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Archive: Firefox

Why do those social bookmarking links exist?

18 August 2007 14:42

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Entertainment, Internet, Newspapers, Technology

There is a fixture of the modern web that I really don’t understand. And in terms of annoyance it is probably second only to Snap Preview.

Millions of links to social bookmarking websites littering the bottom of every news article and blog post written. You know the ones. “Digg this!” “Send to del.icio.us!” “Pimp-me-do to Reddit!”

A particularly bad example comes from one certain WordPress plugin which appends this awful mess onto every post:

I mean, just what the hell are you supposed to do with that?

It is not just blogs that do this sort of thing. Many major newspaper websites also now incorporate such links pretty much as a matter of course. Thankfully, they tend to show a bit more restraint than that WordPress plugin.

BBC News has become the latest website to add such buttons to its news stories. Thankfully, they too have kept it relatively restrained, with simple links to five of the most popular social bookmarking services.

Ryan Morrison thinks that the inclusion of the buttons is a good move from the BBC (by the way, sorry, Ryan, for nicking your screengrab! I’m not leeching off your bandwidth though, honest). But I just don’t understand why they go to that bother.

I have steadfastly refused to include such buttons on this blog. For one, the advantages of being submitted to Digg are dubious (something like having hundreds of drunk arseholes coming into your living room to violently vomit on your carpet before going away without paying the cleaning bill, never to be seen again).

But this is what I really don’t understand about these social bookmarking links. As Inquisitor points out, surely if you wanted to submit a story to del.icio.us, Digg or whatever, you would already know how to do it. If you make a habit out of Digging a site, you will surely have the relevant plugins / browser buttons installed in your browser. Why rely on the disparate approaches taken by the near-infinite number of websites on the internet when you have that trusty button in your browser?

I am a heavy user of del.icio.us. Yet I have never used one of the buttons placed on a website itself. I always use the buttons that I have installed on my browser. I am familiar with these plugins. I know exactly where to find them and what to expect when I click them.

Most major social bookmarking websites have Firefox extensions or little bookmarks that you can drag into your toolbar. The above image is a screenshot of the navigation toolbar bar in Firefox. Next to the address field are two different buttons for del.icio.us (one for my main account, the other for Scottish Roundup). Then, if I should feel like Digging a story there is a Digg button. Next to that is one for StumbleUpon. Facebook has an entire toolbar if you really want to use it.

You might say, “Okay, maybe that is how you submit stories to social bookmarking websites. But you are an awful geek. What about the rest of us?” Maybe so, but how many normal, non-geek, web users are users of social bookmarking websites? If you took the geeks off the internet, social bookmarking websites would probably not exist at all.

I would be interested to know how often the buttons used on websites like BBC News and blogs are really used. I can’t imagine they are used that much. Why would you, when you can use browser buttons that are so much more efficient?

Still, I guess the links placed on websites must work, otherwise nobody would bother with them. I have pondered installing Alex King’s “Share This” plugin. At least it quite sensibly hides the ugly smorgasbord of links before you actively ask to be shown them. But still, why would you do that when you — presumably — already have your own trusted methods of posting an item to your social bookmarking website of choice?

15 comments

I am a prude

5 April 2007 15:20

Categories: Admin, Asides, General, Internet, Technology

Actually, I’m not. But I had forgotten about CSS Naked Day, and it would be a bit silly just to take part for half of the day. Anyway, I think (hopefully) this blog works fairly well without the CSS. If you want a look at this blog naked, I know at least that in Firefox going into View > Page Style > No Style achieves pretty much the same thing.

2 comments

Sitemeter can shove their spyware up their hole

2 April 2007 23:34

Categories: Admin, Blogging, General, Internet, Technology

A question for you. Has this blog been slow to load for you over the past, say, couple of weeks? I had noticed it, but I just put it down to something loading slowly in the sidebar. These things happen from time to time and usually they get fixed eventually.

But I had also noticed big problems accessing my Sitemeter account. The results pages were extremely slow to load, and often they didn’t even load at all. I thought maybe they were just having some temporary issues. These things happen from time to time and usually they get fixed eventually.

On Saturday evening I was putting the finishing touches to Scottish Roundup. I was wondering what I should use for tracking stats. I had used Sitemeter on my blog for years, but I was tempted by StatCounter. I had used it before on an old, long-forgotten blog, and it does the job fairly well.

When I was browsing the StatCounter site, I spotted this little ‘news item’ in the top corner of the page: “StatCounter Says NO!” No to what? I was intrigued. I clicked through, and read the post.

A few months back, StatCounter was approached by an advertiser, offered lots of $$$, and asked to include a spyware cookie on all of our member sites…we refused on the spot.

