kill background image in Chrome

Is there any simple way to get rid of background image in Chrome, to make
text readable again? Preferabally without installing anything.

Often I can nearly read the text, until the crap image loads in the
background...


--


|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os

On 12/1/18 8:28 AM, Linea Recta wrote:
Is there any simple way to get rid of background image in Chrome, to
make text readable again? Preferabally without installing anything.

Often I can nearly read the text, until the crap image loads in the
background...


I have no background images in chrome, none that the web page wants that
is. https://www.google.com/ is a blank white page as it should be.

"Big Al" schreef in bericht
news
On 12/1/18 8:28 AM, Linea Recta wrote:
Is there any simple way to get rid of background image in Chrome, to make
text readable again? Preferabally without installing anything.

Often I can nearly read the text, until the crap image loads in the
background...


I have no background images in chrome, none that the web page wants that
is.


Yes, that's what I want to get rid of.
Often very badly chosen colours, no contrast. Or animated trash, making my
life hell trying to read anything.



--


|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os

Part 2

In case it might be useful, here's a typical sampling
of custom CSS I use. Below is part of my userContent.css
file for Firefox.

Distinct HTML items can be uniquely designated in CSS.
A period denotes a class: .someclass
A pound sign denotes an ID: #someID
Class and ID don't mean much in practice. They're just
unique identifiers. Class may be used for multiple things
and ID for single, but that's not necessarily the case.

/* */ is a comment that has no effect.

In other words, customizing CSS in a browser mostly
follows the same rules as CSS itself.

In Pale Moon and Firefox you can right-click - Inspect
Element to see the code related to an item. (I'm not
sure that's in all versions, but the "developer tools"
have always been present in the versions I've installed.)

The first item in my sample below just removes
distracting progress bars that are created by HTML.
PROGRESS is a new HTML5 tag. Without script it just
loops pointlessly, creating a distraction.

The Microsoft code is to
remove the left side of their broken docs pages. Otherwise
I see half the text offscreen! That's an ID.

The .overlay
item is to remove blocks put on top of text. It works widely
because many webmasters just copy each other. So they
all use the same trick and they all use the same class name!

The "stop animation" items are to stop all the various moving
distractions that can be done with CSS: Distracting slideshows,
weird text animation, etc.
As CSS becomes increasingly powerful, it's becoming an
increasing nuisance. It started out as a great formatting tool.
Now it's becoming like Flash in the 90s -- overused by hotshot
webmasters to create irritating websites.

/* BEGIN CSS SAMPLE FROM userContent.css in Firefox.
custom.css for Chrome is probably similar. */

/* stop progress bar animation */
PROGRESS {display: none !important;}

/* Microsoft docs - remove blank left side */

#left-container {display: none !important;}

/* overlay panels to thwart noscript */

..overlay {display: none !important;}

/* stop CSS animation */

* {transform: none !important;
-moz-transform: none !important;
transition-property: none !important;
-moz-transition-property: none !important;
-moz-transition-duration: none !important;
animation: none !important;
-moz-animation: none !important;
-webkit-animation: none !important;}

:before {display: none !important;}
:after {display: none !important;}

-----

I may seem overly critical of webmasters but this really
is becoming a big problem. Even big companies typically
have pages done by underpaid college grads or graphics
people who actually have no idea what they're doing. They
use for-dummies drag-drop tools, pull in gobs of script from
outside sources that they don't understand, paste in any
old thing they find to produce the latest trendy effect...
Want to make your headlines slide around when someone
hovers over them? Oh, look! Here's a snippet to do that!

They don't actually know how to write either the HTML/CSS
or the script. It's not only creating a lot of broken and
bloated pages. It's also a security risk. That's why wordpress
pages are so risky for enabling script: Anyone can drag-drop
their way to a wordpress website and add lots of extras like
shopping carts and comment boards. But then they don't know
enough to update those things when a bug is found. They
don't know where their pages are or how they got written.
They know nothing of the basic technology. They just know
how to drag-drop their webpage. So hackers take advantage
by running exploits on outdated widget code, doing
things like planting malware on the site.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
A pound sign denotes an ID: #someID
[]
# is a hash, number sign, sharp sign, or even an octothorp (I think). It
isn't a pound sign - this is (though not being part of original-ASCII it
might not come through right): £.


