"The Evolution of Annoyance"

Remember when you could surf the internet without pop-ups, viruses, and spyware popping up on every page you visited? Remember when you could check your email without having to sift through hundreds of spam every time? Do you, in fact, remember when using the internet wasn't something which annoyed you?

Back when I first started frequenting the internet, about the only pages you got pop-ups on were the porn sites (don't ask me how I know this). Gradually, other sites began including them, 'cause there was money in it. Then they started coming up with the pop-unders, which are even more annoying because you can't just kill 'em as they come up. No, you have to fiddle with crap on the taskbar to get to those windows, then you can get rid of them.

Then we got this damn spyware. I don't know who thought that would be a good idea, but it pisses me off. And the damn stuff with hijacking one's browser and redirecting it to a different page, or setting your home page as something other than what you wanted it at...it pisses me off.

The point is, it's getting to where surfing the internet is more of an annoyance and a nuisance than something fun anymore. Email's becoming more hazardous with not only spam, but viruses which masquerade as emails from other people; that can duplicate other people's email addresses and trick you into thinking it's actually something from someone you know. You can't actually trust anything or anyone anymore, and that's sad. Even telephones, with their telemarketers and bizzare long distance plans, never had it this bad.

It's really almost as bad as the fact that you have commercials--not previews, freakin' commercials--before movies at the theatre anymore. I mean, what the hell? I went to a movie so I could see the movie without commercials! And I swear, the worst one is that Fanta commercial. If I ever meet the people who were in or who made that cursed piece of garbage, no one will ever find the bodies...

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: David Gray, "Magdalene"