CNET...you are pissing me off

....because the Christmas advert replacing it will be bigger and prettier.

Surprise, surprise.....the ad came up, I clicked the "X" and THIS time it closed and so far hasn't returned even on new windows or tabs that I open. I'm running W10 on a desktop computer, and it's been doing it all day long. I didn't try Firefox out of frustration and just walked away from the computer for a while. I came back just now and saw I had email alerts to this thread and now it's working fine again. Maybe 'someone in the know' took my venting to heart and removed it for me? LOL

I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season, Lee. Haven't talked you in ages....you really ARE missed, btw.

Today was just a really, really cra..y day trying for four days to revive an old IBM (now Lenova) Thinkpad and other than not being able to update the old XP browser 6 to IE8, it's finally up and running pretty well but using Firefox. I no sooner started patting myself on the shoulder for pulling it out of the firepit hel. it was in, I came in here and the 'nightmare' began all over again over that stubborn ad. I admit, it didn't take much to put me over the 'edge' (pardon the pun, Mr. Gates) at that point. This old laptop with XP is the only thing that works with my two still fully functional printers that are older than the laptop which is why I wanted to revive it rather than buy another printer and toss these working printers out. I'm not part of the 'throwaway' society........my son actually finds it cheaper to buy a whole new printer that comes with the ink already than pay more for replacement cartridges than the printer costs so he has three perfectly good printers in the closet right now, which is a real nightmare for me to even think about. LOL

Surprisingly, as frustrating as this antique laptop was, it was also cool to be back 'in the saddle' of troubleshooting again. It felt like 'old CNET forums' days again......and I even found a work around to get one of the printers recognized on the W10 system and functioning. So the day is ending on good notes all around. Laptop working, printers working again, and SE has no dam. Black Friday ad.

why have you not gone to the newest Linux distros on these older computers? I've been using Linux Kubuntu, then Mint since XP was about to lose support. Doubt I will ever go back to a windows now.

The IBMs and early Lenovo Thinkpads can be a pain for a novice to get them working. I know this from personal experience. If they've got wifi, it's some odd Broadcom device that takes a little searching to find the driver. You'll also need to start with an old 32 bit non-PAE version. I've put Linux on both an IBM T42 and a Lenovo T-61. Neither was a lot of fun and XP seems to run better than Linux on both of them.

Once I was able to do a search online for restore/recovery discs for it, I ordered them on Amazon for only $3 (bought two, just in case), and after having to format and start from scratch with XP clean install, the drivers slammed right in from the disc, and it was all automatic, thank you, God. Many times with older systems, I would have to hunt in .inf files and system folders, drivers cache folders, I386 folders, etc. to get to install directions. Like I said, troubleshooting was my forte back in the day, so this was kind of fun even if it was frustrating for a number of days. It brought back many memories of the Computer Help, Newbies, etc. forums here on CNET....which also brought back the memories of great, now long gone, friends that I was able to make because of those forums. So many great minds who were so willing to teach this 'newbie' who was terrified of even touching the keyboard.

and they were not inexpensive. I bought the T-41 for my wife without the wifi adapter. That option added too much to the cost. I bought the same board from another vendor and installed it myself. The IBM drivers for XP that were already on the machine installed just fine. This was purchased in 2005 and I'd added the optional 9 cell battery. Believe it or not, that battery still hold a good charge even today. IBM made good stuff.

Best to just plug a $15 Linux compatible "Panda" wifi into a USB port and use that instead. Etekcity with ralink chip in it and dual antenna is also a good one that is linux compatible "out of the box".

I hooked back my windows computer to backup some data to a drive on it from my linux computer. Verizon had replaced my 4 port with a 2 port router while I was in florida, my wife and kid had problems during that time. Since I had linux and my MagicJack already using 2 ports, I decided to use my Panda wifi on windows box anyway. Plugged in and nothing happened. Sat there a bit wondering why it ignored it. Ahh, remembered it wasn't Linux on which it "just works" and had to go looking for the "windows driver disc" and install those first. So, it saw it then! Still a no go, because windows wifi networking didn't want to work with it's "windows drivers". I bang the table a bit and then instead access the Ralink wifi program and have it "see" the wifi device and ignore windows standard networking. Finally, it worked. See the difference? Plug into Linux, already to go, plug into windows and have to load drivers, only to see that fail standard networking and then have to use separate networking program for windows to access it. Then people tell me Linux is "too hard" to use, LOL.

there are a lot of computers that is a pain to install linux on because of graphic issues and others. I have two, four year old emachines where it would be near impossible for novices to get linux installed without a lot of help. you gotta install in compatibility mode, once installed, you have to startup in recovery mode and change the graphic driver before it is usable.

If I would have been a newbie, I would have given up on linux. It took some time finding a solution in order to upgrade to a newer version. the point is, recently, newer versions of linux mint will not easily work on older computers - depending on the hardware.

Also Mint 13 is still available for the older computers.

and that is why you cannot always suggest to install new linux distro on older machines.

I get an image of a price tag; I click on it; ad fills the screen; I click on X; ad goes away but tag remains.
No complaints, though. I'm warmer and fuzzier than Toni.

Win 10 FF. I see the price tag and when I click on it I get a small pop out right hand side. I click x and it goes back to the price tag.
Dafydd.

but there is something called going overboard. If sites would not get greedy with the ads then users would not resort to blocking them. I dont go to cnets full site as often because of their mess. If I go, it is usually on a mobile device.

I checked my URL because I wasn't even sure it was CNET at first. Also, for some reason, the CNET logo was the LAST thing to load!

is the page completely loaded when you click the "X'?

Sometimes the page lags a bit and if the page is not completely loaded some of the page functions will not be responsive until the page load is done.

Let me know.

Thank you,
-Lee

I can do nothing until all background activity has completed. Using FF, I can watch the lower left corner of the screen as all kinds of sites are being searched for. Any that stall, slow down the whole process. I presume many of these have some connection to targeted advertising and social media as my list of cookies grows enormously. Yes...WE ARE BEING WATCHED!

click-link to /SE. Works fine on my mid-level Alcatel Android; no special delays. And I'm on cell- not wireless right now.
I don't understand any of this stuff.

a couple of hours ago.....that ad scrolling bar is pretty long, so that means there are many ads that have to load, which, like Steven said, slows down the ability to click the "X" and be rid of it. The unfortunate part about it all is that I have limited broadband here with the satellite modem so every window I open in CNET eats it up until I can actually close it.....then it starts all over again since in order to read threads/posts, I have to watch it load over and over again for each instance. Yeah....a real pain for people like me. I've read your post, Steven's post, and typed this....and the ad still isn't finished loading....at least three or four minutes later. So I'll post this, and leave SE again for a while. No matter what forum I go to, it shows up across the board, and I still have to go to another one to see if I have any replies to a question I asked yesterday. Find another way to advertise, please....you're killing me, Lee.

The loading time can be greatly reduced by using adblockers or blocking a load of url's in your hosts file. For example, the sponsored links from taboola (do you ever click on those?) are easy to remove.
Once in a while I spend an hour (or more) to block links on a few sites I visit regularly. It;s not really necessary on a 25 Mbps connection but it makes a noticeable difference.
PM me for more details, if interested.

But I can imagine the pics in that Black Friday ad are more editorial or advertorial and come from CBS-servers. And blocking CBS-links leads to a malfunctioning site.

liberal media owned website to decide for me what I need to purchase on Black Friday.

Liberal media?

Hi-jacking a thread?

NT