ISFJ | He/Him | Posts random things | i do not put tags on most of the art/comics that i fast reblog, be careful and stay safe, people of the internet | Views expressed are solely my own
"it would be so good if it was good" will haunt you but "it's extremely good, except for the one or two parts which are so bad it's genuinely kind of insulting" will straight up drive you insane
one has you making posts like "okay but if the author UNDERSTOOD the POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of the story they were telling, and leaned into it, it would actually be a really interesting exploration of..."
the other has you pacing your bedroom at one in the morning going "why. why would you ever in a million years do it like that. genuinely what possible thought process was involved. was the writer possessed by a fucking ghost or something."
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Hey, UK folks! Waterstones is having a 3-day pre-order sale that includes the UK paperback of Enshittification (which drops on Sept 1). Use SUMMER26 to get 25% off.
One of 2026's better tech-related coinages is "dickover," John Gruber's term for
a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user with an unwanted, unnecessary, mandatory interaction; e.g. asking the user to accept “cookies”, subscribe to a newsletter, install the website’s mobile app, agree to terms of service, or anything else that the user couldn’t give two shits about.
These are bad everywhere, but they are especially terrible in the UK and EU, where websites practice a form of malicious compliance to the GDPR, Europe's landmark privacy law. Under the GDPR, websites are required to secure your affirmative consent to process your data. The obvious way that websites should respond to this is by not collecting your data unless there's a damned good reason for it, but the actual response is to repeatedly shove cookie-consent dialogs in your face before letting you use the site.
These are absolutely unnecessary. Your browser can be configured to transmit a "global privacy control signal" by default that tells websites you don't consent to be spied on while you look at their pages:
But many websites punish you by throwing up a "Global Privacy Control detected" dickover that forces you to click through to affirm their confirmation of your confirmation that you don't want to be spied on.
If you don't have the GPC set, websites will demand that you tell them whether you want to be spied on – and they'll do it again, every time you visit them. The website operators falsely claim that they have to do this under the terms of the GDPR (or other laws, like California's CCPA). This is a lie. Every privacy law contains an exception that allows websites to store data about you for a "legitimate interest," and that obviously includes setting a cookie that says, "don't ever spy on this user."
What's a legit interest? Well, I can tell you what it isn't. Facebook claimed that they had to spy on you, even if you opted out by laboriously clicking through one of their dickovers or by transmitting a GPC signal to their servers, because you had also clicked through their terms of service, which say, "Facebook is going to spy on you with every hour that god sends, from asshole to appetite, abandon hope all ye who enter here" (a direct quote). Facebook claims that this is a contract with you, whereby the company has promised to spy on you, and if they stop, they would be violating the contract, which might make you mad, so they are legally required to eavesdrop on every conversation you have and follow you everywhere you go:
This is bullshit, and the European Court of Justice affirmed it. But despite the fact that surveillance advertising companies are happy to stretch the definition of "legitimate interest" to cover "spying on you because our ToS say we will," these same companies insist that "legitimate purpose" can't possibly include "remembering the fact that you told us not to spy on you the last time you were here," and so every time you click through to one of many popular websites, you get a dickover, and the only way to make it stop is to "consent" to being spied upon.
But it doesn't have to be this way. While the right answer to this kind of rampant lawlessness is stonking fines and even the corporate death penalty for repeat offenders, internet users have a myriad of options available to them for banishing dickovers to the scrapheap of history. These measures aren't difficult to avail yourself of, and using them will make your life infinitely better, so I'm going to tell you about some of them.
Before I start, one note: these measures only work on browsers, not apps. An app is a webpage wrapped in the right kind of IP law to make it a felony to change how it works, which is why companies are infinitely horny to get you to use their apps, not their websites:
What's more, these measures really only work on desktop browsers, because mobile browsers are apps, and are severely limited by law and mobile operating systems, making it hard-to-impossible to customize them so that they'll respect your rights. This is true of all mobile browsers, but it goes triple for iOS (iPhones and iPads):
Finally, this mostly only works on Firefox, and it works worst on Chrome, Google's monopolistic browser. When it comes to customizing your browsing experience to get rid of annoyances like dickovers and ads, Chrome is hands-down the worst choice, and Google is about to make it much, much worse, forcing a change that will kill the most popular blockers. Stop using Chrome, switch to Firefox:
So, once you're on your actual computer, using Firefox, how can you disenshittify your internet experience? The first thing to familiarize yourself with is Reader Mode, a built-in Firefox feature that switches any webpage to a black type/white background column of text. Just click the little "page view" icon next to the Firefox location bar or use the key combo "ctrl-alt-r."
