Am I the only one who feels almost offended by this shit?

Mediafire
Hitfilm

That's the only two examples I can think of right now but I've seen that kind of stuff A LOT recently.

I go to a website and instead of getting the content I'm looking for I get to look at an almost full HD image, slideshow or clip that is utterly uninteresting or useless, not to mention that these animations and effects make my browser get hiccups. And the moronic pics like in case of Mediafire remind me of those utterly awful business websites that provide software for offices or legal counsel and are plastered with pics of farm animals or smiling children. Some people may think that stuff like that is attractive and makes visitors curious but when I see things like that I feel like I've ended up in the wrong place and try to get away as fast as I can. And the relevant content requires me either to scroll down a whole friggin' page, to click on some symbol all the way down at the bottom of the screen or to look for tiny buttons or forms almost invisible to the naked eye due to all the stuff happening in what should be the background.

I get it, it's all about the totally intuitive smooth sliding philosophy of touch devices but for frigg's sake... as a desktop or laptop user I want to see all the relevant stuff the moment I visit a page and be able to get deeper by clicking on something I already see, not by taking a trip down what seems to be memory lane of a random guy I don't give a rat's ass about.

I know I'm overreacting but seriously - I DO use touch devices and I really appreciate web engineers and designers with the common sense to make pages suitable for those but the websites where I see this kind of crap are usually sites meant for "serious" purposes, stuff I need when sitting in front of a desktop computer or laptop, devices which only in bizarro world do not come with a mouse and keyboard and where the only things that actually should fill my whole screen are videos and video games.

Sorry for this rant but I really need to hear that I'm not the only one who feels that way about this new web design philosophy which in my opinion screws desktop/laptop users.

My thoughts exactly. And yes, browsers on mobile devices normally report that it's a mobile device and request a mobile version (although in my experience those are often badly designed or stripped of useful features and I frequently have to force the desktop version). And it blows my mind that pages like the ones I mentioned above show up for desktop computers while they are clearly designed for touch devices and it should be easily possible to make them only appear on mobile or touch devices.

And yeah, I also can't quite imagine that touch devices have become so popular that web designers/engineers could or should neglect desktop/laptop users. It gets even more absurd since some of these pages are specifically meant for use in the workplace or something. I mean, who's gonna do video editing on his smartphone?

I can sympathize with this. I really hate mobile versions of websites, too.

Some of it can be attributed to the "Mobile First" philosophy which is one of those things that is so buzzy that you might be frowned upon for not using it, and even have bosses (or clients) order their devs to use it. Though I think half the time people mean responsive when they say mobile first - which I don't think are the same thing.

If you feel like as a desktop user you are being given the afterthought experience, then that is part of the problem with hardcore mobile first, because that's exactly what the philosophy means. Take the site down to the most focused, basic information. Then when you have that, start adding "stuff." Which is easy for a developer to say, but from an artistic standpoint filling empty space up with "Stuff" isn't all that great an attitude to take. The focusing aspects are useful and valid to a point, but the viability of building up from a smaller point is way over embellished.

A great deal of the time when people are explaining it what they are really doing is trying to teach desktop only guys into not being mobile hostel or ignorant which I do think is overall a good thing. A website right now needs to be happy in many situations, though it may not be as ideal as something crafted for one known target.

Personally I dislike having to make something with a mobile bias, and lament the loss of hover abilities.

Oh HaHA look at that gimp a** sh*t they call a website.. wow that's friggin AWFUL!!! XD

Going by what you described, both parties (desktop & mobile users) get the short end of the stick - desktop users get content served in a way that's practically optimal for mobile devices and mobile users get content served in a way that's only theoretically optimal for mobile devices. Makes you wonder what these web designers/ engineers have in mind when they're developing and on what devices they do their tests.

I don't think that the number of desktop/ laptop users accessing the net is negligible. Going by all the ads, it feels like just a hard push to these "new" technology devices, like you're a dinosaur if you're not flipping through content while "on the go". And that in turn feels like one more push to be "social" on the net.
Sadly, I don't see this changing any time soon, I actually expect it to only get worse.

As for your last point - the real question is, does a smartphone powerful enough for serious video editing exist?
And to connect it to my previous point - I recently had a discussion about this, the stuff I could access/ do on the net with a smartphone I don't care to do/ access; there's stuff that I'm actually interested in, but the smartphone is not the device I'd enjoy using due to its small screen. So, I know I'm not their target group, but I resist as much as I can and try to make the best out of the current situation.

Occasionally give computer support to an elderly friend of mine and she uses Sympatico for internet access, but the web mail interface provided by outlook.com makes me feel the same way.

Hope zoho doesn't become that way.

If one is talking about pure web dev, then the need for testing on actual mobile devices is somewhat minimal. The desktop browsers can emulate a lot of the mobile stuff (try Ctrl+alt+m on firefox)

of course it's still best to try things on whatever you can. Each device tends to have a set of fun ideas about how to auto help the user's end experience that is tough to deal with. Then the "touch" event situation across OS and browsers is fun to deal with from a js perspective.

When you are talking about having to make one set of code work across 320px wide, vertical oriented screens and 1920px wide DT screens with wildly different pixel densities then, yeah, it can be tough to make everyone happy.

I agree, and so does my mum.

That sounds like a "your mom" joke gone seriously wrong.

youtube's going there... just watch

You're free to go and use Lynx. Oh, and the examples you've showed have nothing to do with touchscreens. These are CSS3 transitions coupled with some JavaScript which is only recently getting popular due to most modern browsers supporting CSS3 transitions.

It's starting to go the way of other technology like credit cards and mobile phones, you get treated like you don't exist if you don't have one.

No. I already complained about vhx and assorted horizontal nonsense. Powerpoint has been a joke for ages. Now it's the height of fashion. Wake up, sheeple.
[I'm only partially sarcastic.]