Pop ups. unders, autoplay, videos, etc

[imoldernu]

Perhaps I'm the only one that is annoyed by going to a website, only to find that a mix of pop ups, pop unders, automatic video's and other things that cause the webpage to load, reload, and bounce back and forth while "stuff" is going on in the background. Now it doesn't only happen in the beginning of the page loading, but after a minute or two of browsing. Ads, and things that the website "thinks" I'll be interested in.

Seems to be getting worse by the day. Maybe because of Chrome switching to HTML5, but for whatever reason, there seems no way to block. Other browsers have same problem.

So here's the thing: When I go to an article, I like to quick scan the text to see if I'll be interested, instead of watching a five minute video that I won't be interested in.... (Aside) "Am I the only one who still reads?"

The Ad Blockers, and in the case of Chrome, extension "disable HTML5 autoplay" just don't work. "error encountered - Details are in the Developer Console... " Really...

 

[MichaelB]

Why do you think you're alone with this annoyance?

 

[Chuckanut]

The people who want to advertise to on on the Internet do not know how to do it correctly, so they are being more obnoxious in the hope it gets our attention. And they are getting our attention in a big way. I just installed uBlock Origin to block the things.

I understand the need for ads to pay for many of these websites. And I white-list websites I go to often so they ads will help pay for the service (this site for example). But, when I have to wait an extra 5-10 seconds of a video to load and start up, that site stays on uBlock.

 

[GrayHare]

Yet another reason to use an older version of the browser.

 

[MichaelB]

Some news sites (Bloomberg is one) automatically start audio and videos broadcasts or replays. The NY Times did that for a bit but it seems they stopped. Nothing like some unexpected audio blasting out of the computer while someone is trying to put the baby back to sleep.

I would agree there needs to be a setting or permission before doing that. I send feedback and then stop visiting the sites that are invasive in this way.

 

[folivier]

Yes, all very aggravating to me also. I'm one who much prefers to read rather than watch a video. And what about those sites that ask me am I sure I want to leave that page? Duh, that's why I clicked the close button....

 

[harley]

I keep the volume on my computer muted unless I'm actively watching something. I still get the annoyance of the slow loads, but usually I'm not even aware of videos auto-playing. And I don't watch that many videos (I prefer to read too), so mostly the sound is off.

 

[easysurfer]

Before having the uBlock Origin add on installed, many pages were pretty much unreadable due to all the ads. Now, some pages have the "Oh, I see you have an ad blocker...." annoyance and then I decide whether I wish to toggle and turn off blocking temporarily to read, or continue blocking.

For Windows, another program I use is called "Sound Lock" which has a max volume setting I can adjust as another annoyance is bringing up a video (intentional or unintentional) and the volume is blaring.

 

[JoeWras]

Many news sites are becoming unreadable because of this. I don't mind the auto video playing, what I do mind is the resizing of the "proto-box" they set aside, and then when the video comes up, it resizes.

The text you were just reading gets swept away.

And this happens multiple times.

It does not get my attention. It gets my ignore. At times I think it is intentional so it gets you to scroll through everything again and see more ads, or maybe accidentally click one. But most of the time, I think it is just poor site layout, and lazy rendering.

 

[broadway]

My internet speed is on the slow side and the auto-play of videos makes the website come to a screeching halt. I hate it. The sports websites are guilty of this.

 

[Sunset]

I keep the volume on my computer muted unless I'm actively watching something. I still get the annoyance of the slow loads, but usually I'm not even aware of videos auto-playing. And I don't watch that many videos (I prefer to read too), so mostly the sound is off.

I also mute my sound so it does not bother me as much.

And I was wondering like OP is the rise of videos due to the lack of reading ability of young folks ??

 

[bUU]

We can safely assume that there is no good way to get people to watch advertising for the purpose of having it drive their purchasing behaviors outside of what they would do based solely on an evaluation of their needs and what is offered. If you are annoyed so much by the measures employed then chances are you're probably too intelligent and/or too discerning for advertising to be of any use with regard to manipulating your purchasing behaviors anyway.

 

[FIREmenow]

Ghostery helps quite a bit with Chrome.