Ever been frustrated that you can't *disagree* with a petition? If so, visit
255soft.uk - and please pass it on, too.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni Vidi Vacuum [I came, I saw, It sucked] - , 1998

On Sat, 1 Dec 2018 16:05:50 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
A pound sign denotes an ID: #someID
[]
# is a hash, number sign, sharp sign, or even an octothorp (I think).


Yes to all of the above.


It isn't a pound sign -


Yes, it is. It commonly goes by that name in the USA.



this is (though not being part of original-ASCII it
might not come through right): £.



That, of course, is also a pound sign--the abbreviation for the UK
unit of currency. But that doesn't mean that # isn't also called a
pound sign.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| A pound sign denotes an ID: #someID
| []
| # is a hash, number sign, sharp sign, or even an octothorp (I think). It
| isn't a pound sign - this is (though not being part of original-ASCII it
| might not come through right): £.
|

Sorry. I guess hash is better in international forums.
None of the others is unambiguous in my experience.
(Except in Microsoft's world of language butchery, where
they insist C# must be pronounced as the cutesy
"C sharp".) I use it as a number sign, but I've never
heard it called a number sign. Octothorp? Maybe in
the rarefied world of your OED.

In the US, # is most commonly a pound sign because
in public it's most often used to mark items for sale by
weight. I'm afraid that if you want to control your blood
pressure you just have to accept that the US is the new
Rome. In spades. And no one much cares what people
in the UK think. No insult. Just facts. You can go to
France and complain that it's a crescent roll and not
the mouth-full-of-pebbles "cwah-sauh" word that they
use. But it's their country, after all. Better to just
enjoy your dessert.

I was reminded of the vast Americanization of the world
last night when I watched "Crazy Rich Asians". A fun movie.
Mostly it was just silly, with a very worn-out, cliche,
Cinderella romance plot. I knew the whole plot after the first
few minutes. She's worthy of being the princess because
she's beautiful and doesn't care about the money, or
prestige, or being beautiful. So she gets the goods.

But what made it interesting was the sociological spectacle
of it. It's a wild, Asian comedy that takes place mostly in
Singapore. The landscape was astonishing. The cultural
portrayal was a semiotic explosion. Random Asian values
and symbols embedded in a mindset yearning to be Yank.
And the proliferation of American cultural symbols all
existing out of context, as merely American. Nothing was
really any good unless it was American. There was no limit
to how much people could spend, and they did. But they
couldn't buy being white American. (That's a controversial
statment these days. And I realize that as a white man I'm
singlehandedly responsible for the downfall of modern
civilization. But facts is facts.)

Now that that's settled, care to argue about fags
and biscuits?

On 12/1/18 10:37 AM, Mayayana wrote:

[snip]

In the US, # is most commonly a pound sign because
in public it's most often used to mark items for sale by
weight.

I've usually heard it called a number sign, as in door # 1, door # 2, or
door # 3.

[snip]

--
24 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"The government ought to stay out of the prayer business." -- Jimmy
Carter

"Big Al" wrote

| My pet peeve is web pages that are trending towards phones with thin
| columns down the center of the page when they could use the wide screen
| page I have on my PC.
|
| It's not that hard to detect what OS you are on and redirect to another
| page that is phone design or a page that is PC designed. Except that
| takes work and no one these days want to do any work, God forbid you do
| a good job now a days.
|

I figure the giant text is probably also geared
toward phones. But it doesn't really take a lot
of work to adapt a page, as you say. The broken
Microsoft page I mentioned isn't even self-sizing!
It's almost effortless to design the page so it
auto-sizes to fit the browser, but they can't be
bothered. Even with thousands of that particluar
page template in use, called by millions of people,
they can't be bothered.

I suspect that with a lot of bad sites the reason
may be that they think phones are the only relevant
media. Computers are for work. Increasingly,
people shop and use services on their phone.
Phone apps are ad-supported. No one tries to
read long articles on their phone. It's just
quickie consumerism. And that's where the money
is. So they just don't care if their page works on
a desktop. And they probably don't realize, in
many cases, that it doesn't.

