Are you sure you wish to logout?

[vulcanised]

Why do they ask?

It's bad enough on banking sites and others which may have some importance, but it's just plain irritating on others.

Sites which don't want to let you go are always the unimportant ones.

[mixture]

Because you may have another browser window (or tab) open in which you are using another section of a website. Loss of your session cookie caused by your logout on one page will remove your right to submit what you're working on in another.

To be fair, my biggest gripe is with the websites that ask you to type your email address twice during registration ! (well, there are other things too that are high up on the list, but that was the first that came to mind !)

[dazdaz1]

My gripe is all those numbers and letters (upper/lower case), with lined backgrounds one has to enter to verify your not a web bot most times takes me about 3/4 attempts to get it right.

Daz

[A A Gruntpuddock]

"To be fair, my biggest gripe is with the websites that ask you to type your email address twice during registration !"

I did too until I read a comment from an IT worker who said that most of his time was spent connecting up customers who mis-spelt their email addresses when registering ..........

[mixture]

I did too until I read a comment from an IT worker who said that most of his time was spent connecting up customers who mis-spelt their email addresses when registering ..........

Aah.... but you see, you should have no sympathy for the worker whose employers can't write an adequate functional specification.

With a system thus :
(1) User completes form, entering email once, hits submit.
(2) System generates sends email with a unique single-use link
(3a)User receives email, clicks link, email therefore validated and account activated
-or-
(3b)User fails to receive email, link expires after X hours. User gets the chance to register again, no slave needs to be employed by the company to clean up the database.

The problem is averted.

[Mike-Bracknell]

My biggest gripe is those sites that insist upon you creating a username that isn't your email address, and then insist upon restrictive rules on your password creation.

The net result is that I either have forgotten the username or the password given that I can't have one that fits all the minor quirks of the local DBA/webgeek. Don't they understand that, barring a dictionary attack, the ability for me to remember an average password off by heart is infinitely safer than having a list of the difficult passwords written down somewhere.

[mixture]

Mike-Bracknell,

Actually, I'll go one up on you.

Websites that insist that you can't use the same password if you've used it already in the past year.

N.B. I don't mind the ones that prevent you recycling the last three or five passwords you've used, but the last year ???

[jackieofalltrades]

I'm glad it's not just me that has this gripe. I get it every time I shut down Skype. Makes me want to yell obscenities at the computer.

[Bushfiva]

Well it's not in Skype's interest to let you go: it wants access to your resources for some of its routing and networking needs. That's also why the exit command isn't in the obvious location in the command list.