Argot Navis

The pop-up ad is one of the ancient institutions of the internet. Sure, everyone hates them, but they've been around for so long that they've just become a sort of fact of life. Firefox's generally adequate pop-up blocker takes care of most of them for me, but they do occasionally slip by, usually while I'm at my most productive.

But let's shift gears just for a second. People more technically minded than myself are probably already well-aware of the wonderful onbeforeunload event. For those who are not, what this does is, essentially, pop-up a message saying, “Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?” whenever you try to, well, navigate away from or close the page. This type of behavior can be quite useful. If you are filling out some important/long form, and accidentally close the tab it's in, having it ask you if you're sure you want to close it is nice.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. Today I was treated to a pop-up ad offering both a free love tester service and, somewhat amusingly, the Yahoo! Toolbar, a product designed to block pop-up ads. I suppose advertising with pop-up ads does reach out to their target demographic. Anyway, as I attempted to close this window, I received a message saying, “Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?” It just goes to show you, anything that can be used to annoy people on the internet, will be used to do so. I guess it's some sort of take on Murphy's law. I can't wait until they start putting custom messages in: “Are you sure you want to close that? Fine, but remember, you could have won a Porsche!“