 

[tfudtuckerpucker]

One trick I use to prevent autoplay of videos is to set uBlock Origin to limit media elements larger than some value (~1MB). This stops most of them. You can enable/disable per website, and try different size limits. It's under
settings -> default behavior.

 

[fleefromhome]

I have this same aggravation. AARP is one of the biggest culprits I started using a news aggregator called Feedly. This way I can read before I decide to go to the actual site. I can add sites that I like to read - including this one. I have also found many interesting blogs using Feedly.

 

[Sojourner]

The auto-play videos are bad, but my most hated trick some websites use is the "pop under". This is when you click on a link and a new window (or tab) gets created behind the one you're browsing in. Seems like this tactic is used by some of the shadier websites out there to have ads "slip in under the covers", as it were. If you're technically savvy, you can add a custom filter to the AdBlock extension in Chrome to block these pop-unders, which is what I do. Still incredibly annoying that this kind of thing exists in the world.

 

[Bestwifeever]

The sites have to pay the cost of producing the content we want to see but no one wants to pay for and I think a lot of the annoying popups and videos are ads that pay the sites.

 

[kcowan]

What about the ones that want you to sign up before you have seen the content! Or ask your opinion?

 

[ER Eddie]

Agree this is very annoying. I was on a Chicago Tribune site yesterday, and there were at least two different things auto-playing. I got aggravated because I was scrolling up and down the page, trying to locate the second one, to shut if off, but I couldn't.

I just closed the site. I'm surprised they don't understand how annoying that is to readers.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I control it pretty well on the PC, but I haven't found one that works well on the Tab...does uBlock Origin work on mobile versions of Chrome? The biggest annoyance with the mobile sites is that as I am reading the information, it keeps moving up and down as ads load, and very often, as I go to swipe the story "down", that is the magical time a hyperlinked ad will appear, and I get to visit that site. It's all very annoying. I absolutely LOVED when the mobile versions of the pages were like the old BBS way of doing thing. Can we have a page like that but without the slow loading of the 56K modem?

 

[JoeWras]

I don't mind paying for it with ads. I even like some of the ads (except denture grip and incontinence).

What I don't like are the constant readjustments of the screen which cause unwanted clicks, and which yank the text away from you.

Some sites have simply gone "a bridge too far" and are repelling me.

 

[rbmrtn]

For chrome there is an extension that may help HTML5 autoplay

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...toplay/efdhoaajjjgckpbkoglidkeendpkolai?hl=en

 

[tfudtuckerpucker]

I thought I had the problem solved by blocking media elements with Ublock origin. I was wrong. Cnet's autoplay started blathering this morning. Gaak. So I found another Chrome extension- "Silent Site Sound Blocker". This mutes all web sites, except those you whitelist. So far, so good. I know I can use the mute button, but that's annoying.

 

[jimbee]

So here's the thing: When I go to an article, I like to quick scan the text to see if I'll be interested, instead of watching a five minute video that I won't be interested in.... (Aside) "Am I the only one who still reads?"

The Ad Blockers, and in the case of Chrome, extension "disable HTML5 autoplay" just don't work. "error encountered - Details are in the Developer Console... " Really...

I also prefer to read rather than watch a video. If you want to try Firefox, here is the setting to block html5 video autoplay. It works ok for me.

Finally: Mozilla adds working HTML5 Video autoplay blocking to Firefox - gHacks Tech News

 

[imoldernu]

Don't enjoy beating a dead horse, but the problem is growing worse... just in the past few weeks.
For those who use Chrome, the "Disable html5 Autoplay" extension doesn't work in most news websites.
A secondary problem is getting worse... and that is that there is a time delay that starts the "videos" a minute or so after you have begun reading an article.

For those who are using the "Mercury Reader" extension or the "IRead" extension, when the video begins to download, the website may/will "freeze", asking you if you want to "wait", or kill the page. Waiting doesn't work, so you have to kill the page. This effectively means you can't use the "reader" extensions.

This started on a few of the better know news websites, but has now extended to more, less popular sites.

The problem that I see, is that the sites don't really benefit from more ads being seen. For some of the news sites, it may be a way of forcing pay subscriptions. not for this puppy...

...end of rant