I was struck by that change recently. Some
years ago I wrote a program to pull Google
maps, satellite and streeview images from their
server without having to visit google in a browser,
using the REST API.
Google offered free, anonymous access, so long
as the software was free and sported their logo.
Recently I've been rewriting the code to use Bing.
Google now requires a credit card to get maps.
As of July, 2018. If you go over the free limit they
charge you. No options. If someone steals your
Google key you might lose a lot of money before
you even know it happened.

I figured that Google is probably planning to
move gradually toward pay services. But I think
the more immediate reason for their change is
the dramatic change in usage. Most maps are
now seen on phones. And those are mostly
used by phone apps. And those apps are mostly
ad-supported. So why should Google let them
pull maps and not ask for a cut? The maps in phone
apps are not going to help bring people to google
in order to show them ads.

It's tricky for website owners who want to
call a Google map and lack either the sense or
the talent to draw their own. If they embed
javascript with their key, the key could be stolen
by half of Asia and cost them a fortune. The only
way to be reasonably safe would be to call
for the map with a server-side library, over an
encrypted connection, and change their Google
key periodically. On the other hand, who visits
websites anymore? If it's not on Amazon
or Facebook you probably don't care about it.
And what kind of nut wants to read stuff?

"Mark Lloyd" wrote

| I've usually heard it called a number sign, as in door # 1, door # 2, or
| door # 3.
|

People read it as "door number 1", but that's
not the same as calling it a "number sign"... Or
did you want the box where Carol is standing?

On Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:52:19 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 12/1/18 10:37 AM, Mayayana wrote:

In the US, # is most commonly a pound sign because
in public it's most often used to mark items for sale by
weight.

I've usually heard it called a number sign, as in door # 1, door # 2, or
door # 3.

In grammar school some 50+ years ago, it was the pound sign, but I
remember we also talked about some limited circumstances where it could
refer to other things, such as numbers. I remember someone referring to
it as the tic-tac-toe sign.

Maybe it's an age thing, but a while back I was working with a
20-something to get his network gear configured. I suggested adding a
comment to the config where we had made a non-trivial change, so he'd be
able to remember what we did and why. He added the comment, but I
reminded him that the comment line needed to begin with a pound sign so
that the system wouldn't try to parse it as a config element. He went
quiet for a bit, so I helpfully suggested "Shift-3". "Oh!", he
exclaimed, "You mean the hash tag!" SMH


--

Char Jackson

On Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:52:19 -0600, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 12/1/18 10:37 AM, Mayayana wrote:

[snip]

In the US, # is most commonly a pound sign because
in public it's most often used to mark items for sale by
weight.

I've usually heard it called a number sign, as in door # 1, door # 2, or
door # 3.



Yes, it has more than one name. J. P. Gilliver mentioned some others.

On Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:18:33 -0500, Big Al wrote:
My pet peeve is web pages that are trending towards phones with thin
columns down the center of the page when they could use the wide screen
page I have on my PC.

It's not that hard to detect what OS you are on and redirect to another
page that is phone design or a page that is PC designed. Except that
takes work and no one these days want to do any work, God forbid you do
a good job now a days.

It's not a matter of detecting the OS, but of detecting the width of
the browser window. This is easily done in CSS, and support for that
particular construct is in all popular browsers, as far as I'm aware.

On well-designed Web pages, when running on your desktop, if you
gradually decrease the width of your browser window you will reach a
point where suddenly the page snaps into a different layout, one
appropriate for narrow screens.

I steer a middle course on my own pages. I set a maximum text width,
based on readability studies. Otherwise people with 4K screens would
have lines of text that are uncomfortably long for reading.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| A pound sign denotes an ID: #someID
| []
| # is a hash, number sign, sharp sign, or even an octothorp (I think). It
| isn't a pound sign - this is (though not being part of original-ASCII it
| might not come through right): £.
|

Sorry. I guess hash is better in international forums.
None of the others is unambiguous in my experience.
(Except in Microsoft's world of language butchery, where
they insist C# must be pronounced as the cutesy
"C sharp".) I use it as a number sign, but I've never

I did mention sharp (-:! However, I've rarely encountered it outside
musical circles.

heard it called a number sign. Octothorp? Maybe in
the rarefied world of your OED.

