Add the following to your hosts file:

  # Web toolbars/widgets
  127.0.0.1       wibiya.com
  127.0.0.1       cdn.wibiya.com
  127.0.0.1       apture.com
  127.0.0.1       www.apture.com
  127.0.0.1       cim.meebo.com

In this case, the top toolbar is from Apture and the bottom from Wibiya.

Thanks for taking the time to track these down. (I love a rant with a happy ending.)

Or simply install NoScript, and worry about whitelists, not blacklists.

I can get at the content there with no trouble, and don't have to worry about any of those toolbars.

I've used NoScript, and it's extremely annoying having to enable it on each site you want it on. Not to mention blocking it in the hosts file automatically blocks it in all browsers, and that I don't agree with some of the things the NoScript author has done (http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/01/236248).

NoScript is a symptom, not a cure. I haven't yet figured out a good name for the disease though.

>NoScript is a symptom, not a cure. I haven't yet figured out a good name for the disease though.

Web3.0?

Thanks for the list

Just added these to the "Adblock Plus" Preferences in Firefox (under Tools).

Worked like a charm.

I activated Safari Reader as soon as I saw those walls of 12px text, so I had no idea what you were talking about until I went back and let the page finish loading.

"Foul" is not a strong enough word for that. Maybe "vile" is better?

Same here. And I love Safari Reader aka Readability!

A good rule of thumb I have is that if you "have to put a bag over the head" of something in order to make that thing pleasant to digest or access (whether it's a UI or a bureaucracy or paperwork or a person or physical widget or whatever), then really the source thing itself should be designed that way in the first place. In this case, my own ideal style of web design is very close to what Readability/Reader produces. Thus making it redundant to the extent I've achieved my ideal.

Those bars are even more irritating on a mobile device. The fixed height and position means they obscure half of the actual content and you can't scroll away from them. Do not want.

They also break the "scroll one whole page at a time" paradigm that many are used to.

EDIT:

I just realized that Chrome devs have apparently already decided that it's not worth fighting the idiotic bars, so Chrome scrolls less than one page.

I think I'll call them "Mercuries", now that I've thought about it (get it? floating footers!).