John Gruber, at Daring Fireball:

You know what a dickover is, even if you didn’t know what to call it (until now). If you use the Internet, you encounter them every day. They’re popovers, but dickheaded. The web is absolutely lousy with them, and mobile apps present them too, with increasing frequency.

Dickovers are a veritable scourge. They’re so common they’re effectively part of the firmament.

Reload the page a few times (and press the Escape or Enter keys) for a chuckle.

“Dickover” isn’t the most polite term, but certainly captures the experience. Like Gruber, I intensely dislike these screen-blocking abominations, especially the ones warning me that I’m using an ad blocker. The more respectful of these offer a “Continue” button (though often a snide and passive-aggressive “Continue without supporting us”). The truly heinous refuse to allow you to view their content at all—to which I say, fuck you, and close the window (or view in Reader mode or with JavaScript disabled while I laugh uproariously at the utter incompetence).

It’s a goddamn privilege for anyone to bestow your article, story, or product page with their attention. The gall, to deliberately interrupt them while they are in the middle of actively reading, to present them with a dickover.

Here on JAG’s Workshop, I’ve studiously avoided the seemingly ubiquitous “Sign up for my newsletter” dickover because I’m more interested in having you read than having you subscribe (possibly to the detriment of my email subscriptions). I have a very small dickbar on the lower right edge encouraging you to Subscribe, which can sometimes obscure content on windows sized between 640px and 1100px wide. I plan on removing it in favor of a navigation item, so the site will be completely dick-free.