• On The Insider: Bruno Film Edited Due to Jackson's Death
January 29, 2008 10:41 AM PST

Netdisaster adds Led Zeppelin and acid urine to any Web site

by Josh Lowensohn
Editors note: To turn off the Flash ad, click the "remove disaster" button in the upper-left corner of the screen.

You know those highly intrusive Flash ads that you occasionally find while surfing? The kind that march all over the page and are impossible to ignore and sometimes get rid of? From that same technology comes an enjoyable service that lets you see your favorite sites in a whole new way. Netdisaster, which picked up an innovation award from Yahoo UK three years ago is still pretty innovative by letting you turn any Web site into a playground of destruction and/or defilement.

The service provides more than 30 ways to destroy a site, and a good majority of them manage to do it humorously. All you need to do is plug in a URL and pick the terror you wish it to befall. Certain options cause more damage than others, and many feature an "auto-repair" option that will seal up the holes caused from explosions, letting the mayhem continue into infinity. This is especially helpful if you're using the chainsaw tool or nuclear blast, as they tend to do some pretty serious damage.

The one thing I really enjoy about this service is that you can try out other disasters without having to jump back to the home page and plug in the URL all over again. You can tweak the options ad nauseam, and simply click one button to get the action going again. It's a nice touch, and really keeps you trying out everything that's there.

If you're a really big fan, you can also install the toolbar, which lets you call up a disaster on any site you're on without having to click off the page. Webmasters also have the option of adding disasters or the disaster selector toolbar to any of their pages with a few simple lines of JavaScript, which I've done after the break.

[found on DownloadSquad]

Cut into some news this morning in a whole new way with Netdisaster. See what we did there?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Josh Lowensohn is an associate editor for Webware.com, CNET's blog about cool and otherwise useful Web applications and services. If you've found a site you'd like profiled, shoot him an e-mail. E-mail Josh.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (5 Comments)
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by alburyants January 30, 2008 12:18 AM PST
crazy
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by Lyndon January 30, 2008 12:04 PM PST
It kinda sucks it only supports IE.
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by BrianZachary January 30, 2008 5:23 PM PST
OK, it would have been nice to read this article without having to restart about 20 times so I could read the whole thing. It's very annoying having to restart constantly due to all the blimps all over the page getting in the way and blocking the article. It's one thing to experience the effect but on the page that's telling about it?
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by jw1ls5n0129 February 2, 2008 11:12 AM PST
Hi Brian you are spot on , I don't like all the annoying stuff and its silly . it puts me off reading . John.
by Tekk March 11, 2008 9:49 PM PDT
You should have clicked on the "Remove Disaster" button, which was clearly posted on the BOTTOM RIGHT corner of the page. Thanks to the editor for sending us on a wild goose chase to the Top Left corner of the page. That was so funny, I forgot to laugh.
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