Annoying things on the internet - Parts 1, 2 & 3.

 
#1 Passwords
 
Why do some sites insist that certain criteria have to be met when choosing your password?

I use a lot of passwords, ranging from 14 characters up to 20-odd characters. To save me writing any of my passwords down, or having to remember each and every one, they are all based on certain basic 'roots', with a number of easily remembered variations on each.
 
Generally speaking, the more sensitive the site, the more complex and lengthy the password base I start from. I have easy to remember formulae for each site's password so I can quickly enter the correct one for each site.
 
So I find it so annoying when a website decides that I must have certain characters (e.g. upper case/special character/numbers) in the password I'm going to use there.
 
I appreciate the reasoning behind this, in that the longer and more varied your password, the harder it should be to crack.
 
But from a security angle, it simply doesn't work for me, as 90-odd per cent of the time, when I try to sign back in to some of these websites, I can't remember the password as I didn't set it up using my system. In these cases, I have to get them to resend the password to me, or send me details on how to reset it. And I'll guarantee that the very next time I try to sign in , I'll have to go through the whole ridiculous procedure again.
 
And don't get me started on sites that don't let you use a previous password when resetting
 
 
 
#2 Newsletter Duplication
 
Why on earth, when, for example, one is redeeming a voucher, or maybe entering a competition online, do you often have to sign up to their newsletter to finalise whatever you're doing. And, even worse, why do some of them even do this surreptitiously without giving you an option to opt out at this stage.
 
And, if that's not bad enough, why can't they at least use software that's sophisticated enough to recognise that you may have actually already given them your email before
 
Here's an example from yesterday, where I've received duplicate email notifications from two site where I've had to supply my email more than once for whatever reason.
 

 
 
 
#3 'Free' trials, products, offers and services that automatically start charging you unless you remember to cancel
 
I tend to steer clear of any 'free' stuff that requires handing over payment details for obvious reasons. But one has to tread carefully if a site you (obviously) trust already has your payment details...
 
I'm thinking here of Amazon. I recently signed up for a free month of their "Amazon Prime" service, and then realised that, unless I actually notified them that I wished to cancel after this month, they were going to automatically take a year's subscription fee of £79.
 

 
I know they make it fairly clear when you sign up that this is going to happen, although having said that, there have been a lot of cases of people being 'surprised' by a £79 debit appearing on their accounts. I would have thought that their automatic charging of the subscription payment unless one opts out should not be the default policy.

 
+3! 

Dang. I thought for sure I'd make the top three. 

jamesg1213
All of the above. 'Does my head in' as the kids would say.
 
Took me a good 20 mins of farting around yesterday to get onto my financial advisers client webpage, only to find that apparently my portfolio currently stands at £0.00.
 

Time to get a new adviser I'd say! 

Don't say that too loudly or they'll take those too!
 
(Probably what you get for using The Bouy, LTD., roight?)

 
 
I forgot to mention Yahoo Mail - what a pain in the proverbial that is of late 
 
Specifically, whoever thought it was a good idea to display an advertisement at the top of your Inbox, made to look deliberately like just another email, should be pegged out in the desert and left for the vultures.
 

Adblock Plus does a reasonable job of keeping this ruddy annoyance at bay, but Yahoo soon catches up and the ads start reappearing.
 
I keep threatening to move over permanently to one of my other emails (Gmail, Hotmail etc) but I really can't be arsed to have to faff about changing my details everywhere.
 
Arrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh

SteveStrummerUK
 
 
I forgot to mention Yahoo Mail - what a pain in the proverbial that is of late 
 
Specifically, whoever thought it was a good idea to display an advertisement at the top of your Inbox, made to look deliberately like just another email, should be pegged out in the desert and left for the vultures.
 

Adblock Plus does a reasonable job of keeping this ruddy annoyance at bay, but Yahoo soon catches up and the ads start reappearing.

You can add the following to the user styles for that site in your browser:
 
.mb {
font-size: 1pt !important;
}

UbiquitousBubba
I've got a full bag of Purina Peeve Chow, so I'll feed the current pack of pets. While they feast, I'll point out a few of the extra special ones.
 

