up to half the screen even if you scroll. And the X button is not even being shown.
For stuff like that, I always use this bookmarklet which instantly zaps any sticky elements.
When you’re on a shopping site and a little pop up appears over the picture of the item telling you how many people have bought it in the last day and how many have viewed it. I don’t care!! Just let me see the actual item!
I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers are made up. Just dark patterns to make it seem like the product is hot.
Though I've found it kinda interesting when websites show little messages like "Someone from country just bought item!".
Unskippable tutorials.
Required Javascript on sites where it doesn't make sense. I like using a text-only browser like lynx, or netsurf or dillo from time to time, and it's amazing how some of the simplest webpages are broken without JS.
Cookies policy
Overriding the default scroll behavior
Headers and footers that only appear when you approach them
There are also those headers that auto-hide when you scroll down, but pop back up at the slightest upward scroll, blocking the line at the top of the screen that you were trying to read.
What’s what I mean. They only appear when you approach them.
It makes it take 10x more effort to see something that just disappeared above your view.
Being 100x the size and 'modern feel' with 1x the content than we used to have
I feel this is partly caused by designers working with huge screens and forgetting that smaller screens exist.
When a website features an (embedded) video at the top and you need to scroll down to read the text unterneath the video:
If not disabled by your browser, the video playback starts. You stop the video. You beginn to scroll down to read the text unter the video, because you don't want to watch the video. Now the video pops out and begins to play and hovers over the area where the text is displayed.
News websites are prone to this behavior.
Forgetting your place after logging in or switching between mobile and desktop modes.
This feature is long gone, at least I've not encountered it in a long time, but background music.
Holy cow, how I hated those 🤣
I hate websites that either don't have a reject all cookies button or they make it suuuuper tiny and put it so close to the big accept button which causes you to accidentally hit accept if you're on mobile
Trying to make textareas better, which tends to make them worse. I'd settle for predictable.
Online supermarket websites. Just because I have purchased it once that doesn't mean it's a 'favourate'.
Some even have a 'things you have purchased before' feature, but they still ruin the idea of a favourites list
OVERLAYS
Sorry for shouting, but they are very annoying.
NO I DO NOT WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOGGER WITH A RECIPE I NO LONGER WANT
Agreed. So many websites want you to sign up for their newsletter before you've even read the first line of text.
Even they aren't as bad as the sites that ask for feedback as soon as they open >.<
Also: THIS SITE IS BETTER IN THE APP! Every time you open the site.
If I wanted to use the app, I'd have it installed by now.
This was reddit. Pissed me off so much.
Agreed. Anything that pops up in front of the content I want to see, can fuck off!
I fucking hate this.
Those were popup windows years ago and every browser started blocking them and does to this day. I wish they would start blocking overlays too.
When they ask you about cookies and you can "accept all" in one click, but if you want to reject all that aren't strictly necessary you have to navigate to a different page
Oh man, especially those that have like 100 toggle switches you have to manually switch. I hate those so much.
Yeah, this should be illegal. I predict California and/or the EU will get rid of it soonish (within the next 10 years maybe? not the most experienced forecaster).
It is IIRC. In the eu I think its mandatory that declining cookies is as easy as accepting.
Which is better but still sucks. The whole thing is flawed from the ground up: In order to remember you opted out of cookies, it is necessary to store a cookie in your browser. Cookies should be op-in but I think it's obvious this is not gonna happen
Pretty sure a cookie like that would fall under strictly necessary, so you're still allowed to save it without consent.
Protip: Use a VPN and connect to an EU country. You'll see more of the single "Reject All" buttons.
Does California have any of these types of tech laws?
Yes, it mandates a Do Not Sell My Personal Information toggle, as I understand it.
Which usually requires an email address, in my experience, so it's really only worth doing that if you already have an account at that site.
I've never been asked for an email address. That sucks.
Chat boxes that popup so that a bot can "help" you find products
Bonus points if it plays audio
Ok god yes, kill it with fire. Any pop-ups that open on the home page of a website actually. Are you trying to get me to immediately leave your site??
Would be cool if it said anything other than something like "I'm sorry I do not understand your request".
For me it's Google search's tab order. They always switch up the tabs for web, images, videos, etc. depending on what you search for. It makes the experience very unpredictable and annoying.
Recently they've also started putting related searches next to the tabs 🤦
ok i thought i was going crazy, that's the most frustrating thing
i only ever use regular search and image search
if i want shopping results i'll look at walmart or amazon
if i want video results im just searching right on youtube
i don't need a million different tabs
This is so frustrating, and another reason I'm going to try to stop using Google.
On mobile browser: the ad that "loads" under your finger when you tap on something.
Without counting user-hostile design: automatically playing any sort of sound as soon as you enter the website. Specially radio. Thankfully at least Firefox doesn't allow this crap any more,
Oh my god I hate twitch for autoplaying some random stream I don't want to watch on the front page
Anti adblockers, specially when the page is riddled with porn ads
Most of them can be bypassed with uBlock Origin, and if they can't then I treat that site as if it doesn't exist
Isn't there a way to bypass it?
I'm unsure if this still works, but I've heard good things about it: https://bogachenko.github.io/fuckfuckadblock/
Not in any special order
Also: scroll-jacking.
I decide how many lines I want to scroll with the wheel and I also intentionally disabled "smooth scrolling". No need to change that, thank you, stupid website!
Same thing with instagram, like when youre scrolling through reels or something it just straight goes to the next one. Ffs.
there's an extension called "I don't care about cookie" that removes that popup and automatically accept or reject them based on how you set it up
What’s the issue with sideways scrolling?
It's mostly annoying because there's no easy way to sidescroll and also, why would you even need to?
