Wibiya Footer Tool Bar Annoyance
I get it, it’s shiny and neat, you just couldn’t resist adding it to your web site in the belief that your visitors would love it and it would add all sorts of keen functionality to your web site. Maybe I’m alone in this opinion, but I REALLY dislike the Wibiya toolbar hovering down there eating up screen real estate and generally detracting from the appearance of the site I’m visiting. Yes, it can be “sorta” minimized but that’s something you’ll have to do EVERY time you visit a site that uses it.
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For those of you that agree, there is a simple way to say goodbye to Wibiya forever. The Firefox add-on, Ad-Block Plus is free and can selectively block content by source automatically (in addition to the ability to selectively block malicious or overly aggressive advertisements*).
Once you’ve installed Ad-Block Plus, click on the Tools | Adblock Plus Preferences in Firefox and select Add Filter. In the New Filter box put “toolbar.wibiya.com” (no quotes) and click “Ok“. You will have to reload any pages with Wibiya installed to see the change, but from that point forward you shouldn’t have problem with ANY sites using the Wibiya toolbar.
* For the record I don’t block all ads by default and actually suggest that you don’t either. I realize that much of the content I enjoy is ad-supported and only turn Ad-Blocker on in a case-by-case basis; if the site in question is using highly aggressive ads (automatic playing audio/video, offensive or NSFW ads, pop-ups, captive ad loops, etc).
UPDATE: Courtesy of commenter, Cubehouse (see below): “If you add *.wibiya.com to the filter it works with the new toolbar released (they’re using toolbar2 instead).”
Thanks for this. A friend of mine decided to add this to his site, I tried telling him but what can you do. Anyway I’ve seen it on another site I’ve used previously and it annoyed me than as it does now. I guess my friend’s just spurred me to block it completely.
My pleasure. I hope your friend (and others) move away from invasive overlay tools like this footer for the sake of their guests.
Happy and safe web browsing to you.
Thank you!
Hate this ridiculous thing.
If you add *.wibiya.com to the filter it works with the new toolbar released (they’re using toolbar2 instead).
Intrusive and in-your-face. Is an eye-sore and a nuisance for the vast vast vast vast majority of internet users who are only on a site to get one thing to be confronted with mountains of the same-old pointless social networking features.
Thanks for the updated info, Cubehouse! I’ll definitely update the article and credit your addition.
Thanks for this. I hate these pieces of crap taking over web pages. By adding the *.wibiya.com to adblock it completely screws up Wibiya’s web site as well, not that it matters.This stuff adds nothing to a website and has always ensured that I never stayed on the site. As for blocking ad’s, I have no problems blocking them all. I never buy from ad’s nor do I ever click on them or adsense ones as they invariably take you to something you don’t want and often have nothing to do with what they say. So if you are running ad’s on your site and are upset with adblock then get over it as you were never going to get a dime out of me or lot of other people who have had a gutfull of this sort of thing. Offer a good product or something of value and you will see my money but not otherwise.
These “tools” are aweful… Being interested in web design myself, I always hate it when “trends” are being followed w/o thinking. It doesn’t need to be useful, it just needs to be the cool new thing.
I seriously wonder what the usage metrics for those are — does anyone actually use them??
I was slightly annoyed when just about everyone added “social sharing buttons”, but those are easy to ignore.
These “helpful” (*cough*) toolbars on the other hand take away precious vertical screen real estate on a wide screen laptop.
“I hate these pieces of crap taking over web pages.” — unfortunately very true.
The annoyance and aggravation I have endured seeing this obnoxious toolbar pop-up on various websites is only matched by my glee at seeing it blocked!
Who needs to twitter that they checked a weather report?
Do your Facebook friends REALLY need to know everything that you click on at every site on the internets?
Thank you for allowing me to say no to overlays.
Thanks for this, the last thing I want is some very adware-like toolbar like Wibiya to clutter my browser.
Thank god, I hate that thing.
Great! Remeber to use | *.wibiya.com | because all they do is change the preheader and then http://www.wibiya.com doesn’t work as a header. So now we can change our filter to “star” and screw you “wibiya.” I hope is screws your whole parasitic world around too and causes a $hitstorm on your service. Vultures.
I really appreciate this. Most ass clown “marketers” can’t help themselves from annoying their readers.
You should remove that “Last.fm” thing up there. It’s using valuable “real estate” ahahahahahaha.
For some reason, the Wibiya toolbar reminds me of late 90’s websites’ prolific use of the ill-advised BLINK tag. A brief note to Bloggers/Forum Moderators/Small Businesses with amateur websites : please don’t add crap to your site, chaps, it only marks you out as rank amateurs and gives your visitors something to get distracted by and be annoyed about rather than appreciating your actual content!
Anyway, blocked now, whew!!
Thanks! I have a slower machine and the less “awesome flashy garbage” on each page, the better for me.
Annoying UI elements are being invented everywhere for one reason: well-paid well-fed developers are sitting in cubes with nothing to do and a huge desire for a “look what I made” arrogance puff-up. Not needed. I would estimate among the top 5 global software companies at LEAST 40% OF THE UI FANCY-ELEMENTS are not needed.
Hey now, Not Needed, I am one of those developers (albeit only moderately-paid and occasionally under-fed) and I guarantee you that is not the case. MOST of the over-the-top requests for UR elements come from further up than your developer, from folks that think more about the “gee whiz” factor than the day to day usage and how fast that novelty wears off. Sure, I like bringing a little beauty and wonder into the world, but not at the expense of the user experience.
No add ons needed. Just edit the hosts filke and add the following line:
127.0.0.1 cdn.wibiya.com
Close and reopen the browser and you will never see the toolbar again, until the folks at wibiya change the server name.