Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

I’ve not done a search yet, but given the number of people who have recently upgraded their WordPress installations and installed the “Snap” plugin, I can bet I am not the first but am certain I will not be the last person to say it is evil, disgusting and gross.

Geoff Arnold tried it, and I asked him:

I think the “snap” pop-up thing which happens when hovering over links on your blog, is rather horrid. Do you actually like it, or is it an experiment?

He replied:

An experiment that I liked, but that I’m not committed to. In fact I’ve just deactivated it. One reason that I added it was that this is the kind of AJAX-like thing that is appearing all over the Web […] Was it simply the presence of a (distracting) popup that you found horrid, or the particular content, or what?

Rather than amend the tense of my response, I’ll just include it here and let you read it in context:-

[Regarding the Snap Pop-Up] It struck me as intrusive and pointless. Both of those.

What *is* the point? Really?

  • I don’t care what the webpage under the link looks like,
  • I don’t need a popup with a search box (?) when I hover over a link,
  • When I hover and click to go to a link you recommend then it flashes something up which obscures what I am doing and makes me think I clicked the wrong thing,
  • It’s unclear why I should believe what “SNAPS” is telling me rather than the activity bar of my browser,
  • The popup is ugly and does not fit in with my theme,
  • and did I mention that I don’t care what a thumbnail sketch of the target webpage as seen from 15 feet away, looks like?

…and there are clones of the same idea appearing from other vendors too, some pandering to business, others to search engines and commuties.

Just say no!

ps: yes #1, yes #2, yes #3, yes #4 yes #5

I particularly like a quote from the last one: Snap.com is a company that’s set out to solve a problem that doesn’t exist…

And why the hell do i need to go begging to them to switch it off? Oh please, please, give me a cookie so I can avoid seeing you…

⊞

Comments

8 responses to “Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!”

  1. Erik Wingren
    The Snap Preview Anywhere Use Cae

    Alec,

    My name is Erik Wingren and I head up UX Research for Snap.com — the company behind the Snap Preview Anywhere™ service.

    First:: Thank you for sharing your experience. Positive or negative, your feedback help us better understand how the functionality come across. This is how we learn and develop.

    Second: Hoping that you are open to an alternative point of view, I wanted to point you to our write-up of the Snap Preview Anywhere Use Case where we reiterate Snap’s intentions and design objectives in developing SPA, acknowledge and respond to the key points in the recent criticism and outline recent usability enhancements, aimed at solving the issues raised:

    blog.snap.com/2007/02/09/spa-use-case

    Best Regards, — Erik Wingren

    Reply
  2. Jackie Danicki
    re: Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

    Eric, you and Matt are making something pretty simple into a hugely complicated matter. Let me break it down for you:

    Don’t take control of my blog and tell me that the onus is on me to put it back to the state I had it in before you started effing around with it without my permission or knowledge.

    Reply
  3. Erik Wingren
    re: Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

    @ Jackie

    It sounds like you have a wordpress.com blog. Assuming that’s the case…

    On Dec 29th WordPress enrolled 10% of their users in a trial with Snap Previews. The response was resounding positive: http://www.wordpress.com/blog/2006/12/29/snap-to-it/

    On Jan 13th Snap Previews was therefor made available to all their members. Again, the accolades seem never ending: http://www.wordpress.com/blog/2007/01/13/snap-live/

    I can certainly relate to your feeling but let’s be real — you are using a free service that is operated in a community spirit. If you don’t like the results of the popular vote, or require complete control, you would probably be better off downloading and hosting your own code…

    Reply
  4. Jackie Danicki
    re: Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

    Erik, you can say whatever you want about the seemingly neverending accolades (which I can’t really see for all the seemingly neverending complaints from customers), the point remains the one I made quite strongly in my post: Don’t take control of my blog and tell me that the onus is on me to put it back to the state I had it in before you started fucking around with it without my permission or knowledge.

    Do you think Matt agrees that his customers should fuck off if they don’t want him imposing – without permission or warning – interruptive and intrusive ‘features’ on their blogs? Do you think Matt agrees that it’s unrealistic for WordPress.com customers to expect control over how their site looks, without interference from his team? I’ll have to email him and ask. If so, I can say with certainty that I will yank my clients off his platform without hesitation.

    Here’s the point: This bug was forced on WordPress.com users, whether they liked it or not, in clear violation of the spirit into which people like me became WordPress customers (and generated further business for Automattic by getting our clients onto WordPress products – not forgetting that the *basic* WordPress.com service is free, but things like custom CSS cost money). THAT is the point, and it’s one that Matt Mullenweg ultimately has to answer for, not you. Save your insistences of how great your product is for someone who is interested.

    Reply
  5. Neil
    re: Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

    Agreed theya re evil and must die.

    I have just come across a blog using this useless tripe. It makes the user experience so awfull and interrupts the normal use of the page. Why on earth would you want a pop-up micro thumbnail preview of the page. It blocks what you want to see, gets in the way, causes confusion, causes missed clicks. Aghhhh.

    And the settings/disable box – 1. 1 second is the longest delay! 2. it doesn’t seem to wait 1 second. 3. Disable does not appear to work

    And, agreed, why do I have to maintain a cookie to hide this useless pile of *****.

    Reply
  6. Quinctia
    re: Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

    Switch to firefox or seamonkey, download the adblock extension, add spa.snap.com/snap_preview_anywhere.js to your filters, and never look at their bullshit again.

    Reply
  7. ander
    re: Snap.COM is EVIL and must DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

    When the snap.com pop-ups started appearing in my browser, I thought I’d been hijacked. What an annoying and unnecessary “feature” to spring on people. No thanks.

    Reply
  8. Joe Blow

    Tell us how to get rid of this giant pain in the but. Don’t recall every giving permission for that because I use Dogpile and am quite happy with the result. I have four different programs that screen and block for malware as well as viruses and spyware all work quite nicely together. This one seems to have snuck right passed them

    Reply

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