The 10 Biggest Web Annoyances

Advertisements affect Web content, too. When sites measure the value of content by how many eyeballs it attracts to the ads, unusual, diverse, or niche content can get squeezed out in favor of more-reliably popular middle-of-the-road stuff. "I think in many ways, we have missed the potential of the Web--much like we did with television," says Mike Tinsley, a disappointed Web user in Columbus, Indiana. "When [the Web] was new, it held so much promise to be so useful for education, information, and even entertainment. However, much like TV, the Web has sunk to the lowest common denominator, and I'm not sure we can ever get it back," Tinsley says.

The ad-driven online content industry will continue to devise innovative, eye-catching, and obnoxious advertising formats, so things won't change for the better anytime soon. At the same time, browser makers and other software utility vendors may be able to offer some respite with features designed to restrain advertising annoyances. Browser producers like Microsoft and Mozilla should, by default, block animations or video ads from taking complete control of a Web page and obscuring the content A surfer is trying to view. At the very least, they should provide users an easy way to adjust the settings manually so as to block such intrusive annoyances.

4. Need for Standards

Few things are more infuriating than going to a Web site and being told, "The page you have requested requires Internet Explorer to function properly."

(The photo at left spells out currently available browser support for Google Docs. Safari is not included)

The historical origin of this problem is Internet Explorer's incomplete (and sometimes incorrect) support for the core standards that are used to build Web pages. Because IE commands the largest market share among browsers, many Web designers build pages not to conform to standards, but to conform to IE. With Firefox's success, more and more sites (with the notable exception of some Microsoft sites) work properly in Mozilla's browser. But that leaves users of Opera or Safari out in the cold still. From online banking applications to newer Web 2.0-style sites, pages may not load properly on all browsers, which forces people to use different browsers for different sites.

If browsers were built to meet a consistent set of standards, this hiccup would disappear. Though each new version of IE has improved its support for standards, the problem persists because so many Web site developers continue to code only for IE, or IE and Firefox.

Having trouble creating a new document in Google Docs? The site's advice is so simplistic that it is unlikely to solve any real problems.

Among the high-profile offenders in this area are Google Docs, Washington Mutual, and Yahoo--none of which supports the Opera and Safari browsers.

The Internet can be a spacious platform for all sorts of community interaction, provided that the participants conduct themselves in a civil manner. Too often, though, they don't.