I don't understand why infinite scroll implementations don't precalculate how long the page will be when all results have loaded. This would allow the scroll bar to actually indicate how far through the results you are(I'm thinking etsy not google images where they could keep going for days...). The second issue I have with them is that they wait until you scroll to the bottom of the page before more results are loaded. Why not just keep filling the results out until they're all loaded, that way the user wouldn't experience the loading glitch whenever they scroll down. For bonus points they could allow you to scroll to any point in the results before they're loaded and have the items at that point loaded while you're watching.

Infinite scroll annoys me, period. I spend a lot of my time on 3G mobile, and data costs me money. When I scroll down to the bottom of the page, it's because I want to read what's there, not because I want to give my mobile provider more money. When we're all on flat-rate, unrestricted hyperspeed connections, maybe. (I wait with bated breath.)

Infinite scroll annoys me, period, too, but for entirely different reasons (ones that aren't going to change with improving network infrastructure, more related to ComputerGuru's reasons).

When I start browsing the sort of page that web developers are prone to applying infinite scroll to, I usually begin with a sort of semi-subconscious assumption that I'll just read down to the end of the page, or just the first N pages (for some smallish N) or something. I start doing so, but for a while don't realize that I'm never going to reach that point because the page is continually growing as I read it, and thus lose my way of quantifying (admittedly very vaguely) how much time I've wasted^W spent on it and where I should stop. My usual solution is to hit the "end" key (or its moral equivalent) and scroll up from there, ignoring whatever loads beyond that point.

Now from the developers point of view this may be a good way to get me to spend more time on their page, but if they're actually "gaming" me like that, it really just makes it enormously more obnoxious than it already was to begin with. Gaming intended or not, it strongly disinclines me to continue visiting the site in the future.

It annoys me too. In some website you can't see the footer, read it and then click its links. It keeps disappearing while I scroll down as fast as I can (keyboard or mouse).

Infinite scroll with a footer is a clear anti-pattern. If a site has both, they don't have a coherent idea of their UX.

Are there any sites that were designed from the start with infinite scroll that also have footers?

It wasn't from the start, but Facebook, after years, still has infinite scroll with a footer. I have no idea how they could possibly not have fixed it yet, unless it's some kind of deliberate prank.

The footer is also available in the rightmost column.