Recently, Snap Previews Anywhere (by Snap.com) have been proliferating wildly. Some people only experimented with them for a short time, then disabled them again; others are still using them.
I personally find them annoying as hell. They:
- break the user flow, since they just pop up right in the middle and they can’t be anticipated (unlike e.g. intellitxt, where the huge green border is a good hint);
- get in the way, if you accidentally hovered over a link and the bubble pops up over text you were reading;
- block clicks, sometimes even on the very link they triggered on (this doesn’t happen consistenly, but often enough to be annoying);
- don’t add value, or am I just not seeing how previews of the site behind a link somehow improve my browsing experience? (Of course, this is highly subjective.)
Luckily, you can disable Snap Previews Anywhere rather easily – if you know where to look. You can either click the question mark button and search through the FAQ, or just follow this link to disable Snap Previews Anywhere, anywhere. You must accept and keep cookies for that page to work.
Now, I don’t want to be only complaining. A very simple way of making Snap Previews behave would be to a) add a little marker to snappified links, maybe a smaller version of the bubble graphic; and b) only trigger when the user hovers over the marker, maybe even add a small delay. This way, it doesn’t disturb people who just coincidentally hover over a link, it’s visible, and still easily accessible.