So here were again.  This is a topic that started quite a controversy last time it was brought up.  But frankly, it has to be brought up again.  For the last two weeks, whenever I come to this site, I have been noticing my computers resources skyrocket.  It takes quite a bit longer to open pages, if they open at all.  My browser (both Firefox and IE) have crashed multiple times, due to simply trying to open topics in the forum.  And it all points back to the same thing.  All the ads on the site.

Now I've tried to be a good little visitor.  I'm not downloading any ad blockers or complaining about some of the rather obnixious ads (that 'make a baby' one for instance), but when it starts making it so we can't even navigate the site and its effecting other aspects of our computer....that's when I need to speak up and say something.  As I'm typing this right now, I'm even noticing a large amount of imput lag as a number of the sites ads are fighting with my CPU and Mozilla for resources.  And I don't even have that weak of a computer to begin with, with a 2.4Ghz Quad Core processor, 4 gigs of ram, etc.

Note, I'm not advocating we remove ads on the site or anything of the kind.  I understand that even major sites, from Yahoo to IGN are using ads on their site.  But it would be nice if we could find some way to limit so many of them being on each page as they do drain the resources of peoples computers.  Or if you must have so many, screen them to see if they have animations or if they will crash browsers.

I'm not complaining since they took down the Evony ads finally.

Not that this is a solution, but you can leave adblock so that it doesn't block any ads except the ones you choose, so just block whatever seems to be the most resource eating one and you can still see all the other ones and click through them. That's the best I got for a short-term solution.

I don't mind the ads; its the Flash I think.

VGChartz is the slowest site I use. When my other bookmarks load in a skip and a jiff, VGChartz loads at a crawl, or sometimes refuses to load entirely.

I personally don't care what we have to lose. The site can look like a basic HTML for all I care. I just want it to be faster.

That's true, there might be a conflict with the sites construction and Flash.  Or maybe even a particular ad is conflicting with Flash.  But what I do know is, on many occasions, I have tried to open topics on the forum (and occasionally even news topics on the main site) and it has just frozen trying to load thingssuch as 'loading ad.blogspace' or 'data.blogspace' and etc.  So I don't know what else to think aside from the various ads are the culprit.  Especially since they have been multiple times in the past.

It is the flash more than the ads, i agree. When i'm trying to load not one, but multiple flash-based ads simultaneously, i do see my processor start to chug. My family's older 2003 PC with 256 MB RAM is starting to have a real tough time with the site, though my 08 laptop still runs fine usually, though i can sometimes hear its fan start.

You could contribute to the solution a little, Kenryoku. Your sig is all flash when those could just be regular images, right?

I tried to insert the images for my signatures as direct image links, but they did not work.  So I had to use the embedded Flash Media option.  I'll try changing my signature and see if that resolves some things, but I think the problem is something other than my signature because I've never seen the site freeze when trying to load my signature.

gamer print ad crashed my ipod, I can no longer browse in vgchartz in my ipod.
isn't there any way to still have ads but that don't use too much power?

Ads, Flash and poorly made sigs seem to be the culprits. For me it is the badly made sigs that piss me off the most.

hmm I had noticed some slight slowdown but wasnt sur if this was because of my being on a laptop.