…

We were shocked to discover just today that another well known stats provider is allowing up to 9 cookies to be installed in the browser of every visitor that hits one of their member websites. This means that the provider is making money by transmitting data on you and your visitors to a third party advertiser. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, the cookies are causing the member websites to load very slowly too.

Oh, a familiar story. The blog post written by StatCounter did not name the provider involved, but this was clearly what I had been experiencing recently. But I couldn’t find confirmation. Although I had an inkling that they were talking about Sitemeter, I couldn’t be certain.

I opted to give Sitemeter the benefit of the doubt. I was, after all, used to their service and it had never caused any major problems for me before. I decided to keep the Sitemeter code on my blog. But the commitment from StatCounter was encouraging, so I chose to use StatCounter for Scottish Roundup.

Today I have read this post on Troubled Diva. Well it pretty much seems as though Sitemeter has been using dodgy spyware cookies which not only invades your privacy but — to add insult to injury — also makes your web pages as slow as hell to load.

It’s funny. Sitemeter always had a funny whiff about it. The pages were ugly, and unlike most websites there didn’t seem to be much of a human voice about them. It did feel like it was being run by either robots or secretive people. That had changed when they introduced their blog, but posts on that have dried up. And the fact that they haven’t replied to any emails or made any statement about this news speaks volumes.

Mike at Troubled Diva says that the problem hasn’t affected Firefox, but I use Firefox 2.0 and I noticed the chronic slowdown. Needless to say, I removed Sitemeter from this blog immediately and I have replaced it with StatCounter.

It’s madness for Sitemeter to do this though. Users of the internet despise spyware and anybody who assists in this kind of behaviour is portrayed as the some kind of spamming e-Hitler. It’s especially bad news on the internet, where blogs and the like allow this kind of news to spread like wildfire. Sitemeter’s reputation will be irreparably tarnished, and they won’t be able to make much more dirty money again. Certainly not by using me anyway.

Eric Odom: Did Sitemeter sell out to Spyware?

6 comments

Middle click

26 October 2006 00:33

Categories: Internet, Technology

The Firefox 2 feature that seems to have got people most excited is the fact that each individual tab now has its own X button.

But come on. Why did you even use the X button anyway. Did you not realise that middle clicking on a tab closes it?

Infact, middle clicking is probably one of the greatest things about Firefox, yet nobody seems to know anything about it. Middle clicking on a link makes it open in a new tab. That’s right. Those webmasters forcing links to open in a new window or in the same tab and suck it. I have control over where my links open.

It’s so great, yet nobody else seems to do it. It’s not very well-known. I think I discovered it by accident. But I thought it was so great that I now click just about every link with the scroll wheel, even if I’m not bothered about keeping the current tab open. You know why? Because I can easily close the tab by middle clicking on it.

See how great this is? I think this is the real reason why I don’t use IE. My beloved middle clicking would be gone.

Do I get too excited about a mouse button?

Update: One thing that sucks about Firefox 2 is the spell checker. Colour is wrong. Labour is wrong. Realise is wrong. Defense is right. What sort of fucked up dictionary are these people using?! Amusingly, also wrong are ‘img’ ‘src’ and ‘jpg’. Doh! Wait a minute. ‘Doh’ is aswell! And so is aswell! I should just switch this spell checker off, shouldn’t I?

Update again: By the way, I love the fact that I can set it to subscribe to RSS feeds using Google Reader (or any other feed reader I want). Nice!

Update: Found out, via Gordon McLean, how to get rid of that Go button. I had been wondering about that! Now, does anybody know how to get rid of the search go button (with the magnifying glass)?

18 comments

Browzar on the back foot

3 September 2006 21:13

Categories: Current affairs, General, Internet, Personal, Technology

At last, BBC News have removed that effusive story about the highly dodgy Browzar software. I almost complained to the BBC about it yesterday, but luckily I didn’t need to. Today they’ve replaced it with a new, much more probing story.

It’s clear that Browzar is on the back foot now. I particularly like this bit:

Mr Ahmed said at the time of its release: “Although it’s possible to delete history folders and empty cache with existing internet browsers, the majority of internet users worldwide don’t have the time or expertise to do this.

It could hardly be simpler to delete history folders and empty your cache. In Firefox it a simple matter of going to Tools → Clear Private Data. And that’s it! As I recall, it is similarly easy to delete your history and cache even in Internet Explorer.

Yet Ajaz Ahmed thinks that people will find it easier to go out, download and install his scam IE shell? In a world where so many people still think that the only way to browse the web is through Internet Explorer? A friend recently said to me that he didn’t understand why he could need Firefox because “with Internet Explorer you just type in the address and that’s it.”

Every opportunity should be taken to warn people away from Internet Explorer, so I’ll do it right now.