Into the Woods

Remember pop-ups and how obnoxious they were? Then we all got pop-up blockers. But the war wasn’t over.

Using Javascript, the anti-social brats who code web pages came up with a new way to assert domination over us: “overlays,” also called “modal windows.”

With an overlay, a new window opens up, everything behind it turns gray, and you’re stuck until you interact with the new window. Odds are, you’re still putting up with that.

But there is a way to defeat it. If you’re using the Google Chrome web browser, check out an extension named “Auto Overlay Remover.” There may be similar extensions for other browsers, but I’ve not looked into that.

The attitude of web programmers, of course, is “This is my web site, and I’ll control what you do here.” But the attitude of the rest of us is, “This is my browser, your web site is open to the public, and no you won’t tell me what to do.”