alt Hacker News> Pop-ups are back, and they’re worse than ever
The article opens with a screenshot of genuine pop-ups, and they are clearly so much worse than the (still annoying) modals presented later in the article. In the past, sites spawned a mess of popups that extended out of the browser window and persisted even when the page was navigated away from. Now if you don't like what the page is doing, you can at least just navigate away.
Replies
>sites spawned a mess of popups that extended out of the browser window and persisted even when the page was navigated away from
I feel like that was mostly porn sites. I find modals far more intrusive on mainstream sites.
One aspect of popups that survived, was the ability of a website to spawn a new tab on click. I DETEST this behaviour. Not only because it breaks the back button, but tabs/windows are something I control, not you. I will decide when to leave your website for good, instead of opening a new tab.
Whoever invented target=_blank should be guillotined.
On the contrary. Popups you could leave for later and/or close with the browser chrome, as bad as they are, are less annoying than today's modals that block the site you were reading until you find the magic pixel.