Blocking Website Stupidity

If you’re someone who cleans up after your mess (i.e., you clear your browser cookies) then you’ll run into these irritating messages every time you visit a site and they’ve forgotten that they nagged you (because they don’t actually remember anything – they make your browser remember things for them, in cookies, and you can remove those memories any time you choose … like, when you shut down your browser). These messages would look like the huge waste of space banner, shown here taking up most of the page:

I hate these. They do not add anything, and they make you decide something you’d rather not decide. When I visit a page, I’m trying to read something, and I do not expect to be challenged to evaluate their privacy policy. Sites bank on this – they’re betting that you’ll just say OK and move on, without really considering what you’re agreeing to. Well, there’s a way around it (and it’s good to do anyway, honestly): install uBlock Origin and learn to use the wee eyedropper tool to select the garbage you never want to see again. I click the little shield in the top right of the window, then click the eyedropper, then click on the offensive piece of the page. I then work my way down the list of elements until I get the container that’s holding the garbage (in this case it’s a site-message container) and then simply tell it to go away.

It’s easy to do, takes fewer mental resources than looking at whatever idiotic policy they’re trying to get you to agree to, and it will persist even after you clear your cookies.

You do clear your cookies, right?

-D

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