When we click on a link on the WorldWideWeb, we are often requesting a file be sent to our computer. Browsers are programs for computers, tablets like iPad, and smartphones that accept such files and display them as web pages. About 87% of the page views of this blog use the Chrome browser or the one called Firefox. Chrome is Google's browser and Google makes a good deal of its income from ads, as far as I know, which isn't very far. Firefox is more independent, not quite as much so as is DuckDuckGo. This last one advertises how little they sell my search interests to others. I don't use it much but maybe I should.
When I visit a web page using Firefox, I usually have a choice to use its "Reader view", which blocks intrusions and focuses only on the main page I am trying to read. It still comes as a shock to me to think that I can have a nice day without reading their damned message at all. When I do start reading and another page slips across what I am reading, it makes me angry. I certainly won't buy the jeans described on the intruding page. When a second intruder slides across the jeans page and starts to explain the advantages of this new wonderful credit card, my anger changes to comic relief. I simply slam the cover of my machine closed and toss it out the window. I can't tell you how many laptops are piled up out there, all wrecked and jumbled.
The advertiser David Ogilvie, see his "Confessions of an Advertising Man", knew that after you show me an ad demonstrating the superiority of brand X over that inferior brand Y, I am the sort of consumer who distinctly remembers that Y was better and makes sure to buy Y from now on. Trying to get and hold my attention is not easy. You can threaten me but I may be admiring your wonderful shoes during the threat. You can demand that I look you straight in the eye but I will see what lovely eyes you actually have. Are they contact lens or natural?
