CHOOSE RANT

Title:   Pop-Up Windows Day:    July 4th, 2000 Author:  Ruiner The window I was using: Don't you just HATE these stupid windows? Please don't shoot the computer. I'm just trying to illustrate a point. Click here for annoying popup window. * I took the jumping window down because it annoyed me while trying to work on the pages. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but it actually remained for almost two full months. Surprising.				Heh. Hopefully I didn't lose anyone with that stunt*. Me, It might would have pissed me off enough to leave the site for a bit. Pop-up windows do that to me, and probably to a lot of other websurfers out there. I guess the question is, if they're that hated, why do we have to endure them? This insidious form of advertisement started with that groundbreaking venue for all web design - the porn industry. X-rated websites have long kept ahead of the rest of us on breakthroughs in web design both good and bad. Why? Because the entrepreneurs behind the porn sites were the first to discover how to make money on the web. I haven't looked recently, but I'm betting that they're still atop the heap when it comes to amounts of money that's being made on the web. Where I first ran into them hardcore was on the 'warez' sites. For the uninformed, there are sites dedicated to the piracy of computer programs, be it by giving out passwords to programs (serialz), small programs to fool the registration process (crackz), or to fully copied programs you can download and use as if it were yours (warez). No, I'm not gonna go off on them again. I already tackled the ethics behind it. But if you do go to these sites, prepare to wander through a maze of misleading links and pop-up windows. You have to wonder, who are they making it tough for? Are they trying to hide their activities from the authorities, or are they trying to test your patience, making you 'earn' the material you seek? What really got me ticked off the other day was fonts. Some fonts I had on my computer got corrupted and I went searching for copies on the web. Seemed like no problem. Didn't think they were illegal or anything, since I downloaded them off the web a while back. So I search a few sights, then I start getting the annoying windows everywhere I turn. And there were some of the ultra-annoying variety, the ones that create a new window when you close the former. I've seen one site where it shot up five windows before you could escape the horror. Sometimes I can get by them by closing the window before it reads all of the neccesary code, but those of you with faster connections, cable or higher, probably don't have that option. I know at work with the T1 connection I had eight or nine windows up before I knew it. Glad my system was decent, else it would have crashed the operating system. Those bastards. And who are those bastards? Those Click-and-Pay jerks like Top100, Top25, Top10, TopLess, whatever they call themselves. They don't even really offer anything to the surfer except a list of whose on the top of their list and a link to get there. Which of course, will lead back to them. And so they pay what? A portion of a cent for each click there. What's really bad is that they have no morals. They don't care how the sites get you there, as long as you go there and spend some bandwidth on them. Sure they say they want to punish those who send you there in sneaky ways, but honestly how can they have any morals? They maintain sites that prey on the unsuspecting and offer them nothing in return. They don't even rank as pimps on the Internet. A true pimp would send you to something that works. Hell, all they send you to are sites that are teases. What all this means for us is that we have to delve through a morass of useless links and time-consuming pop-up adds that keep us from our goal. All that wasted effort usually discourages me enough to drop the quest. Luckily I have some friends who are a little more savvy than me when it comes to searching. Or at least they have more patience. Maybe it's me. I have this golden vision of what the Internet could be for us. Of course, there are going to be those fiends out there trying to make a buck. That's unavoidable. I just think that they shouldn't be able to prey on us without our permission. There are ways to stop the pop-up windows, but that requires turning off JavaScript and there are way too many other uses for which I'll leave it active. And of course they hang around sites primarily with 'questionable' material. You want free MP3s? Endure our advertisements. Of course you wouldn't complain to any congressmen because you know you shouldn't be here anyway. Flipside: Yes I understand that it takes money to run a website. Especially ones that are heavy on traffic and file size, such as those who store MP3s, warez, whatnot. And I guess that cost helps justify the mentality that a site owner must whore themselves out to these paying advertisers. It makes me glad that my site is lean on material (and unfortunately traffic). The cost comes directly out of my pocket, and that's fine. I like running a website and I don't feel that the viewers owe me one red cent. If the cost ever gets to be too much of a burden, oh well. Bye bye Ruined.Net. Or maybe I'll … nah. There are some things the Ruiner won't even joke about. B.Mooney