Joshua Daniels
English 111
May 29, 2014
Pop-Ups:
Oh How We Hate Thee
There have been
many awful inventions. However only a few were created in my lifetime. For
Example, there’s the shake-weight, Peg-Pants, and Spam. TIME Magazine even made
a list including fifty terrible inventions. All of them equally annoying,
however there is one invention that affects us everyday. It will always delay
your progress and it appears in an instant. Every one of us has fallen pray to
its wrath. What was designed to catch
someone’s attention and inform him or her on a product quickly became a being
of annoyance. This is the Pop-Up Ad.
Since it’s creation it has done nothing but get in the way of Internet
users worldwide. Uninventing Pop-up Ads would put an end to the constant
interruptions online, force advertisers to create something that appealing and
attention grabbing instead of forcing the ad on its viewers, and it would put
an end to the spam and viruses when online.
Have you ever
surfed the web for something you were interested in only to be interrupted by
an ad that has nothing to do with what you’re searching? In order to remove the
Ad that popped up you have to either close the entire browser or the tab that
you were using. In the worse case scenario, the ad locks the page and every
time you click the back button you can’t escape unless you mash the back button
only to send you three pages back. Returning to the page that you were viewing
before your interruption only brings back the Ad. When this happens you loose
the page you were viewing and start over. Pop-up blockers can limit this
problem but it rarely helps.
As
a graphic designer these ads are disgusting. When they appear they do little to
get your attention. They’re bland and uninteresting. You can tell the designer
only took a few minutes to create the ad. The ads that are the most captivating
are on the top and sides of the website. These are banners. These Ads do not
pop up and the load in the page. They can be colorful or simple depending on
the designer or the advertisement agency. These ads use the information of
sites you visited to help them find ads that you will want to click. The ads
also reflect the theme or topic of the website you are on.
However
even the good ads cant fight this problem. Pop-up windows can hold viruses or
fake ads. These ads advertise something that is not real and only used to steal
money and personal information. The only way to deal with these is to close
them immediately before they grab your information. These pop-ups are very
clever. Sometimes they mimic your operating system. The trick is to always
check the URL. Use the URL to figure out if this is legitimate. In other cases,
Viruses may be stored in these pop-ups and can do a great deal of harm to your
computer. Pop-ups make take the form of you OS and say you have a virus. This
is a trick and is not the case. Downloading the product to get rid of these
fake viruses is the virus itself.
In
conclusion this invention has done more harm than good. Avoid them at all cost.
Remember when you surf the web that they’re out there. They sit and wait to
ruin you day. They annoy us and get in our way, provide advertisers with an
excuse to create awful ads, and even carry viruses. Pop-ups will not be missed
and the world is better without them.
