What annoying things do companies and their web developers do on websites? We might be programmers, but we're also customers at the same time. I spend as much time if not more on other companies websites as I do my own.
A few that come to mind off the bat:
houzz.com Follow houzz.com on Facebook and click on one of their articles. Before you can view the article, they throw up a page that says (something to the effect of) "We have a mobile app! Do you want to view the page in our app or continue via the browser?" The page itself is a PITA - you've now caused me to click a second time to get to the content I want. And no, I don't want to leave the Facebook app and open your app. I'm perfectly fine viewing the article via the web browser. Further, the link to view it via the browser is tiny and at the bottom of the page.
New products, random sites I come across: Tracking the mouse cursor and detecting when it gets close to the back button and throwing a discount modal or a don't go message or a subscribe to our newsletter or whatever. So your saying you didn't want to offer me a discount before, but now that I'm considering leaving your page, your gonna give it to me now? That's not very nice. All the other offenses including subscribe to newsletter - if it's so important to you, why wasn't this more predominant on the page?
X Comments (click to view) theverge.com does this and many others. Why do I need to click to view? Do you think my machine doesn't have enough memory to handle loading the article and the comments at the same time? Again, another step to get to the content I want. If you think your getting additional ad revenue by me reloading the page to view the comments, don't most people use an ad blocker now a days? Why not just track when the comments div container comes into view and load the comments then if it's a bandwidth issue or an ad load issue?
Moderated comments gizmodo.com and other "formerly owned gawker properties" - comments don't appear unless you get a "star" - When I post a comment, I want to see my comment. I will obsessively come back to my comment and see if anyone replied to my comment. That's me. I'm a little kid when I comment. I want to interact with people. Why do I need a star before people can see my comment? What, they other dozen comments you've shown because of commenter rep are better then mine? Their comments; their all equally worthless now a days because people hide behind this "it's the internet; I can say what I want" vail. Few comments have constructive value (especially on a site like gizmodo). I don't comment often, but when I do, don't treat me like an outsider, please.
Anyone else coming across anything that really ticks them off?
I am half-way through this book and this provides some basic principles for the developers to follow when designing online apps. It also has the screenshot of web apps titled- what to do ? & What not to do. This can be used as a checklist when designing the apps. amazon.com/gp/product/073571410X/ref=oh_aui_detai…
I can't stand popups especially on mobile and sites that block me when using uBlock - typically I block the ads because they are horrible ads and there are too many of them.
Apologies for the rant, but then, your question was literally asking for it.
#1 Material/Metro/Modern/flavor-of-the-month-design-paradigm that encourages bright contrasting colors in close proximity.
This is one of the biggest turn offs. In the good old days people used colours with caution, spent thought on consistency and minimalism.
Apple used to be gold standard of interface design. I adored the minimalism of Github, Quora and Stackoverflow.
But as luck would have it, the world has now been overrun by insanity:

#2 Flashy/pointless/misleading adverts
Volumes have been written about this. You have seen it, you have loathed it, you know what I am talking about.
#3 Disregard for hyperlinking
Ember authors have hit the nail in the head:
However, it's important to remember what makes the web special. Many people think that something is a web application because it uses technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. In reality, these are just implementation details.
The web derives its power from the ability to bookmark and share URLs. URLs are the key feature that give web applications superior shareability and collaboration. Today, most JavaScript frameworks treat the URL as an afterthought, instead of the primary reason for the web's success.
Despite being widely known as a best practice, it is all too common to come across a state that you can't favourite or share by just copying the url.
Even more irritating is when sites decide to go through a massive overhaul and older links get redirected to home page or some generic top level page with no details about the context it was linked from. It is disheartening to see massively popular sites like AppAnnie do this.
#4 Technology blogs with no consideration towards obsolescence
A blog post dealing with technology, with no information about when it was published, and what versions of libraries it deals with can make things very confusing.
Though proliferation of tools like Jekyll have mitigated this significantly by making it a best practice to embed the publication date in the url itself, I still occasionally come across posts with no information as to what era it was written in.
#5 Opaque moderation
I do not have a problem with moderation as such - if the owners of a platform believe that to retain the focus of a community they need to block certain content - it's their choice. But I have been part of communities where you would not know at all if your content was muted and/or hidden from public view.