Some power tips for Reader Mode: Firefox tries to guess whether a given page should have a Reader Mode option based on its layout. This sometimes blocks Reader Mode on pages that badly need it. You can force Firefox to always allow you to try Reader Mode by going to "about:config" in your location bar, then searching for "reader.parse-on-load.force-enabled" and toggling it to "true". If you switch to Reader Mode and the page breaks, you can switch back by hitting ctrl-alt-r again.
Many websites' "soft paywalls" (which allow you to read an article or two before getting a demand to register and/or pay) can be defeated with Reader Mode. Just hit ctrl-alt-r and see if the whole article appears. If it doesn't, try one or both of: a) reloading the page while still in Reader Mode, and/or; b) Clearing cookies for the page (click the shield next to the site's URL in Firefox's location bar, then click "Clear cookies and site data"), and then reload.
That's Reader Mode, and it comes built into Firefox, and can be installed via various extensions on other browsers. Now let's move on to more advanced techniques, starting with "Kill Sticky," a bookmarklet that deletes any "static" elements in a web-page you've loaded (broadly, this is anything that won't change position when you scroll your browser).
Just click the "Kill Sticky" bookmarklet and all the static elements in the current tab go away. This includes things like navigation bars, which are often (but not always) useless annoyances. The original Kill Sticky, created by Alisdair McDiarmid, is 13 years old, and it still works great, but eight years ago, gala8y created a new version that caught some outliers that the original Kill Sticky missed. I've been running gala8y's version for a year now with no problems, and I recommend it as your second line of dickover defense (after Reader Mode):
https://github.com/gala8y/kill-sticky–forked
Kill Sticky is great for getting rid of the dickovers on a website you're not planning to visit more than once. But if you visit a dickover website regularly, you can permanently block its dickovers by using the Adblock Plus (ABP) browser extension:
https://adblockplus.org/
Once you have Adblock Plus installed, you can instruct your browser never to render a given website's dickover. Just load the website, hover your pointer over the dickover, and click your right mouse-button (Mac users need to ctrl-click). This will pop up a Firefox context menu, and at the bottom of that menu is "Block Element…".
Select "Block Element," then move your mouse around the screen. Different regions of the screen will glow pink, showing you which element (part of the page) ABP can access there. Once you've highlighted the dickover, click the "Preview" button on the ABP dialog in the bottom right corner. This will show you how the page looks after you've banished that element.
If it's an element you want to delete forever, click "Create" and ABP will create a new rule for that page that blocks that element. Note that many dickovers consist of several elements, each atop the other, and after you block one element, you might have to repeat the process to delete the element "behind" it, digging your way down to the actual webpage. Each element you block is listed in the top pane of the ABP dialog box. For example, here's Wired.com's UK dickover:
If you block an element by accident and want to restore it, just delete its corresponding line in the Block Element dialog. When websites change their layouts and their dickovers come back, just add the new one to the Block Element for that page. No need to delete the old entries.
Finally, if all else fails, there's Remove Paywall, a website that tries several different ways to load a page without its interrupters, nag screens, regwalls and paywalls:
https://www.removepaywall.com/
It's also available as a browser plugin, so you can just right-click on any page and select "Remove Paywall" from the pop-up menu. Remove Paywall often loads a page with all of its dickovers, and you can use all the techniques enumerated above – Reader Mode, Kill Sticky and Block Element – with Remove Paywall versions of pages.
Back in 2024, Ed Zitron tried an experiment: he bought Amazon's bestselling laptop and tried to use it, discovering it to be a horror-show of shovelware, including processor-devouring preinstalled spyware that rendered it all but unusable:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/
Zitron's (excellent) point is that technically proficient people have better computers than most users, and these computers are configured in better ways, and as a result, we participate in a fundamentally different internet to the one that normies are forced to use.
