New Year's Rant

[HansV]

I can understand that websites include advertisements to generate income, but I increasingly come across a rather irritating advertisement:

BigButtons.png

A big green arrow pointing to a big blue Download button. I have no idea what it's for - a mouseover only reveals a GoogleAds link. This obtrusive button is often placed near to the much smaller and less noticeable download button or link that I need, so a couple of times I came near to clicking the big button by mistake...

[Hey Jude]

I hear you and have had to be ever so diligent to make sure I am not downloading something that will
end up being nothing but a curse

[viking33]

That seems to be the new sneak method to get people to download something that they really didn't want at all.
I don't remember how IE treated it but at least with FF, it gives you a choice to save or run the file and you can cancel it if it isn't what you intended. ( IF you are careful and watch it )

[HansV]

As I mentioned, I haven't actually clicked the button although I nearly did, but I assume that you'll get a choice. I'm not going to try though...

[viking33]

As I mentioned, I haven't actually clicked the button although I nearly did, but I assume that you'll get a choice. I'm not going to try though...

I'm sure that less careful people than you went ahead and hit the button without thinking twice and that's the whole idea behind the sneak!

[HansV]

Yes, I'm sure too, and I dislike that sneakiness!

[ChrisGreaves]

A big green arrow pointing to a big blue Download button.

These are part of my frustration with drivers.
So often a hit for "drivers" takes me to a page with many large blue/green arrow/buttons, and the link for the driver is in 8pt TNR font off to the lower left-hand side.
By the time I get to such a page I'm already impatient, stressed out, not thinking clearly.
It's not that I'm a sucker (OK, OK!) but that I'm worn down by the navigation so that my defenses are weakened and I'm more likely to click the biggest download button in history in desperation.

[Bigaldoc]

It IS truly unfortunate that this kind of "sneak" behavior is all over the web. You follow a link for downloading something and prominently displayed at the top of the page is a "download" button or link that is NOT what you came for. Gggrrr...

[StuartR]

My solution to this problem is to only ever download drivers from the manufacturer's web site.

Occasionally this means that I cannot migrate an old piece of hardware to an updated PC, but it really doesn't happen that often.