I suppose it will be in there (everything else is!), but I've only ever
seen it in Wikipedia entries, such as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number...mes_in_English .
(Interestingly, just above the octo- section in that page, it says:
-------
Hashtag
The word "hashtag" is often used when reading social media messages
aloud, indicating the start of a hashtag. For instance the text "#foo"
is often read out loud as "hashtag, foo" (as opposed to "hash, foo").
This leads to the common belief that the symbol itself is called
"hashtag".
---
So it isn't actually _called_ hashtag.)

In the US, # is most commonly a pound sign because
in public it's most often used to mark items for sale by
weight.

That's interesting. Do you mean it is used to represent the pound weight
(what we use "lb" for here, though we're [albeit _very_ gradually!]
going towards metric), or just to indicate that something _is_ sold by
weight?

I'm afraid that if you want to control your blood
pressure you just have to accept that the US is the new
Rome.

OK (-:

In spades. And no one much cares what people
in the UK think. No insult. Just facts.

Hmm. May be true in parts of the USA.

You can go to
France and complain that it's a crescent roll and not
the mouth-full-of-pebbles "cwah-sauh" word that they
use. But it's their country, after all. Better to just
enjoy your dessert.

I, too, actually prefer to use the English version where I can -
certainly in all the places where people trying to be
clever/deceptive/whatever use foreign words. (And foodyism is certainly
one of those places!) [I sometimes translate things that _shouldn't_ be
translated, like names - mainly because it irritates my brother. Do you
know the composer Joe Green, for example? (His "requiem" for example
....)]

I was reminded of the vast Americanization of the world
last night when I watched "Crazy Rich Asians". A fun movie.
Mostly it was just silly, with a very worn-out, cliche,
Cinderella romance plot. I knew the whole plot after the first
few minutes. She's worthy of being the princess because
she's beautiful and doesn't care about the money, or
prestige, or being beautiful. So she gets the goods.

But what made it interesting was the sociological spectacle
of it. It's a wild, Asian comedy that takes place mostly in
Singapore. The landscape was astonishing. The cultural
portrayal was a semiotic explosion. Random Asian values
and symbols embedded in a mindset yearning to be Yank.
And the proliferation of American cultural symbols all
existing out of context, as merely American. Nothing was
really any good unless it was American. There was no limit
to how much people could spend, and they did. But they
couldn't buy being white American. (That's a controversial
statment these days. And I realize that as a white man I'm
singlehandedly responsible for the downfall of modern
civilization.

(-:

But facts is facts.)

Now that that's settled, care to argue about fags
and biscuits?


And don't ask to borrow a rubber, or to be knocked up in the morning.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Old soldiers never die - only young ones

In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:18:33 -0500, Big Al wrote:
My pet peeve is web pages that are trending towards phones with thin
columns down the center of the page when they could use the wide screen
page I have on my PC.

It's not that hard to detect what OS you are on and redirect to another
page that is phone design or a page that is PC designed. Except that
takes work and no one these days want to do any work, God forbid you do
a good job now a days.

It's not a matter of detecting the OS, but of detecting the width of
the browser window. This is easily done in CSS, and support for that
particular construct is in all popular browsers, as far as I'm aware.

The thing is, until the advent of huge screens (see below), even _that_
wasn't necessary: basic text in HTML autowraps to fit anyway! It's only
the advent of those who try to force their webpage to look like a piece
of paper _of fixed layout_ that has *broken* this; if they really want
to do that, they should use .pdf, not HTML - that's what (to a first
approximation) .pdf is _for_. (It can still have hyperlinks, too.) Even
if you really must have columns, those can be specified as percentages
of the window width, and thus will autoscale - no CSS needed.

On well-designed Web pages, when running on your desktop, if you
gradually decrease the width of your browser window you will reach a
point where suddenly the page snaps into a different layout, one
appropriate for narrow screens.

If scripted to hell, yes. If left alone, it will adjust _continuously_
as you change the window width.

I steer a middle course on my own pages. I set a maximum text width,
based on readability studies. Otherwise people with 4K screens would
have lines of text that are uncomfortably long for reading.

That _is_ thoughtful of you.

JPG


Visit 255soft.uk - no CSS there! (Content currently only relevant in UK.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush.
It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)