It's an excellent observation, and Zitron's point – that these laptops were actively enshittified by hardware makers and OS vendors – is an important one (the essay is called "Never Forgive Them").
But to this point, I would like to add another: we have a duty and obligation to the people we love to show them how to seize the means of computation. The normies in your life need the tips and tricks I lay out in this article more than anyone. Sure, it takes some doing to install Firefox, Kill Sticky, Adblock Plus and Bypass Paywalls; it takes a minute to figure out Reader Mode.
But if you install these tools for the people you love and show them how to use them (or just reconfigure the sites they visit most frequently to block dickovers and other annoyances), you will permanently improve their internet experience, clawing back hours of annoyances every week, while also protecting their privacy.
Anyone who is confused by switching to Firefox is also going to be confused by the deceptive language and practices that go along with dickovers. By leaving your unsophisticated loved ones exposed to dickovers, you're not decreasing the amount of technological confusion they're likely to experience in a day – you're vastly increasing the amount of danger they face as a result of that confusion.
There's never been a better time to disenshittify your cherished normies' computers. The AI companies' illegal monopolization of the memory market has sent the price of new computers, RAM and storage skyrocketing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BORRBce5TGw
All of us – but especially normies – are having to do more with less. The best way to squeeze extra performance out of any computer (but especially an aged and underpowered computer) is by switching to a free/open operating system like GNU/Linux and replacing your proprietary, resource-gobbling apps with free/open alternatives:
Seizing the means of computation isn't theft, it's bargaining. Commercial surveillance companies will tell you that by spying on you, they are simply engaged in a marketplace exchange in which you swap your privacy for access to online services. But they are running a very curious sort of market: it's a "market" where as soon as you stop to browse someone's wares, the stallholder gets to reach into your pocket and clean out your wallet. In "markets," prices are announced and bargained over, not set unilaterally and extracted from anyone unwise enough to cross the threshold.
Adblocking, dickover blocking and other customizations are a way for you to bargain back, to answer the opening bid of "How about you give me all of your data forever and let me do anything I want with it?" with "How about 'nah?'"
Dickovers are companies' illegal response to privacy laws. Privacy laws are the public response to companies' out-of-control data theft and weaponization. They call us thieves, but they're the ones who embarked upon a generation-long campaign of unrestricted data plunder. What they call "theft" is just self-defense.
A generation ago, publishers and advertisers fell in love with pop-up ads. Early pop-ups were virulent in ways that are hardly imaginable today: visiting a website summoned dozens of pop-ups, some of them employing dirty tricks like spawning as an invisible 1×1 pixel, or running away from your cursor when you tried to close them. They auto-played sound and music. They were Satanic.
We got rid of pop-ups by installing pop-up blockers. Browser vendors (starting with Opera, then Mozilla) blocked pop-ups by default. Soon, pop-ups simply ceased to exist for the majority of internet users, and at that point, the same companies who'd insisted that they would go out of business unless they could fill your screen with pop-ups quietly gave up on them and found another way to advertise.
No one should ever have to look at another dickover. If dickovers become invisible for everyone on the web, there won't be any dickovers. Companies claim they need dickovers to survive. It's bullshit. They want dickovers, but if dickovers cease to be rendered on their target audience's screens, they'll switch to less invasive tactics, just like they've always done.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Yeah man, this wizard sleepover is cozy. I just saw a guy gently clap his hands together and say "hot beverage conjuration" or something, and suddenly everyone was holding a perfect mug of their favorite warm drink in their hands. Nobody who was already sleeping even woke up, that's how cozy it is. I'm over here casting pillow and level 2 pyjamas. I think I just heard "power word: blanket fort" two groups over. I gotta get in there.
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“And if you’ll give me 40% of the MOST POPULAR VOTE, I’ll give you my SPECIAL REWARD... A year’s supply of NON-GLOOBY SLIME!!! Never or BARELY used!!!” Tenna concluded his speech with a huge smile, jetting his hands up in double peace signs.
