endrift 🏳️‍⚧️

I'm old enough that I remember pop-up ads and pop-up blockers. Pop-up blockers weren't controversial and were seen as necessary to combat the scourge of malicious advertisers. As a consequence, browses gained pop-up blocking by default and pop-up ads died out.

Chrome didn't exist yet.

Aug 1, 2023 at 9:15pmWeb
Show threadWilliam D. JonesAug 1, 2023
@endrift Pop ups were HORRIFIC pre-social media days (2004 and earlier).
Show threadSven PeterAug 1, 2023
@endrift ugh.. I also remember that those ads eventually had JavaScript in them to hide *behind* the browser window so that you’d only see them once you closed the main window.
Show threadGlitch (over count 1999)Aug 1, 2023
@endrift still don't get why Firefox doesn't just ship with an adblock selector in the onboarding experience.

It'd get them so much userbase back in an instant. (Forget Chrome ever doing something like that lol.)
Show threadit's B! Cavello 🐝Aug 2, 2023
@endrift Now, popups are just built into the pages themselves 😿
Show threadJessAug 2, 2023
@endrift honestly I miss those pop up ads... Obnoxious but it reminds me of "simpler" internet times.
Show threadJustin PinkneyAug 2, 2023
@endrift isn't the modern internet just one giant popup ad we have been unable to close?
Show threadhttp Aug 2, 2023
@endrift And nowadays we have <div>
Show threadMOVINGAug 3, 2023
@endrift Yeah. I remember that too. They were and always will be the most suspicious shit ever.
Show threadSteven Saus [he/him]Aug 3, 2023

@endrift

/me creaks in dial-up

Browsers! Heh! Back in my day we had BBSes, and we liked it!  

Show threadendrift 🏳️‍⚧️Aug 3, 2023
@StevenSaus sorry, I'm only old enough that my first modem was 14.4 kbps, but also I was 6 and on my parents' AOL subscription.
Show threadGiuseppe AcetoAug 4, 2023

@StevenSaus @endrift then, old-timers colleagues, despair not!
protocol programmers and writers have been working on a saner web and created Gemini https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

(and lemmy and other federated web content distribution systems).

paraphrasing William Gibson, "a better web is already here. It's just not evenly distributed"

Project Gemini

Show threadSerena is moving to @[email protected]Aug 3, 2023
@endrift Me dealing with pop ups being blocked constantly a few hours ago trying to use the onion for the pirate bay because the clearnet domain was timing out
Show threadMark GardnerAug 3, 2023

@endrift @rrwo Folks now don’t appreciate that those pop-ups spawned entirely new browser windows and most browsers didn’t sequester them into tabs in the same window.

When JavaScript learned how to manipulate the elements of the HTML page delivering it and HTML learned how to layer elements on top of each other, we got the modern “pop-up” experience of everything in the same window that’s harder to differentiate from legitimate “web app” behavior.

Show threadJokkeAug 3, 2023
@endrift @claudius @Vivaldi has built in ad blocking and tracking protection, just saying. 🙃
Show threadTheAnymouseProphetAug 3, 2023
@endrift
And then they invented HTML5 and CSS features to do the same thing inside the document.
Show threadHey GusAug 5, 2023

@endrift

> chrome didn’t exist

> advertising conglomerates hadn’t yet figured out how to monetize a primary desktop application transparently and dominate the market

FTFY