
Anti-Features - theoneill
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/antifeatures
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aston
I like the term a lot. However, popup blocking is actually a real feature
since sometimes you want to block popups and sometimes you don't. Designing a
system that makes sorting out allowed vs. disallowed in a user friendly way is
non-trivial and is in fact a feature of a browser. It's especially a feature
if enabling means, as it did for the Internet Explorer team, going back and
changing old functionality to allow for blocking.

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Goladus
I'd call it an anti-feature at the browser API level. Code to launch a new
browser window is nonessential and it was included as a feature long before
anyone thought about whether it was a good idea for the product as a whole.

Today, popup windows are an accepted feature, though still insanely overused.
The only time I have ever found popups at all valuable is for instruction
annotations during stateful sessions where winding up in a situation where the
'back' button is needed is undesireable. I would still usually prefer to
simply open a new tab.

Ok: one other time, this web application at my last company had a subtle bug
where putting two consecutive slashes in the URL of the login page caused
weird things to happen. Their answer was to launch the app in a popup window
with the correct URL.

I think if it had been always impossible to launch popup windows by default,
then websites would be generally better designed.

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skmurphy
It's well thought out article. One key insight that Benjamin Hill offers is
that anti-features are often driven by business model requirements. If a
competitor "un-implements them" (enabling the feature) it's hard for the
original firm to follow without changing business model. This applies beyond
open source vs. proprietary competition.

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Goladus
That is a great term. I've been searching for years to sum up that concept so
elegantly. Probably since first time I encountered copy-protection on a video
game (X-Wing on a 486, I think it was)

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mynameishere
_It does not cost free software developers anything to avoid anti-features_

Damn well better not cost them anything since their remuneration is zero.