The crowd roared in confused enthusiasm as Tenna gave a gracious flurry of low-FPS bows, pausing only for the occasional stink-nose at his audience plants who weren’t throwing enough 3D roses.
Eventually, the room fell silent. It was Senshi’s turn to speak.
He puffed out his chest, took a long, sweeping look over the audience… and shook his head.
“I can see not all of you are eating properly.”
The crowd murmured with embarrassment.
“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s time to take the turkey out of your icebox. I have seen the ingenious technology with which your people store food... and I have also seen the waste which results from such convenience.
“The food you take had a life. Beasts grew fat on the grass of the field, plants grew from the sun’s rays, and mushrooms grew from minerals in the cracks of caves. And yet, it sits in your iceboxes, collecting moisture until it perishes.
“Eat what is given to you. Because its life will make you stronger, too.”
Without another word, Senshi left his podium and stepped away from the stage. The crowd murmured in confusion. “Is he really like that?” somebody said. “I only remember reblogging the photosets of him tripping and showing ass.”
--
Back in the Green Room, Tenna wrung his antennas nervously.
“Y-y-you think they liked me!? They HAD to!! I mean, I don’t know what Asgore was thinking, getting that weird haircut and running that food waste campaign, but… YOU thought I did good, didn’t you, Kris?”
Laios nodded aggressively, a streak of blue face paint peeling from his forehead.
“You did AMAZING, Tenna! By the way, now that we’ve seen all your insider campaign secrets, do you have any more videos of Susie? Especially her tail... If I could get a look at that, I could finally tell if she’s a dinosaur or --”
THWACK. Fake antlers butted Laios’s head.
“LAIOS?? Weren’t we dressed up to help SENSHI???” Marcille hissed, gesturing awkwardly with her hooves.
Suddenly, Tenna turned to the two adventurers.
“Hey, WAIT a second. SOMETHING’s not right here...”
Laios and Marcille held their breath.
“Where the heck are my POINTS!?”
Just then, the door opened. Chilchuck took one step into the room, whistling and holding a large bag.
Everyone turned to him.
Chilchuck paused, took a step backwards, and closed the door.
“CHILCHUCK!!!” yelled Tenna.
“How come Chilchuck got to stay Chilchuck!?” yelled Marcille at the same time.
--
Meanwhile, in outer space somewhere, some guy was making out with a rock.
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Nomiani decides to go northwest, higher up. Some bits of metal and other odd ends are scattered around. There's a gentler slope back in the direction they came from, and a steeper one that seems to lead to the very bottom of the ravine.
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the mage keeps giving smug glances in the direction they assume a camera is in. the fighter keeps getting indignant about missing attacks because of "bad dice rolls." the rogue is doubtful that a villain is gone for good because "nobody ever stays dead in comics." the paladin attributes fortune to "good rng." none of them have even considered that "tumblr post" was an option
“I have something important to tell you but can’t message u pls message me ” - accidentally reported you scam
“I love your story and want to illustrate it dm me at discord” - commissioner scam
“I saw your post looking for artists to draw (x) and would love to draw it it sounds like a lovely idea and im an artist” - commissioner scammer who DM’d you when you didn’t ask
“Did you send me this link for free tumblr premium?” - accidentally reported you scam
“ your account is limited please kindly verify at (scam link)” - verification scam
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so. i just learned that my entirely me-written resume flags as being AI-written by automated HR systems for a few writing quirks and the fact that i followed all the rules of good resume writing, which is apparently a telltale sign of AI use in this fucking hellworld. i've been desperately applying to jobs that i am massively overqualified for for months with no response, not even an interview, and now i find out that at least part of the reason is because some fucking moron decided that following the rules every career advisor has given me for a decade means i cheated and should be disqualified. the ai bubble cannot pop soon enough. what the actual fuck.
"frequent use of action-result sentences. bullet points all start with action verbs. no career gaps." girl what the fuck are you talking about. that's just resume writing advice being followed. i just did what i was told. it's a fucking resume. you're supposed to do all that stuff. what the fuck do you mean it looks ai generated and wouldn't pass basic detection systems?????????? for following the resume writing rules????????????
