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Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

iamvishnu.com

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Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#11

Post by 63 »

scohesc wrote: post #7

Adobe's web-based JPG to PNG converter is exactly like this. Upload a JPG, hit convert - it uploads the file, processes it on their end, and then refuses to give you the result until you "sign up for a free adobe account that we conveniently didn't tell you about until now!" Similar enough - some shopping websites will grab your email address when you start doing a guest checkout but eventually decide not to purchase…

This is a little tangential, but your post reminded me that I've struggled with converting images at work because our vpn blocks a lot of those file conversation sites (presumably for good reason, but I'm not privy). Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it. It seems like an obvious add to me, but then again the Windows search functionality barely works so I'm not sure they're incentived to actually help their users right now.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#12

Post by asynchronous »

63 wrote: post #11
scohesc wrote: post #7

Adobe's web-based JPG to PNG converter is exactly like this. Upload a JPG, hit convert - it uploads the file, processes it on their end, and then refuses to give you the result until you "sign up for a free adobe account that we conveniently didn't tell you about until now!" Similar enough - some shopping websites will grab your email address when you start doing a guest checkout but eventually decide not to purchase…

This is a little tangential, but your post reminded me that I've struggled with converting images at work because our vpn blocks a lot of those file conversation sites (presumably for good reason, but I'm not privy). Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it. It seems like an obvious add to me, but then ag…

Especially since almost all conversions can be done in the browser with JavaScript libraries now.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#13

Post by anonym29 »

63 wrote: post #10
JohnFen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pretty much everyone has a spam-only email address, right? I used to, but I've since taken to just not signing up to things instead.

When I have no choice, I use a free throwaway email service. Unfortunately it's much harder to get a throwaway phone number so it greatly annoys me when services (Twitter, specifically) require one

smspool, smspva, etc. not free but not expensive.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#14

Post by ryandrake »

asynchronous wrote: post #12
63 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a little tangential, but your post reminded me that I've struggled with converting images at work because our vpn blocks a lot of those file conversation sites (presumably for good reason, but I'm not privy). Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it. It seems like an obvious add to me, but then ag…

Especially since almost all conversions can be done in the browser with JavaScript libraries now.

A browser + JavaScript seems like a pretty heavy lift to do something as trivial as converting an image from one format to another. ImageMagick is simple, fast, and available for just about every system imaginable.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#15

Post by JoshTriplett »

63 wrote: post #11
scohesc wrote: post #7

Adobe's web-based JPG to PNG converter is exactly like this. Upload a JPG, hit convert - it uploads the file, processes it on their end, and then refuses to give you the result until you "sign up for a free adobe account that we conveniently didn't tell you about until now!" Similar enough - some shopping websites will grab your email address when you start doing a guest checkout but eventually decide not to purchase…

This is a little tangential, but your post reminded me that I've struggled with converting images at work because our vpn blocks a lot of those file conversation sites (presumably for good reason, but I'm not privy). Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it. It seems like an obvious add to me, but then ag…

Grab a copy of netpbm or GraphicsMagick that's compiled for Windows.

Or, grab a free image editor (https://www.getpaint.net/ is popular for Windows), open in one format, save in the other.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#16

Post by WirelessGigabit »

nickthegreek wrote: post #9

My biggest current peeve is not allowing me to see shipping costs until I’ve given basically all my information to a company before I’ve checked out.

Including your email address.

And then you abandon the cart, because it doesn't make sense for you to pay $50 for shipping.

But then you get those emails 'you forgot something'. No I didn't.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#17

Post by datavirtue »

63 wrote: post #10
JohnFen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pretty much everyone has a spam-only email address, right? I used to, but I've since taken to just not signing up to things instead.

When I have no choice, I use a free throwaway email service. Unfortunately it's much harder to get a throwaway phone number so it greatly annoys me when services (Twitter, specifically) require one

All of big tech is checking phone numbers against sophisticated databases to determine if it is possible for an individual to have that number associated with their cell phone device. If it isn't a real mobile number you are not getting in.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#19

Post by JohnFen »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #15
63 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a little tangential, but your post reminded me that I've struggled with converting images at work because our vpn blocks a lot of those file conversation sites (presumably for good reason, but I'm not privy). Converting common file formats seems like such a common use case that I really feel like there should be a tool built into modern operating systems for it. It seems like an obvious add to me, but then ag…

Grab a copy of netpbm or GraphicsMagick that's compiled for Windows. Or, grab a free image editor ( https://www.getpaint.net/ is popular for Windows), open in one format, save in the other.

This. I honestly don't understand why people use online image converters when there are high-quality OSS programs that will do the job locally. I'll bet that the majority of the online converters are using these programs to do the actual conversion anyway.

Re: Dear websites, stop asking for ransom sign-ups

#20

Post by badwolf »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #16
nickthegreek wrote: post #9

My biggest current peeve is not allowing me to see shipping costs until I’ve given basically all my information to a company before I’ve checked out.

Including your email address. And then you abandon the cart, because it doesn't make sense for you to pay $50 for shipping. But then you get those emails 'you forgot something'. No I didn't.

And you're forever on their "mailing list" because they don't process unsubscribes, since they probably just manually upload a .csv of everyone every time they want to send something to you, whether you ever opted in, or not.
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