Amazon driving me absolute nuts!

By glassheart, 8 April, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

OK, this is about to absolutely make me scream! I'm trying to do a basic search on the Amazon website with Safari on my Macbook Air with 11.2.3 Big Sur.

After doing the search and submitting the query, Safari goes absolutely haywire. I keep getting this stupid dynamically refreshing update with a close button to close an ad based off the product I did a key word search for. I've not even clicked on any of the results. This is just after searching, then navigating by heading to try looking at the results and their prices.

If I hit VO+space on the close ad button, then about 2 seconds later, another one pops up. No matter what I do, I can't get the damn thing to stop popping up another ad which frankly can go to hell for all I care.

I'm not entirely cirtain that this is per sé a Voiceover issue, but when using VO, you can probably imagine how annoying this would be!

So, maybe it's the fact I wasn't signed into my account, but I doubt it.

On my PC with Windows 10, I definitely don't have this issue with jaws, nor with NVDA. Heck, even on Ubuntu Mate with Orca, I don't see this. So, God only knows what's going on here.

Has anyone seen this recently, and if so, how in the tarnation do you get around it. Just in case it's a thing of the mouse hovering over something, I even turned off cursor tracking with VO+shift+F3, but that's not even helping. Shrugs.

I really need for work to get this order placed, but this is making it impossible.

Thanks.

Chris.

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Comments

By Mister Kayne on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

I am sorry, I haven’t personally explored this browser only on my mobile. Does it have a pop-up blocker? if yes can you enable it and try doing the same search

By glassheart on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

yeah, it does, but I already have that enabled. That's not the issue. Good thought though.

By Brad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

I'm not a mac user but if you can use another browser that mighth help.

By glassheart on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

I did try another browser. I've now tried Safari, Lightning web browser, Chrome, and even Edge. They all are producing the same effect. I'm quite amn advanced Voiceover user, but this is really perplexing me.

By Greg Wocher on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

Hello,
Go to your VoiceOver preferences. Once in there move to the navigation section and look for the mouse pointer popup button. Activate this button and make sure it is set to ignores VoiceOver cursor. This should fix this issue.

By glassheart on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

In reply to by Greg Wocher

Thank you, Greg, for your response.

I'm very much willing to try your suggestion. My only concern with this method is, I disabled cursor tracking with VO+Shift+F3, yet it's still happening.

I thought that when you did that, that forces the mouse cursor to no longer track the voiceover cursor if you turn off curstor tracking. So, if that's the case, and I'm still having this issue, then wouldn't doing this have no baring? I guess I'm just a bit confused on that.

By Bruce Harrell on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

Hi. I remember seeing somewhere that turning off java script while you're at amazon.com solves the problem. I haven't tried it. Instead, I've memorized heading sequences and numbering and use next heading commands to skip past these incredibly annoying traps for the blind.

By Greg Wocher on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

Hello,
I don't think they are quite the same thing. I just know that when I did this that amazon started working like it does on my windows machine. Those pop ups don't happen when you set the mouse pointer to ignore VoiceOver cursor. Also if you turn javascript off some of the functionality of the site will be broken. With javascript off I don't believe that things like picking your size on items will work.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

it sounds like you have adware on your system. amazon does not do pop up ads on there site EVER. it would be interesting to me to know how you got this on your computer because up till now ive never heard of any adware for mac os.

getting rid of it should be fairly easy but you may have to get a sighted person to do it. if you go into settings in safari i don't have it in front of me now so im going from memory but i think there is a tab called extensions. i am thinking that is where you will find something that you did not install(or maybe you did?) that is doing this.

is it only happening on amazon? that would be really odd that theres a scammer out there who only wants ad revenue from amazon. really specific maybe he hates Bezos or something.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

There was a mac app about 5-10 years ago i forget the name that would install itself onto your machine and then tell you you had all of these viruses that you had to pay them to remove. once apple found out about it they wren't too happy about it.

if your unable to solve where this is coming from making an appointment if you can at your local apple store and taking it to the genius bar they should be able to fix it.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

In reply to by glassheart

that is interesting. so my idea about this being a safari extension is wrong. you may have some odd type of virus on your computer. at this point you really only have one option that is to backup your data and wipe the drive. it sounds extreme and with a mac its probably safe to run some anti virus and say its fixed but thats my general recommendation with this issue.

if you live with a sighted person the next time this happens ask them to describe what they are seeing. if its truly a pop up ad this is not something that amazon does and you have some very odd specific malware.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

In reply to by Greg Wocher

are you sure your not getting the pop up or your just not "seeing" the pop up? turning off javascript will block any code on a website from running. that will also block amazon's site from being very useful.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

In reply to by Bruce Harrell

i really have to try using amazon with voiceover. maybe its that you guys are getting some odd interaction with how amazon does its site and voiceover? that would be really odd and something im sure both apple and amazon would want to know about.

it could be and this is really wild that some invisible code is running and voiceover somehow is seeing that and thinking it has to transcribe it for some reason. it should know to ignore things like that. calling apple's accessibility department about this might be worth while. im sure their programmers would like to see this.

also as i told the op blocking javascript will stop this but it will also stop amazon from being useful. at that point you might as well unplug your computer from the wall.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

another idea voiceover maybe seeing the listings on the page and deciding that it has to list them all one by one. that is not something you want and would be a very odd bug and something im sure more people would be screaming about.

its seems to be an odd interaction with some amazon code and voiceover. narrator probably either works differently or knows to ignore invisible code building a website from being transcribed.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

please let me know if you ever get this solved. i would be very interested in the outcome. not sure if you can send private messages here but if you can please reach out and let me know if this ever gets resolved.

i used to work in tech support and this is officially the weirdest problem ive heard of. the funniest was the lady who didnt know she had to press return to log into her mac. she just sat there staring at it for hours called us and a $500 home visit just for me to push return. :).

By Siobhan on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

Turning off Javascript does nothing but help. You can pick sizes and do anything you want. If you don't feel like turning it off, you can use either Windows or the mobile app. I like the app as it buzzes when an item is added to the cart. The amazon.com/access site is a joke. Don't even go there. As for the suggestions of having a sighted person wipe the drive and addware, I'll shake my head and move on otherwise i'd say how I feel about them. Good luck Christopher. I turned it off and things are fine.

Siobhan, sounds like you definitely feel my pain. LOL!

Wow! Amazon Access? Just, um, wow! Man! God! I forgot all about that thing! I thought that site was dead now for at least a decade or more. LOL! Now if that ain't nostalgia, I don't know what is!

What makes that thing a joke? You now have me intreigued.

Amazon access, I heard about that thing years ago, I don't think I tried it though.

It's stil going? There's really no need with the app. Speaking of crapppy amazon accessibility, there's a thing where it says something like, this, thing, will keep going, use your h key to get out of it? I'm not sure but whatever it was; I'm sure it's broken as it even appears in the app.

By Daniel Angus M… on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

In my experience, Amazon on macOS and Windows is hard to use. The site is very combersum with VoiceOver on macOS and JAWS on Windows. The carousel makes things very difficult to use, and the app or Alexa is what I use. I’ve got Amazon Prime and an echo show, so it’s very easy to ask Alexa to buy something, and swipe through until I get to what I want. The add to cart button on the echo show’s screen is easy to find as well.

By Gabriel Oria on Friday, April 30, 2021 - 00:58

You can use amazon.com/access. that is an issue with the javascript on the site from what I can tell, but they made a screenreader friendly version of the site. I use the access site all the time and have no issues at all. they might of made it better from when you guys last tried it.