Issuu wins for most annoying way to break my web experience. I have a perfectly serviceable PDF renderer, but instead I have to let Flash have a shot at my security to get a slowly loading page that has navigation obscuring the content and ignores my scrolling input, requiring me to use their invented elements and watch their slow, jerky, scroll animation. Going to the next page requires closing a tab, searching for which page I was on last in a grid of similar thumbnails, clicking the next one, clicking again to really go to the page, and one more click to approve Flash (ok, that one is self inflicted).
That was a lot of effort on their part to make an interface annoying enough for me to ignore this work.
YES! I too hate these annoying PDF-download-pseudo-services that collect your email-address and your interests (extremely valuable virtual goods) in exchange for a PDF, that the author offers for free (extremely cheap) - this is an unbalanced exchange of information.
These kind of information hijacking must be marked as am abusive business modell that is not acceptable in a free world. We have to think longterm here and defend freedom of information on a very basic level, to be prepared for the larger battles that will come when chinese investors will be the only sources of money.
Please write the authors to remove their PDFs from these services and just put them on a webserver into a PDF folder. Or to use any free file hosting service, anything, but please do not support these ancient flash-fetish-stoneagers and information-suppressors, THANKS!
To trigger some activism against these annoying pdf hijacking sites I just pinned down a FREEDOM-FOR-PDFs-TEMPLATE-TEXT side-project :) - you might use this as a starting point for your own emails, certainly this can be extended:
That was a lot of effort on their part to make an interface annoying enough for me to ignore this work.