Internet Pet Peeves

Perhaps technically that should be “World Wide Web pet peeves” but whatever…

What things piss you off when you’re surfing the net? I’ll start:

  1. Offsite links should open in a new window. Mostly, they don’t.

  2. Midi files should not play unless I click a “Play” button. Did I click a “Play” button? I didn’t think so. I don’t wanna hear no noise unless I did.

(the worst offenders are non-music sites; I’m not really talking about music websites here.)

Others?

Hehe.

It usually peeves me when offsite links DO open in a new window. I’d rather open in the link in a new window if I choose to. (It’s simple to do: you can either right click on the link and choose “Open link in new window” or hold down the shift key when you click on the link.)

Gotta agree with Tracie here. I would rather that links I click on not open a new window. I don’t need a few dozen open window on my desktop. Plus, I run Popup Stopper and it won’t allow a new window unless I hold the CTRL key while clicking the link, which is a bit of a pain.

well damn.

I would never have believed you could accurately express wind being taken from sails in just two words. WTG, masonite!

I happen to sort of agree with you. I like it when they open in a new window, but I’ve become so accustomed to right clicking and choosing “Open in a new window” that it’s no big deal for me anymore. I think I stopped doing that with the links on my site too.

I agree with you about the music. Often I’m surfing the net late at night, and don’t want to wake Mr Cazzle with the sudden blaring noise of some guy’s favourite midi track. On the other hand (hehehe) my friend made me a wedding website (wedsite) that does have a midi playing without an on button, so I probably should correct that before I start criticizing. I generally mute the midi channel anyway.

Ummmm… pet peeves… I hate it when people put black text over a busy background so it’s hard to read. Often you’ll see the words are in a table. Why don’t they change the background colour of the table so you can read the words, yet still retain the busy background they’re so set on having?

i don’t mind different pages loading in the same window often. what does irritate me is when a person uses frames and links to a different site and they don’t put the target as either new (new window) or top (on top of the entire page), and the separate website opens in their main frame!

I hate it when people put a “start” page that is simply a picture that says “Click the picture to enter the site.”

Ok, so you’re on a slow server, so I waited 45 seconds for it to even SERVE me the page…now I have to wait another 45 seconds to get to the homepage because you thought the opening picture was cool? AHHHH.

I also hate sites that force you to use forward/back to get to certain menus for navigation. e.g., you’ve got 6 main sections to your site, and there are links for each section on the homepage. Then you click on one, and the navigation completely goes away…you go about 4 pages into the section, and instead of having a link to another section as part of the site navigation, you have to hit “back” 4 times. I don’t mind it so much as long as they have a “back to home” button, but if you look at every major website, they all have navigation that will transport you to any major section from any page on the site. (sub sections need not be linked on each page).

One other thing that irritates me is when people use about 15 different backgrounds with different fonts on each page, so you can never tell whether you’re on the same site, or a different one.

Frames that mean that the URL in the Address line is the homepage URL, not that of the page you’re actually on. Makes it hard to send people links to the proper place.

  • Web sites that require downloading a bunch of software to use. Given a choice between installing “Super Terrific Happy Plugin 6.0” or going somewhere else, guess which one I’ll pick? A site better be an urgent, exclusive necessity for me to download anything extra.

  • Web sites that have everything on a single page. If you have to scroll down fifty screens, split it up into separate pages.

  • Empty web pages. Why even bother putting up a web site if all you have is “Welcome to my web page” and a counter on it?

  • When you print out a web page, but the last page is completely blank except for a banner ad or something equally useless.

People that either type liKe tHiS BC iTz KeWL or people who type in 7331 bc they have 7331 hax0r s|<177z.

Although it’s funny when Jeff K. does it.

In the vein of Elwood Cuse’s post, chatspeakers. Most of the time they’re stupid, annoying, wannabe freaks. And it’s very hard to read what they’re saying if you’re used to proper English.

For the OP, I’d have to say pages that only display in Internet Explorer, or use HTML that only works in IE. Some of us use other browsers, you know! Multi-browser test your page!

Built-in MIDI’s are also annoying. If I wanted to listen to music I’d start up Winamp.

Pages that require JavaScript. I generally browse with JavaScript off to avoid pop-ups. It’s not that hard to toggle it on and off, just annoying and I shouldn’t have to do it.

Links that open in a new window only bother me in certain situations. I like it on message boards; I can click the link then continue reading the posts. On a regular page, if I’m clicking on a link I’m done with this particular page. I don’t want to continue browsing it, so they shouldn’t have the links open in a new window.