It would seem that someone in the browser community had the “brilliant” idea of disabling JavaScript Alert() boxes on pages that have a “lot” of these (i.e. more than a handful). Crazy. The Alert() mechanism is there for a very good reason, to alert the user to something of importance.

Like “Please confirm that you have read the terms and conditions before proceeding”

Or “Warning: this combination of medication is not advised for pregnant women”

So, the Web-based service keeps popping up these alerts and suddenly there’s a “helpful” checkbox on the alert that says “prevent this page from creating additional dialogs”. Tempting, isn’t it? You click it, and bye-bye alerts.

And possibly bye-bye your safety, your security, your failsafe, [click title to read more…]