I was looking at Web page yesterday, when Netscape (1.1 mac) suddenly
started to download a new page by itself. I thougth that I had clicked on a
link by mistake, but this repeated several times without my intervention.
Very annoying, because I hadn't time to read the first page before the
second came.
Today again, when I looked at interesting web page, Netscape started to
download an audio file and started talking to me. Cute, but very annoying,
as it did it over and over again, every time I had resized the Netscape
window (over the slow Atlantic link USA->Sweden). If I wanted to get to a
new page I first had to check the dialog "stop dowload" to get there.
I had to take a look at the HTML source to find out what this was, and I
found a new HTML directive looking something like this:
<META HTTP-EQUIV=REFRESH CONTENT="20; URL=http://[file name].au">
I presume this tells Netscape to download the audio file 20 seconds after
the page has been loaded.
This is AWFULL - this means that the time when *you* choose what you want
so see on the web is gone! TV-style advertising is entering the Web!
Is this nuicance going to be a part of the proposed HTML v 3.0 or is it a
Netscape specific extension?
Is there a way to turn it off in Netscape, or is the only way to get rid of
it to start using a non-advertising browser?
And a more general comment:
How's the net going to cope with the load and where is the web going to end
up if clients start to drag down stuff you haven't asked for?
Is network TV with built-it shopping facilities what we want?
Ulf
________________________________________________________________________
Ulf Kronman WWW coordinator
Dept. for Information Technology Voice: +46 8 728 7133
Karolinska Institutet Fax: +46 8 34 00 32
S-171 77 Stockholm, SWEDEN Internet: Ulf.Kronman@it.ki.se
________________________________________________________________________