AliExpress now requires login just to view item pages

“Oh my God, we’re all going to crash into the side-walls of the entrance!!”

Ha, that error message looks like it’s blaming you for being a bad browser driver. “It’s not us, it’s you” :frowning:

+1. I could rant about this for awhile, but nobody wants that so let’s just say that there are good reasons to hate appification.

After some tests. Once you signed in AliExpress with an account it adds your IP into their database. So every time you want to search something for example AliExpress checks your IP and is looking for a linked to the IP account. If that pair exists then AliExpress makes you sign in. I used VPN to hide my IP and it removed all restrictions in the same browser. Also there are not problems in network where nobody singed in AliExpress ever. Anyway I don’t think it’s a good practice because AliExpress keeps all information that can be used by hackers. Hackers can know your home address and your IP thanks to AliExpress.

And I just noticed that they are starting to collect Taxes? WTF!!! They are in China FFS!!!

Taxes were already discussed here: Aliexpress charges sales tax?

I’m not familiar with taxes in the US, but they might be required to collect taxes if they want to do it right. At least for EU customers they don’t care about taxes, declare everything as gift or use some dubious ways to bring all packets inside the EU without paying taxes.

They all charge tax now, even eBay, before I never paid tax for out of state sellers. I also see 2 charges on my card, one to the seller and one to ebay for tax.

I usually login first, most times in fact, but I can check out AliExpress items without being logged in. Just FYI. O:)

My experience has changed since my last remarks. At the moment I can again view most item pages without needing to login. I have no clue how anything works anymore :face_with_monocle: . AliExpress continues to require the following for me to login:

#1. Enter username and password, press Signin (default [Enter] key)
#2. Slide verification bar, press Signin (default [Enter] key No focus, so must use mouse)
#3. Answer Captcha, press OK/Signin (default [Enter] key)
#4. Slide verification bar, press Signin (default [Enter] key No focus, so must use mouse)

Sometimes the #4 verification bar doesn’t appear, but I must still use the mouse to press Signin again.

That process has remained consistent for the past few months and I’ve learned it well. However, I just now went to double-check before posting and something insane happened; it let me log in with just:

#1. Enter username and password, press Signin (default [Enter] key)

No verification bar, Captcha, or anything else. WTF??!? As I said, I have no clue how anything works anymore. This is the first time I’ve signed in with only a username, password, and [Enter] key since the new website went live at the beginning of the year. Nothing has changed on my end, as this is the same device and IP (or IP range) that I’ve had all year.

[Edit 2019-11-07] Things went back to the usual long process, so perhaps it depends on how old my cookie is or how long since my IP was logged. Who knows.

I find it annoying that I have to sign in every few hours. So now I don’t shop unless I really have to.

Bart says it best

I concur. Between that, and the incessant new user coupon overlay on every screen, I’ve stopped casually browsing on AX.

Even worse, I’ve found that in the past, the site would shunt you to an login page that wasn’t secured.

+1. I hate the coupon pop-ups on every single page; they make you want to punch someone. However, I no longer see these, so perhaps I managed to disable exactly the right script or got lucky somehow [crosses fingers].

I also despise the nearly universal trend to now place floating button bars along the side of every page. They are constantly in the way of reading and cannot be disabled unless you’re a javascript wizard. I don’t understand why stores now insist upon having them. I’ve even had at least one occasion where I could not click a checkout button because the floaty bar was in the way! Stop the floaties!

Wow, I’m going to keep a better lookout for that, as I suspect that I’ve recently been letting my guard down about checking for that.

Kill Sticky is a weapon I’ve long relied on to handle them.

Sofirn has an ebay store. I just got SF11, SF34, SP33 and D25 headlamp, all 4 for $60, and I didn’t wait for a month to get them

Thanks! I don’t keep a bookmarks bar exposed anymore, but I’ll some way to keep it handy. I was sure that there was likely some script in greasemonkey or something to do this, but had never looked into it and a bookmarklet is a nice solution.

I came up with an initial solution for Kill Stickies that might suit my needs (see follow-up). I added an extension to my browser (Firefox) called Custom Style Script that allows per page javascript or CSS code and offers a toolbar button to switch it on or off.

I then went into the Custom Style Script settings and entered the following in section III. Code:

URL=
*

Javascript=
var i, elements = document.querySelectorAll('body *');

for (i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
if (getComputedStyle(elements[i]).position === 'fixed') {
elements[i].parentNode.removeChild(elements[i]);
}
}

Or if you'd like to see the stickies for a few seconds before they disappear, then:

Javascript=

setTimeout(function(){
var i, elements = document.querySelectorAll('body *');

for (i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
if (getComputedStyle(elements[i]).position === 'fixed') {
elements[i].parentNode.removeChild(elements[i]);
}
}
}, 5000);

Where "5000" is the delay in milliseconds.


I then pressed the "+" bar to add it to the database and all floaties/stickies seem to be removed so far. They do appear for a few milliseconds upon page load even with zero delay, but they quickly disappear as I'm sure that the custom script is run after the page loads. If I want the floaties to come back, I simply click the toolbar button, click the "power" button for the extension, and refresh that page and any others.

Not having stickies may cause navigation problems, but I don't want to have to run a bookmarklet every single time I load a page at AliExpress or elsewhere. We'll see how it goes.

Yes, Greasemonkey is a far more capable solution, but it's much larger and likely slower than Custom Style Script. Use whichever you prefer or is available in your browser.

After some testing, I should warn that you probably don’t want the “full time” fixed element blocker that I posted above, because it also breaks any site where the header “becomes” fixed (sticky) after you scroll down. The header will remain available after loading the page, but if you scroll down it becomes fixed and the Kill Stickies code then removes it. The header does not return even after scrolling back to the top of the page, so you can only use the Kill Stickies code temporarily or it will break many sites, including YouTube.

Sorry to say but I hate the way stickies are used. They stick stupid search bars and shite in many many sites, taking up screen space like illegal squatters. My screen is to view content, to be useable, available and useful. Just a decade ago there were no stickies at all (!) and everything worked nicely. Now large heaps of screen space are squandered in many badly designed sites, especially in landscape mode which I use a lot with my smartphone (mostly because I can comfortably use the keyboard while in landscape, and it is more natural anyway). I don't need stupid sticky squatter bars like in G00gl€ $earch, Youtube, AliExpress, also Facebook places me a supersized sticky because I am not registered just to read some crap… it's freaking stupid dumbass. :-|

On the bright side, think about stickies just like frames.

Every idiot wanted to (mis)use them for everything, to the point where hitting the web was an infuriating experience, until they just died out when the next even more idiotic new thing came into vogue.