Introduction

I'm annoyed as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!

If that's your mantra, this book is for you. I'm here to help you take back the Internet from scamsters, spammers, reality-challenged web developers, sleazy marketers, pop-up ads, spyware, wireless stupidities, sloppy Microsoft programming, and the normal everyday annoyances of dial-up and broadband communications.

I've been using the Internet for longer than I care to remembersince before the days of the Web, when getting onto the Internet meant getting a "shell account" and using an unholy mess of Unix commands to do something as simple as reading your email.

Alas, things are even more annoying today. Don't believe me? Back in those days, there was no such thing as a pop-up ad. Heck, there weren't even regular online ads. Spam was a luncheon meat. Annoyance-laden programs like RealPlayer were not even a gleam in their creators' eyes. There were no wireless routers to curse, no sodden browsers like Internet Explorer to kick around, not even a glammed-up AOL to grumble about.