When did that long black bar at the page bottom sneak in

It's unfortunate that long-time CNET users have to go to this extreme to get rid of something that should never have been forced on us in the first place, but I sincerely appreciate this tip for how to get rid of it.

It's nonsense like this that makes users resort to script blockers, ultimately choking off additional revenue streams because already popular websites try to "enhance" the user experience with new gadgets instead of sticking to the old KISS adage which is what the majority of people really want.

Now that I've vented, I'm wondering if something like this work to get rid of the even more annoying playlist bar on YouTube?

It doesn't, on my PC, load with the rest of the page but pops up afterward. Being dark and contrasty, it immediately draws one's eyes down to it just like any other pop-up designed to distract. It takes a few milliseconds to readjust and refocus my eyes. At my age, milliseconds are becoming more and more important.

It is distracting, takes up too much space and provides no relevant service. It is completely spoiling the experience with an, otherwise, excellent site. This is a poor way of rewarding loyal readers.

If you look to the right of the tool bar you should see an arrow pointing to the left, click on that and it should collapse for you.

Let me know if that works for you.

If you are running at 800x600 you may not see the arrow on the right, but we are working on a fix for that.

Cheers!
-Lee

Good enough for my purposes!! Thanks again for quickly putting down this fire!

Now that you can retract the bar it is much improved.

But what is the purpose of having another way to retrieve Tech Tracker.

You can retrieve it from the login in bar and receive the same information.

When you open either one you get a page that contains the last scan you performed not a current one.

Would be much more useful if it would scan when opened giving you current information.

There is another update scanner that scans and updates when you click on the icon. Much more convenient than having to go thru the three step process with Tech Tracker.

I like the program and looking forward to improvements.

the little left-pointing arrow on the right of the bar to collapse mine.

It doesn't bother me know.

Mark

I am able to collapses that bar. If I go to a different link it is still collapsed. Personally, I find it take up little space compare to some of the tool-bars I have seen.

While it is collapsed, the only thing you see is a right pointing triangle. On my screen is about 1mm tall by .5mm wide. while it is collapse

I think it is a interesting feature for C-Net to have for members. However, They are NOT making you used it. In the most part I ignore it. If they are going to force you to use it C-Net would have NOT make it collapsible.

Manmur

I have collapsed mine and have forgotten about it.

Mark

When people go to the effort of modifying their browsers to prevent these sorts of things from popping up, it's probably time to add a way to turn it off completely because most people don't take the effort of finding a solution or complaining in the forums, they simply leave and never come back.

I'm all for innovation, and I'm sure there's someone out there besides the people that programmed it that find this an indispensable tool, but for the rest of us simply collapsing it is not sufficient. Please add the ability to turn it off completely.

I was also getting that horrible black toolbar on cnet.com. I happen to have a free add-on for my Firefox browser called NoScript. I right-clicked the cnet page, and tried marking each option as untrusted until I found one that removed the toolbar.

The one to mark as untrusted is called com.com

The only problem is that now I can't log onto cnet. However, I'm sure the people who run the cnet site will be interested to hear that I would rather stay logged out than to have to look at that horrible toolbar, which seems like spyware or malware to me.

At the rightmost side it has a left arrow. If you click that it transforms itself in a small right inobtrusive arrow (meaning 'enlarge') at leftmost border. And it stays that way forever.
Then you can still login and post.

Kees

I am an advocate for setting up ad and script blockers, but that rule is far too broad and will have more unintended consequences than just being unable to log out. You are blocking nearly all legitimate Javascript on the site, which will, among other things, prevent you from logging in or out; expanding menus, posts, etc; playing videos; and submitting comments/reviews/posts. In short, you'll breaking a large portion of site functionality while still permitting all third-party ads to display normally. Certainly not recommended.

If you want to remove that toolbar entirely without breaking site functionality, just add the following rule to AdBlockPlus:
###cnetToolbarWrap

Or, if you prefer modifying your user style sheet or using the extension Stylish, add the following:
@-moz-document domain("cnet.com"){#cnetToolbarWrap{display:none !important;}}

Hope this helps,
John

I don't really need to ever log in to cnet except to post here, but it's nice to know there is another way to block the toolbar.

Now if you could only tell me what to add to AdBlock or NoScript to stop cnet's autocomplete from working when I type into the search bar. (blocking com.com stops it) I wish all sites had a way to disable the autocomplete function. Not all of us want to have someone always finishing our sentences for us.

In AdBlock Plus: ##.autocompleter-choicesContainer
In Stylish: @-moz-document domain("cnet.com"){.autocompleter-choicesContainer{display:none !important;}}

Hope this helps,
John


P.S. Just to elaborate on what I said above, com.com serves nearly all of CNET's Javascript, CSS, and images. Blocking it may remove a few things you don't want, but also much of what you do want as well.

I haven't tried the autocomplete block yet, but I'm sure it will work.

Thanks again John.