(no subject)

[rain_gryphon]

LJ's managed to find some way to break links so that if you accidentally touch them, it opens up a little popup preview window. Is there some way to disable this obnoxious behaviour?

Edit: Fixed it. What kind of idiot would think this was useful?

Comments

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

Is it any link or just LJ links?

[xolo.livejournal.com]

LJ links. I've seen it before on other websites, but just avoided going to those. Having it on LJ did motivate me to figure out how to kill it. It's something called 'snap'.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

It's the Snap Shots JavaScript at the bottom of the page.

If snap.com is resolved as 127.0.0.0, that fixes it permanently, for all sites.

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

I've got a paid account, so I don't see it. Glad you were able to resolve it!

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

They're trying to make LJ unuseably awful unless you pay, of course. I accidentally logged out while reading Friends' LJs last night and suffered this Snap thing. I know you can opt out (or resolve it another way as you did) but LJ are banking that most users won't, and I think they're probably right. =:S

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I'd been of the belief that some misguided person thought this was something that people would want. Apparently not. Showing an abusive attitude toward potential customers isn't really the best way to attract my business.

[frith]

I browse with JavaScript turned off, so I don't see these bubbles. No payment required (payment just gets stolen by disgruntled sixapart letter openers anyway).

[xolo.livejournal.com]

One hates to kill JS altogether, since there are legitimate uses for it. Vandalizing a page with little popup bubbles isn't one of them, though.

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I allow JavaScript on LJ (I kill it on all but my whitelisted sites), but I still haven't seen anything like this Snap thing. What gives?

[frith]

Yours is a paid account, Plush Meister. LJ only inflicts this on the peons. *big grin*

[rabbitboy.livejournal.com]

You can disable the graphic previews in your own journal by going to your Viewing Options (http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/) page and unclicking the box that says, "Enable graphic previews on external links within your journal."

This only works for your journal though, as far as I can tell. Anyone else's journal, communities, feeds, etc, will still have the graphic popups enabled unless they've taken this step as well. And I think that's regardless of your account status, be it paid, free, or whatever.

Oh, and apparently to disable the Snap.com snapshots universally (via a less brute force method than your own), you have to opt-out of them. You have to go to Snap.com and get a cookie set, and maintain that cookie set, to prevent the snapshot previews. Wipe your cookies... and you have to take a trip back to Snap.com.

Good old Livejournal. Doing what's best for it's advertising revenue users, one "improvement" at a time.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Just add the line

127.0.0.1 shots.snap.com to your HOSTS file. That fixes it permanently, for all sites.

[rabbitboy.livejournal.com]

I don't think most people know where that file is under Windows XP/Vista/MacOS/OSX, or may not know it exists at all. Some edjumucation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file) might be a good thing.

You might also be able to add shots.snap.com to your browser's block list, at least I know you can in Opera. I assume Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, and others have something similar. I think that should effectively do the same thing, only browser specific. I noticed somewhere that someone was explaining how to tweak Firefox's ad-block stuff to block the snapshots as well, but I'd have to go dig for it again.

Do you notice any lag time if you hover over the little bubbles, or do those little bubbles not show up at all when you hard code the domain name?

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is gone. The java script downloads the code from that site, so I never get the code. There's no lag time because nothing is stealing my bandwidth.

[haystack.livejournal.com]

There's an option in the Snap window itself (the cog/gear button) that allows you to disable it for all sites.

I think Six Apart needs a kick in the pants. About to send them one, now.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that requires me to accept their cookie, and I shouldn't have to.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Give the man *some* credit.