Stay Alert

What if instead of disabling alert etc. browsers just changed their appearance so that it doesn’t look like a system dialog? Make it equivalent to something users could replicate with pure DOM manipulation.<p>That would prevent tricking users into thinking the alert was a system thing or spamming them with unblockable popups (the alert would only freeze the site not the browser), without breaking any sites.

I found the linked blog post insightful, but there is plenty of prior discussion.<p>&gt; <i>Canistilluse.com</i> (359 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28309885" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28309885</a><p>&gt; <i>Implement window.{alert, prompt, confirm} removal from cross-origin iframes</i> (147 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28055160" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28055160</a><p>&gt; <i>Google is considering removing alert()</i> (39 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28064290" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28064290</a><p>&gt; <i>Proposed Chromium policy on JavaScript dialogs</i> (2017, 18 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13981579" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13981579</a><p>&gt; <i>Google Chrome to remove alert() inside cross-origin iframes in a future version</i> (4 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28070437" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28070437</a><p>&gt; <i>Chromium plans to remove alert(), confirm(), prompt()</i> (1 comment)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28003125" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28003125</a><p>&gt; <i>Foundations</i> (0 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28088791" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28088791</a><p>&gt; <i>Choice Words about the Upcoming Deprecation of JavaScript Dialogs</i> (0 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28129579" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28129579</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28311776" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28311776</a><p>&gt; <i>Slow path to deprecate and remove window.alert&#x2F;confirm&#x2F;prompt</i> (0 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28071267" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28071267</a><p>&gt; <i>Chrome plans to Dismiss JavaScript dialogs on switch-away</i> (2017, 0 comments)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13995506" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13995506</a>