Pinterest

[darkoshi]

Does Pinterest really not want people to be able to browse their site without creating an account and logging in? When I open any Pinterest page, the moment I scroll down a little bit, the bottom half of the page gets overlaid with a "There's more to see..." banner with Continue (for creating an account) and Login buttons. This effectively makes the site unbrowsable. Am I overlooking some link or button for disabling that?

Furthermore, even when a page seems to link to interesting things, such as this one about black-out panels for windows, I can't find a way of getting to the referenced sites. For example, when I click the top middle pinned item, rather than taking me to the "Tutorial: How to Sew DIY Black-out Li..." page, it just takes me to another Pinterest page, not the Tutorial.

Even then, it overlays the next Pinterest page with a login box. In the past, when the site didn't do this, and I was able to freely browse it, I sometimes seriously considered setting up my own account there. Something stopped me; I don't recall the details. Something about copyright issues and/or the Terms of Use. Or perhaps exactly that perceived inability to actually link to pages on other websites?? But now the site is so obnoxious with that login banner, that I want nothing to do with it.

Well, according to this page, clicking on the pinned items should take you to the referenced page, not another Pinterest page. But maybe the links only work correctly when you are logged in? Or are people inappropriately pinning other Pinterest pages, rather than the actual site that the original pinner pinned?

3/29/2015 Update:
I've discovered that if you disable Javascript for "pinimg.com", then the Pinterest pages display without the overlying login banner/panels, and clicking through to the referenced sites works fine. However, only 3 pinned items are shown per page this way; any additional ones are hidden.

There's also this GreaseMonkey script which lets you browse the site without being logged in, and without any pinned items being hidden (in this case, Javascript for "pinimg.com" must be enabled).

Comments

[marahmarie]

Thanks for posting this. I already have an add-on to disable JS with just one click of a button in my status bar (which itself exists thanks to another add-on ever since Firefox officially removed it from the browser) and I could install the GM script, too, since I use GM to run my own (sadly in need of repair) script for Google. I too have been completely flummoxed by Pinterest's insistence that I log in for ages but I will just immediately leave the site rather than look for a workaround, I guess because Pinterest is like another Facebook to me only more superficial. Still, there are times I honestly want to see something there (especially anything related to web page design that I landed on from say, Google search results) and can't. I probably have a log-in there but if I do it's not stored in LastPass and I have no interest in, uh, pinning, so I just don't ever do anything to fix the problem. The ideas in this post will, though.

Blackout WINDOWS

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't trust or waste moment of my time at any website that collected information on me before making a purchase. Especially when there are plenty of other places to shop. If you really want to make it easy try Home Depot or Lowes.

Re: Blackout WINDOWS

[darkoshi]

Pinterest isn't a shopping site itself; it's a social media/image sharing site. Users post entries ("pin items") about interesting/appealing things they find on other sites.

It stands to reason that Pinterest may however try to make money from referral fees in the future, when users click the pinned links and end up buying items on the linked-to sites.

[passionrlsusall.livejournal.com]

You have to click a pin, then click again on the picture, then go to the webpage..or something like that.  It's kind of annoying, but I think the site is worth it, especially for keeping track of recipes.

[darkoshi]

I figured that out after doing the workarounds mentioned in the update. Clicking the pin brings up another page for just that one pin, and that page has a working link to the external site.

But without using any workarounds, when not logged in, clicking the pin simply brought up some other Pinterest page with a bunch of other pinned items. I was like, what's even the point?!