Its as.suitesmart.com which keeps trying to load on me. This is frustrating.

Free internet is a great thing. So is advertising allowing it to be so. Show me a 20 second video if you must when I load your page.

Redirecting me is viral. I'm turning it in to every anti-virus company I know.

Happening to me, too, all of a sudden. I hate to abandon Gardenweb but I don't have time to deal with this nonsense. I get a blank page (quite possibly because popup windows are blocked). Happens (not all the time but a sufficiently annoying number of occasions) on both my Mac and my PC so I'll be giving up Gardenweb unless it stops!

I haven't seen any signs of such an issue, and really don't ever have anything like that happen on my personal PC with Gardenweb. Of course I'm using Firefox and Adblock Plus.

I'm using Firefox too, on both the Mac (v.3.6.3) and the PC. It doesn't happen every time, but it happens sometimes with all the GW garden forums (I frequent several of them). I would say it's new (on my machines) within the past few days.

What I get is: the page loads, then a second or so later, the screen goes completely blank (and tornado3800 is correct -- the bottom progress bar shows it's trying to load as.suitesmart.com so I assume the problem is with that site/ad). Refreshing sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't.

It doesn't happen on any other sites. I think it's GardenWeb we ought to complain to...

Add and activate Adblock Plus and you shouldn't have the problem.

Run a spyware and virus scan.
It's not happening to me either.

Firefox with AdBlock plus and I never worry about any of this stuff. This is among the main reasons why alternate browsers are displacing IE. I haven't used IE in at least 5 years.

Dan

I don't use IE, either (except to test sites for clients), so I'm using either Firefox or (now) Chrome. But I have to say, I don't see why I should have to install something on my computer (and with a Mac, Adblock has less than rave reviews so I'm extremely reluctant to install it and make things far worse than they already are, like Firefox won't restart, etc...) when it's not MY problem.

I actually emailed GW and got a response that they're "working on it!" which implies they know they have a problem.

So we shall see. But I browse the web all day long (literally, in my web design business) and I've never had this occur with any other site... so I'm not keen on installing something to deal with one website's problems!

Ctlady,
I agree with you, but since various problems like this have been the norm for Gardenweb for MANY years and since the solution works, it would seem to be the smart way to go if your system allows. Barring some miracle, similar problems will occur in the future even if this one gets fixed.

I use Mozilla and get the redirect.

If an advertiser on our company site has a scam ad I know how to pull it and I have limited technical knowledge.

Its not like I use anti-virus programs to let me browse porn sites with spyware. I find others. Garden Web is getting reported.

This is the email I sent to complain.
"The Tree forum has apparently been infested by a virus where it attempts to auto-redirect users to a third party site.

I found "as.suitesmart.com" as the destination my browser lists at the bottom. I'm reporting them and I suppose unintentionally the Tree Forum as well to Google's suspicious activity list and the FTC (http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/contact.shtm).

If anything goes wrong with any of my banking passwords or anything gets installed I don't want I'll be forwarding their information to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) (http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx).

Thanks,
Marc M
Toronado3800"

I use Mozilla and have AdBlockPlus as well. No problems with this site since I added AdBlockPlus probably 2 years ago or so.

Good for you Marc. Whether or not its overkill or not, I wouldn't have a clue. But maybe that will alert these folks who run this site to take it easy and figure out what they are doing before they do it.

I use FF with AdblockPlus, but I agree that one should not have to. AdblockPlus is as harmless as could be. I can't imagine how it could get bad reviews. But I absolutely would not visit GW without ABP. GW is just a pain without filters.

AdblockPlus is as harmless as could be.

Not quite ...

It would block some of my Firefox pages from loading.

Had to disable it, though Firefox may have, since, resolved the issue.

It would block some of my Firefox pages from loading. ... Firefox may have...resolved the issue

THey are not Firefox pages. Adblock-Plus is not Firefox...its a completely separate add-on, so there is nothing for Firefox to resolve.

If you had trouble loading website pages, I guess it depends what filters you were using and what websites you are visiting. I have never had any problems using the pre-defined Easylist filters available from AdblockPlus. Sure, too many filters is as bad as not enough filters.

However, you can provide exceptions to specific filters or whole domains fairly easily.

Just got this reply from gardenweb,

"Marc,

The problem was a malfunctioning ad script. It's been removed and you shouldn't be seeing this problem today. If you are still having problems, please let me know.

With best regards,

Tamara Amey
GardenWeb Community Manager"

I must say I haven't had any problems today so I'm happy with the results!

And just to add on to what wendyb is saying, I've not only been doing tabbed browsing for years (long before IE could convert), but FF is much cleaner and uses far less power and memory to run. And the cool add-ons help a lot (I use Zotero for research which was a huge help). Just much better overall and hardly any problems.

Dan

THey are not Firefox pages. Adblock-Plus is not Firefox ... its a completely separate add-on, so there is nothing for Firefox to resolve.

To clarify ... When using Adblock-Plus with Firefox (I was trying to get rid of those disgusting teeth-cleaning ads ...), some of my browsed-to pages would not load.

I looked into the issue at the time, and there was no resolution available, ... but it was hoped that future releases of Forefox might solve the problem.

That may or may not have occurred, but I don't know, ... since I disabled it (Adblock-Plus).

I emailed the Techs and this is what they said:

Hi Melissa,

There was a problem with a malfunctioning ad. It should be fixed, but if you are still having the same issue, please let me know.

With best regards,

Tamara Amey
GardenWeb Community Manager

So apparently they think the problem is fixed. I had ad-block plus running and was still having the problem. Until yesterday. I haven't had the problem in the last 1-2 days.