1. E.T. Forms - These are those lovely forms that have to phone home to submit your entry every single time you click on another field. Shut up. Wait until I finish filling in the rest of the info before you call the mother ship. 
2. Wild Geese - I can't stand pages that make me click link after link to chase down information. Either provide a link to the information you say you're providing, or just admit that your site serves no purpose whatsoever. 
3. Illiterate Sites - I understand that some people prefer to watch videos to learn how to do something, but would it kill you to also write the info down so someone can just scan through it without wasting time watching your stupid videos? If so, would it finish you off quickly, or would you still have time to finish writing the steps and posting them where someone with at least a 2nd grade education can read it?
4. Facebook BFF - You like Facebook. I get it. You like it a lot. You two are BFFs. Sometimes, you even call Facebook your BAE (English slang definition, not Danish, although that also fits). Just because you wuv Facebook so very very much, does not mean that I want to sign into to your site with my Facebook credentials and have you update my Facebook page on my behalf. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Facebook is just not that into you. I'm sorry. 
5. Captcha - Guess whatcha? Robots aren't bothering with your site. They have better things to do. Contrary to popular opinion, Robots aren't trying to take over the world. They're trying to get away from us. That's how you know they're intelligent. If you want me to type in a stupid phrase to prove I'm human, at least make it something a human can read. 
6. Fake Download - When you offer a link to download your product, don't download something else instead. Give me the thing you said you were going to give me. You see, putting 35 download links on your page for other things I don't want and hiding the one thing I do want in the middle does not increase my appreciation for your product. In addition, when you list the name of the item I want next to a download link, and it's really a link for another product, that's bad. Try assuming that the people who would use your product have the ability to read. If necessary, learn to do so yourself. 
7. Survey Says... - When I visit your site, don't block my view of the page with your idiotic plea for me to complete a satisfaction survey. You won't like the answers I'll give. If you would like for me to complete a survey, place a link to it on your page along with your request. If I feel like filling it out, I will. If you want to get more visitors to your site, stop driving them away. 
8. Caffeinated Site - Hold still. When stuff is jumping around all over your page, it's hard to click on things. Stop popping up, windowing, morphing, animating, and flashing. Unless you're trying to trigger somebody's seizure, knock it off. I know you like a page that jumps out a screams at visitors. No one else does. Shut up. Just hold still and wait. Provide information and draw me in instead of trying to shove everything at me at once. 
9. Spam, Spam, Spam, & Spam - Okay. You tricked me into creating a user id on your stupid site. That doesn't mean that I want to receive email from you. As a matter of fact, no one ever wants to hear from you. Nothing will make me hate your company more than constantly hounding me with your idiotic spam. I have been known to change my future purchasing decisions based solely on whether or not a company has annoyed me with their bilious blather. Shut. Up. If I want to hear from you, I'll let you know. 
10. BIGGEST SALE OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - It's not half as exciting as you think it is. In fact, it's really just the normal sale price marked down from an impossibly inflated list price. If calling it a sale isn't going to prompt me to buy, screaming that it's a sale isn't likely to help your cause. It just makes you look desperate. Well, it also makes me think that I don't want to waste my time on your site. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Any similarities to sites operated by Guitar Center are entirely accidental...
 

Sorry, but you kind of lost me there...  Do you have a video I could watch instead? 

AFA those sites that Automatically charge your CC after the first period, I played their little game by paying for the initial sum with a one time re-loadable CC for just the amount.
 
I have OnStar and Amazon warning  me  and crying that they cannot renew my subscriptions/plans because my payment method is expired.Guess what, I aint gonna..

A great way of generating easy to remember but hard to crack passwords is by using a phrase that means something to you and then taking the first letter of each word. Then substitute any "i" with a 1 or !, "a" with 4, "e" with 3, "o" with 0, and other such variations.
 
You can even relate the phrase to the site....
 
So....... "This password is really easy to remember but a hard one to guess", would be tp1r3trb4h0tg. No logging on my account here with it though....  please...

I just use ********.