Quirky things you hate about popular websites/software

[beren]

New York Times - I HATE how NYT pops up a dictionary whenever you click on a word on their articles.

Gmail - Gmail is a great service, so I feel a bit ungrateful complaining. But there are two things I'd like to see. First, it would be great if we can click on links in Gmail and have them open up into a new tab. Maybe this is impossible with the Ajax technology, but it sure would be nice.

Second, I would like to create templates for regular emails I send out all the time.

Firefox - It would be great if Firefox can allow you to switch easily between user profiles.

Digg - This site is getting slower and slower. It takes a long time to submit an article.

[amandajane]

Originally Posted by beren

New York Times - I HATE how NYT pops up a dictionary whenever you click on a word on their articles.

So do I! a similar thing happens on wordpress blogs, unless you 'turn it off'. It's not a dictionary but a preview of the page linked. It annoys me so I have turned it off. I'd be interested in seeing what other people think though!

[rstlne]

Originally Posted by amandajane

So do I! a similar thing happens on wordpress blogs, unless you 'turn it off'. It's not a dictionary but a preview of the page linked. It annoys me so I have turned it off. I'd be interested in seeing what other people think though!

If it is a Snap Preview, there is a way to turn it off everywhere:
Annoyances: Disable Snap Previews on web sites

[amandajane]

Thanks! I have adblock plus for firefox but still find these irritating previews in some places :0)

[beren]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one Amanda! I was beginning to feel like a freak.

[Cziki]

Originally Posted by beren

New York Times - I HATE how NYT pops up a dictionary whenever you click on a word on their articles.

That's weird -- I visit NYtimes.com almost daily and I've never experienced that.

The quirky things i hate about some sites is that they don't work on Firefox, so I have to use IE for them, like video content from the NBC site or http://www.catalogchoice.org.

[Megan]

I can't stand full-page ads, the ones where your page loads, and then all of a sudden you get a full page ad, and can click through to the site you were trying to get to.

I realize that it's these types of ads that allow the sites I visit to be free, but it's still annoying.

[alex]

Originally Posted by beren

Gmail - Gmail is a great service, so I feel a bit ungrateful complaining. But there are two things I'd like to see. First, it would be great if we can click on links in Gmail and have them open up into a new tab. Maybe this is impossible with the Ajax technology, but it sure would be nice.

Second, I would like to create templates for regular emails I send out all the time.

Left-clicking on links in Gmail open new tabs for me. Middle-click too. Is your complaint that it opens them in the same tab or a new window?

I use Tab Mix Plus and turned on the option to force links that want a new window to open in a tab instead.

If you have a standard template for all email you send, you can save it in the Signature setting. Then, when you start a new email, you can just fill in the blanks.

And there's one more solution described at the Gmail board:

You can't directly use or set templates to use in GMail, but you may
use a workaround.

1. Compose a new message which you would like to use as a template
message (preferably in RichText mode, so as to keep the line-length
formatting constant) and send it to yourself at this same account. You
may also enter one-two descriptive words in the body of the message
describing the subject of the template, so that it is viewed as a
'snippet'.

2. You may create a label '.Template' (the '.' is there to keep it near
the top of your labels' list) for this and other such subsequent
template messages.

3. When you would like to use one of these 'saved' templates, just
select it from the label .Template, and then 'forward' it to the
recipient(s), after the necessary modifications and editing. To avoid
that 'quoted text' left-hand bar in the message, you may once 'remove
all formatting' and get back to rich-text mode.

[alex]

And my complaint is sites that start playing music automatically. Worse, the ones where you can't find the "mute" button. I often already have music or a movie playing when I'm surfing.

[Ronni]

Originally Posted by alex

And my complaint is sites that start playing music automatically. Worse, the ones where you can't find the "mute" button. I often already have music or a movie playing when I'm surfing.

And this is why I rarely surf MySpace anymore. Well, one reason anyway....