Filed under: Web services
How to get rid of Snap's obnoxious link previews
If you've seen them, you've probably been annoyed by them. I'm talking about Snap's "Preview Anywhere," a little gizmo people can stick on their web site or blog that, when the visitor rolls the mouse over any link, will pop up a big bubble with a thumbnail image in it, giving them a preview of the destination site. Sounds kinda cool, right? Yeah, in theory. In practice, however, Snap Preview Anywhere is bloody obnoxious. It disrupts the browsing experience without actually adding any value--in the words of Performancing's Nick Wilson, "It's bling, a silly little shiney thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com." Just say no to bubbles.So how does an interruption-averse web surfer get rid of it? Conveniently, Snap's SPA FAQ has the answer. Just click on the link provided in the FAQ and your browser will be imbued with a cookie that will banish those bubbles from your view. As long as the cookie lasts, at least. An additional step you can take on behalf of your fellow web surfers is to email the folks who put these things on their sites and register your displeasure.
[Via kottke.org]
After spending the better part of an hour on 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mary said 3:41PM on 1-31-2007
If you're using Firefox and the Adblock extension, you can just block the URL:
spa.snap.com/snap_preview_anywhere.js
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Se7en said 3:44PM on 1-31-2007
Thank god I'm not the only one who hates those things. They showed up on so many Techmeme blogs at once, I figured they must have paid "A-list" bloggers to use it.
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Micah said 4:00PM on 1-31-2007
Fantastic!
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Jason Fields said 7:27PM on 1-31-2007
Hello,
My name is Jason Fields, I am Product Evangelist for Emerging Technology for Snap.com and Snap Preview Anywhere (aka SPA) blog widget. I wanted to address some comments recently about the usefulness of our product.
We are committed to making SPA a useful feature for both the site owner and end user.
In the weeks to come, we will be:
(1) Making improvements that will reduce the confusion about whether a link is SPA enabled, or not
(2) Making it much easier for a site owner to point SPA to a particular type of link
(3) Enabling the site owner to totally customize a link, image, css, etc.
Rest assured that these various viewpoints have been, and will continue to, inform the ongoing development of this product.
Jason Fields
Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology
www.Snap.com
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BC said 9:01AM on 2-01-2007
Thanks for posting the way to turn those off. It was a slight annoyance that I'm glad I can disable.
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Robert Nagle said 12:42PM on 2-01-2007
This functionality should be a totally client-based solution. But as I understand it this is a feature that lingers on the server pages--and cannot be turned off. I deactivated the wordpress plugin for snap and then removed the files altogether--and the damn thing didn't turn off! (eventually we had to comment out the code). This is totally uncool!
It added an extra hour or two to a web server migration I did last week.
Please note that the snap guy who made the comment did not offer a solution to the server (only the client) problem.
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Bruce said 3:36PM on 2-01-2007
"I deactivated the wordpress plugin for snap and then removed the files altogether--and the damn thing didn't turn off! (eventually we had to comment out the code). This is totally uncool!"
What are you talking about? I deactivate the WP plugin and the popups are gone.
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Jonathan said 8:01PM on 2-02-2007
You could also enter snap.com into a hosts file (like adware blockers) -- it'll disable the popups, but also disable anything you might actually want from snap
However, its way easier- you just add one line to your hosts file (mac, pc, linux) , and it'll work for all browsers on your machine.
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mike said 8:36AM on 2-03-2007
Or you can just use the options menu in the bubble...
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Michael Savoy said 6:41AM on 2-07-2007
Thanks so very much for this information. I never even knew what the
**heck** that snap thing was in the first place. I actually searched through my Firefox extensions list trying to determine the source of it thinking it was some add-on
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harrytorrence said 5:14PM on 2-07-2007
aol has stopped yahoo and google and all yahoo services and stopped enternet explorer how is this possablwe how can aol take over and run computer operation and stop yahoo e mail interneyt explorer ive sent reports about the crooked aol it does no good the poweres thet be on judas tree
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tniemi said 6:56AM on 3-01-2007
The Snap Preview disabling on their own site uses cookies. I use Opera as my browser, and every time I close my browser all my cookies disappear.
Solution:
1) In Windows start Notepad (select Run from Start menu, type notepad.exe)
2) Open the following file:
In Windows XP:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
In Windows 2K:
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
In Windows 98/Me:
C:\WINDOWS\HOSTS
3) Put the following line to your HOSTS-textfile somewhere UNDER the localhost-line, like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 spa.snap.com # disable Snap Preview(tm) everywhere, for good
4) Save and reload the page, and they are gone! Everywhere! In every browser.
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SomeGuy said 7:51PM on 3-21-2007
TO: Jason Fields, Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology, www.Snap.com (See his comment above.)
SUBJECT: Get a real job!!!
MESSAGE: Surely you can find a job that doesn't involve abusing people.
The option to turn off the crazy, useless Snap system does not work, of course, because all browser users should check the option to throw away cookies on exit.
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