You don't see the bar unless you go to digg, or click a link that some took from digg, without removing ti from the frame (not hard at all). And the person who linked it using the digg, link most likely thinks that adds value (ability to access the comments on that link).

Reddit's had this feature forever, I don't understand why people have a problem with diggs version.

Its not a matter of being hard to remove. It can be the easiest thing in the world to do. But I would still have to keep doing whatever action is necessary to remove the bar. Over and over and over for every link. Plus the X is on the wrong side of the screen for me — Mac's have the Close/Maximize(ish)/Minimie buttons on the left hand side of the window, not right hand side like on Windows.

Reddit's bar is not on by default. Digg's is. This is a big difference. Having the frame and not simply redirecting means I can't see exactly what the pages URL is, it makes bookmarking, sorting and tagging that much harder. And site-specific scripts break.

The point is, it doesn't do anything to help enhance my browsing session. Being able to read comments on Digg is not a plus as far as I'm concerned. Being able to give a company that makes a website I don't use (or particularly like) my browsing habits is not something I have a huge desire to do. Besides, it doesn't put comments directly on the page. I still have to click through to Digg to read them.

Oh, and http://skitch.com/zadr/bms2t/not-useful <-- Seems to keep happening. Very difficult to read content if I want to do any scrolling at all.

exactly and it is useful. I think the only problem with the diggbar is that its on by default.

if you dont want to digg and werent on digg's website then why would you see the bar in the first place.

Because someone else passed on a link that Digg shortened in a conversation I'm participating in on some level.

People use all sorts of URL shorteners, if I want to see the content they're talking about, my choices are either to click or ask them to shorten it again. And the latter usually interrupts the flow of conversation.