I just use my mouses scroll wheel + shift. I’m not saying horizontal scrolling is good but it’s far from the most annoying thing on websites.
Mobile web sites that disable pinch to zoom. I've always enabled the setting in Firefox to allow it on all sites, but I still occasionally find one that somehow manages to override my preference.
Dear devs: There is no reason to ever disable it. It's hostile to all users, and especially those with impaired vision.
As a developer: trust me, we don't want these features either. It's project managers and clients who force us to do such things.
Same with links that open in new tabs. Except on pages with inputs that you can fill in, I rarely see any justification for those.
As a user, if I want a page to open in a new tab, I press the middle mouse button. If I press the left mouse button, I don't want a new tab.
You're right, I shouldn't have said devs since it's usually something from above.
Same with "x" meaning anything except "exit this application," which isn't a web issue, but is one of my pet peeves as a user.
Ftfy
Most regular users I've seen use the internet don't even know middle-click or ctrl+click opens in a new tab, or any other useful shortcuts for that matter.
The ones names already are worst than this one but it needs to be here
Hello, I am a useless Chat Bot, you can ask me any questions but I will certainly not know what you want
This "mobile first" thing. No, I don't want 20px fonts for text or absurdly large buttons to click on with my mouse cursor.
And scrolling up and down constantly cause there's not enough screenspace to show all the information (because 90% of the screenspace is empty or used for enourmous padding)
When the site hijacks the scroll to play some animation as you scroll down the page
Autoplay while scrolling.
Literally why do news websites play some random unrelated video when I'm trying to read an article...
Those horrible news sites where they show these ads for all kinds of garbage as you try to go back to the previous page you were on.
Designing an absolutely hostile mobile experience intentionally then displaying a pop up on how much better the experience in their app is (it isn't) - 99% of apps could be a webpage or a PWA.
Another mobile website annoyance of mine is where common features aren't present from the desktop version, forcing me to switch to desktop view and try to navigate on a small screen or making me boot up my PC just to perform the simplest task.
Conversely, websites that are missing features from the mobile version or app on the desktop version. I don't want to do everything on a phone. I want to use my PC. I want to use Linux phone which is a pocketable PC. Screw your stupid app.
When a website changes the scrolling to be smooth and slow. Like I don't want my scrolling to accelerate really slowly for ages and then decelerate for the same amount of time, I want my scrolling to be quick and responsive.
Also when websites change scrolling to be anything other than scrolling, like the iMac 24-inch Website when the scrolling animates the screen and stand instead of just scrolling.
I had to go there to see what you mean - and I see what you mean! How very annoying.
"would you like to receive notifications in your browser from this site?"
No. No I would not.
Mousing over a UI element causes it to expand and cover neighboring UI elements.
Floating menu bars that scroll with the page.
Overriding the browser's built in keyboard combos and context menus.
"Hero" header images.
Requiring Javascript to render static text.
Styling the scrollbar.
Modal dialogs of any kind.
Breaking the "Back" button.
I used a shopping website today, where mousing over the header pops up a fullscreen navigation menu, and the only way to close it is to mouse over an empty part of the header. Made me do a lot of cursor gymnastics when trying to switch tabs while avoiding the damn menu.
Algoritmes that make sure u can't find a post again when u mis click or something. Facebook/Instagram drive me nuts because of this.
That popup asking about cookies because they cause cancer in California or whatever. It should auto decline cookies and have a button at the bottom to manually sign over your first born child if you choose to do so.
This modern one-page website style, where when you click on a Link in the menu it just scrolls you down to that part.
I mean it's ok for Wikipedia where you basically have a document, but I hate it for multimedia or company stuff.
Most of the time it's coupled with these animation instead of actually scrolling shit.
When it has an overlay video that fills up to half the screen even if you scroll. And the X button is not even being shown.
For stuff like that, I always use this bookmarklet which instantly zaps any sticky elements.
When you’re on a shopping site and a little pop up appears over the picture of the item telling you how many people have bought it in the last day and how many have viewed it. I don’t care!! Just let me see the actual item!
I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers are made up. Just dark patterns to make it seem like the product is hot.
Though I've found it kinda interesting when websites show little messages like "Someone from country just bought item!".
Unskippable tutorials.
Required Javascript on sites where it doesn't make sense. I like using a text-only browser like lynx, or netsurf or dillo from time to time, and it's amazing how some of the simplest webpages are broken without JS.
Cookies policy
There are also those headers that auto-hide when you scroll down, but pop back up at the slightest upward scroll, blocking the line at the top of the screen that you were trying to read.
What’s what I mean. They only appear when you approach them.
It makes it take 10x more effort to see something that just disappeared above your view.
Being 100x the size and 'modern feel' with 1x the content than we used to have
I feel this is partly caused by designers working with huge screens and forgetting that smaller screens exist.
When a website features an (embedded) video at the top and you need to scroll down to read the text unterneath the video:
If not disabled by your browser, the video playback starts. You stop the video. You beginn to scroll down to read the text unter the video, because you don't want to watch the video. Now the video pops out and begins to play and hovers over the area where the text is displayed.
News websites are prone to this behavior.
Forgetting your place after logging in or switching between mobile and desktop modes.
This feature is long gone, at least I've not encountered it in a long time, but background music.
Holy cow, how I hated those 🤣
I hate websites that either don't have a reject all cookies button or they make it suuuuper tiny and put it so close to the big accept button which causes you to accidentally hit accept if you're on mobile
Trying to make textareas better, which tends to make them worse. I'd settle for predictable.
Online supermarket websites. Just because I have purchased it once that doesn't mean it's a 'favourate'.
Some even have a 'things you have purchased before' feature, but they still ruin the idea of a favourites list