This is where you cross the line from good will over to treachery.
#6 Deceptive "Growth Hacking"
Warning emoji in spammy marketing mail subjects, RE: and FWD: prefixes, click bait titles ... the list goes on and on.
I rage quit websites when they put nasty tasks on me. Task such as filling a long form with super weird 'validation' rules or losing filled fields when accidentally reloading or even worse losing filled fields when I took too much time to fill and my session expired.
I fight back websites which disable the right click context menu and use plugins which overwrite such stupid nonsense or simply never come back (I'm looking at you Google Docs). Selecting text and look up for its definition or query a search of text is essential to me. On some table based websites, I need to copy entire columns but not the whole table.

My biggest point here on the list is about that false security mechanism called security questions. When I've lost my password and some silly security questions asking me about my dad's first pet name or when my mother first time kissed my father - to justify that I am I. I could handle such stupid false shitty behaviors if I could define the question by myself. But more and more websites took that decision away from me and forced me to answer predefined easy to social engineer questions. I feel more and more site helping the NSA. With easy security questions, no one needs to crack encrypted connections or passwords. Just lookup some Facebook pages or other social media and you know pretty much anything about anyone's secret questions/answers.
A body click function that no matter where you click it opens up pop ups or new tabs of ads I hate that. Also reseting that same function every 3 or 5 seconds. Everyone should try to change ads and make them first of all real and not look like virus so everyone can stop using adblock
hmm one thing i ran into today was a shop system.
they mixed prepaid payments with postpaid payments. or in other words -> if you want to use a voucher you need to fill in your credit card.
But everything you do not "use" will remain on your "account" but you can not use it unless you use your credit card ....
Hate those things they make me so mad... because obviously they implemented it just half-ass and that is something I hate even more ... checklist like programming ... now I have a voucher and still need a credit card ... this is just plain stupid ...
X Comments (click to view)
I always was of the opinion it was a neat trick for lazy developers to limit traffic on mobile devices. But you are right, it is also very annoying and especially on a big site like TheVerge, they could have come up with better ideas...
Well, as for things I hate: Here in Germany we have a pseudo-tech site which always loads a banner to buy their premium after loading the real content. It is big, it is ugly, it is nearly neon green, and I can only see the topmost article and have to scroll down for more. The problem: Since it loads the banner later, the whole content just jumps away, which is very bad (we had some link for this anti-pattern here a few days ago). I cannot even block it. If I block that ad, they block the whole site for me :( So it is a mix of many annoying things in just one single banner. I really don't know, why I still frequent that site, since the articles are lacking, sometimes incorrect and lately even have improper language and offenses in them... Maybe just an old habit.
Other annoying behaviors include overriding of browser functionality (as seen here on Hashnode with middle-mouse-click; already told the team about it and they are working on it, so thank you!). I am used to certain behavior and if a site changes what I am accustomed to, the site feels a lot more annoying to use because I have to rethink my actions to achieve the behavior I actually want.
Overload of images, like on TheVerge. The mosaics look nice from a distance, but they make scanning the articles a pain. Unfortunately I have seen a few more news sites which use mosaic layouts with picturtures for news articles.
White background at night. 99.9999% of the websites do this wrong. It hurts my eyes when browsing, so I consider it very annoying. I use the Stylish plugin to darken sites I use regularly (like Google), but when opening another site, it really stings :(
Modal windows that automatically pop up. The worst is if I'm on an ecommerce site and they force me to sign up before I can look at the product I'm interested in. It also drives me bananas if I'm engrossed in reading an article and a modal pops up asking me if I want to sign up for their newsletter. It's even more frustrating on mobile because they're typically not responsive, so it's hard to get them to go away.
Asking me to turn off Adblocker! I'm not complaining, but it's like IN-THE-FACE. If they ask me politely, I might have done that, but blocking the page just for that! I stopped using lot of sites because of this. It is a big downer for me, like if a girl eat garlic before we kiss! Ugh!!!!
Misael Taveras
#JSDev. Coffee :3 @taverasmisael anywhere else.
If I have to choose the top 4 annoying things on websites: