Lots of people seem to be having trouble depending on what kind of device they are on and what browser they are using. Hate to even say this out loud for fear of jinxing myself but I have separate bookmarks set up for any forum that I frequent on both my laptop and phone - I don't use a tablet anymore - and have not had trouble getting to the *real* GW forums. Once I'm in Home Decorating I can use the link at the top to get to Conversations with no problem. My advice would be to try that - make bookmarks for the places important to you when you are there and see what happens. Good luck!

And I should add that I don't use the Houzz app - I've found more trouble with apps than with direct links from a browser on my phone.

I had to bookmark it. The changes that Houzz made recently took out the usual links to this page, and I haven't found a way to navigate to it. I actually did a Google search for a particular thread (one of Jojoco's wedding threads, I think) to find my way back here, and they I bookmarked it for the next time.

It appears that Houzz is back to trying to houzzify the more popular forums again, with a resulting change in URL, but you should get automatically redirected to the horrible houzz pages if you have the misfortune to hit one of the servers which is doing this.

ETA For me, today, if I go to any bookmarked page without logging in, I get the atrocious houzz page, but if I log in and use the breadcrumbs at the top of each forum main page I can still get the GW version of other forums.

I also bookmarked it. Before I finally did that, it was a nightmare negotiating through Houzz.

Sorry, but on my desktop, this doesn't work anymore. Maybe its related to a recent sign out/sign in on my desk top. I can access the gardenweb URL. with theold forums list, but when I click in HD, I get directed to the Houzz URL.

Same when I cut and paste my old GW links. The URL changes to a Houzz URL.

On my Android, I'm still with the old interface.

Weird, but I have a link to the FL gardening forum on my browser bookmarks bar & I always go through that w/ no problem @ all. Since I'm on Chrome & have Android OS on my phone, all the bookmarks are synced.

& I think the most frequent way I get here is through the link @ Home Decorating forum. I find it best to click through the links to 'Home' forums & 'Garden' forums on the sidebar, since that's not cached & is automatically refreshed.

Wondering what Operating Systems others are using? Is it iOS or Android, Windows or Mac?

& who else has their favorite forum as their portal, rather than the forums index?

& I don't log out either - why bother?

& I don't log out either - why bother?

Because Houzz tracks you much more avidly than facebook and google combined, for one reason.

Because Houzz tracks you much more avidly than facebook and google combined, for one reason.

Interesting. How do you know this?

By looking at what's in the tracking cookies and usingLittle Snitch, a program that monitors all attempts at outgoing connections. Also, the amazing speed with which related spam appears in my mailbox.

It's not surprising. It costs a lot to run a site like this and they're not a big jolly Santa Claus of an organization. Big Data is about the most profitable business to be in these days.

Cool, you're spying on the spies.

That type of tracking doesn't bother me too much, since I diligently filter my emails & use 1 account just for public things like this. I really like Hotmail's junk filters - really works well to keep spam out of my primary inbox.

& I do not care about the sidebar ads that show me things I already bought or browsed either. Mostly, I ignore those anyway & I consider it a small price for getting all this internet goodness for basically free.

I used to have little snitch - not sure if I still do though...

You do understand that all the data they gather is being used to create a surprisingly complete profile of you, which is then sold, right? If you're fine with that, then swell. But I doubt most people understand how much of your life is available to these folks.

Might want to read this, especially the comments:

https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-figures-out-everyone-youve-ever-met-1819822691

Facebook is lucky because people will give them any damned info just because, but the process is similar for all data aggregators.

I do understand, but there's really no way to avoid it if I want to participate on the web - unless I created my own private server and email server as well.

Keep in mind you do not have to provide correct birth dates, addresses, ph. #s, etc. when registering to use sites (except medical & financial). Nor do your answers to security questions have to have anything to do with the questions.

I try not to be stupid on the internet, but after decades of using it, I figure I've left more breadcrumbs and footprints than I care to dwell on. I swear, I only need to think about something and an ad for it appears in Facebook. While it annoys me to varying degrees, I'm not gonna curtail my web wanderings.

I consider myself very computer savvy, but a recent event really shocked me at the level of consumer monitoring. We had seen a piece of artwork made from baseballs in a restaurant and, while there, I googled the cost of a bucket of baseballs on my husband’s iPhone. Later on that evening, he had an advertisement come up on his HP computer for that same bucket of balls. How? Email address? How did it connect?