Ask HN: How can we see "content" again on webpages?

2 points by krausejj 6 years ago | 4 comments

The internet looks so bad right now: most sites I visit have massive warnings asking me if I accept their cookie policies, and many at the same time have an on-page chat widget which creepily knows my email domain and makes noises. Then, I start scrolling and popups appear asking if I'll allow notifications.

It's awful. I can't see the content anymore.

Is there a way to fix this? Ideally, my browser would have settings that tell all websites that:

1) Cookies are fine. Don't ruin your site with popups asking me about it.

2) On-page chat is NOT fine. I don't want to talk to a human, and I especially don't want to talk to a bot.

3) I never want to be prompted to enable notifications on any website, unless I configure them manually.

Maybe there is a way browsers could pass these preferences to all websites... something like standardized "omni-cookies" that apply across all domains? Or use headers?

Does an effort like this exist? Someone needs to fix this!

luckylion 6 years ago |

> Maybe there is a way browsers could pass these preferences to all websites... something like standardized "omni-cookies" that apply across all domains? Or use headers?

You appear to be thinking that these websites care about what you want. They do not. They care about what they want you to do, and that is buy whatever they are selling, and they will use whatever technology and dark pattern is available to increase the likelihood of you buying.

It's not that they aren't aware that people don't want to be annoyed. They are. You don't need a new technology to tell them. They just don't care about what you want. Similarly, telemarketers aren't sitting in their conference rooms trying to figure out which citizens don't want to be cold-called and scammed into a contract.

You can solve this on an individual level: I don't care about cookies is a browser plugin that takes care of the cookie bars for you. Adblockers and Privacy-Plugins are great at blocking the domains of LiveChat-services and your browser lets you control your notification settings.

krausejj 6 years ago | |

Good point

Nextgrid 6 years ago |

> browsers could pass these preferences to all websites [...] Or use headers?

This is what Do Not Track was supposed to be, and the stalking & advertising industry didn't care.

Lex-2008 6 years ago |

To disable notifications requests, you can just disable notifications in your browser settings. For Chrome, go to Settings -> Site settings -> Notifications -> set to "Blocked".