ATS too graphics-heavy; crashes my browser, takes forever to load, etc.

Greetings. I've been a member of this site for some years but I rarely visit. While I like the content and community, the site itself has become (or maybe has always been) too unusuable for me to be comfortable with it.

First of all, there are all the zillions of icons. It is a very non-intuitive interface full of "feature bloat" IMHO.

But one can get used to that. Beyond that is the graphics-heavy pages that crash my browser and take forever to load. Most of us aren't running this site on a cray supercomputer; it takes a long time to get past all the pop-up ads, heavy icons, visual imbeds, graphics, etc.

Would you consider creating a "bare-bones" interface? Something stripped down and really easy to use?

Consider some of the more popular sites on the internet, from reddit to the chans to some of glp's "rivals" in the conspiracy niche. None of them are as graphically complex and cumbersome to navigate.

This is my experience, take it for what you will.

a reply to: KarensHoliday

Out of curiosity, what sort of computer are you using, and what browser are you running? I've never had any problems with the site; It loads almost as fast for me on a 12 year old VAIO running XP as it does on my year-old iMac.

a reply to: KarensHoliday

I am running on a like 5 year old laptop and before that one that was like 8 years old.

Neither had any issue with the site, shoot I was even on satellite internet for a while and it was more then bearable.

Might just be time to update your hardware.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
Might just be time to update your hardware.

Nah, if my 12 year old Vaio, with no battery, a half-exposed motherboard, and a hard drive held in with hockey tape can handle it, just about anything can. I'd say it's time to clear your browser's files, and make sure you don't have any sort of viruses/malware/etc.

Don't ask why I still have the Vaio laying around, when it probably should have gone in a dumpster 8 or 9 years ago lol.

a reply to: admirethedistance

I agree, I mainly said that because of OPs comment that we all must be using super computers.

Run Ccleaner and ADWCleaner, maybe a small run of Hitman pro too... (Google those, I don't want to link them)

ATS isn't heavy on CPU usage, so I suspect you have something else going on in the background.

This site crashes my iPad 1 browser all the time, even causes it to lock up sometimes.

There is of course a mobile version of this site that loads all pages in about the same time it takes to load the desktop version of this site on my ancient laptop,my brand new PC and my Android tablet.I see nothing invasive on any of them in the way of pop ups etc and never have done.

a reply to: KarensHoliday

I only ever have problems loading the site for four reasons.

1) Bad wireless signal
2) Crappy hardware
3) Maintenance downtime
4) External hacking assault

The rest of the time, even my ancient tech can load a page without falling over.

a reply to: KarensHoliday

ATS is one of the fastest loading sites on my PC.

Methinks you either have extremely outdated hardware or a really bad internet connection - neither of which are the fault of ATS.

a reply to: KarensHoliday

Seriously? Then its all you and your settings. I have no issues, average laptop, phone, PC...work too...not a ton of graphics, icons, crashes, long loads...

Out of 300,000 members....on average...we all have no such problems.

Settings, windows open, cookies, RAM memory...something on your end....if its not everybody....and for 99% of the membership hassle free for the most part....then its on your end.

I use Google Chrome because it has less addons installed and other bloatware.
Have you tried using that?

This is really not a resource intensive site for client-side processing. My guess is you've got a ton of bloatware, services, applications, and viruses hogging down the system before it even catches ats.

Most laptops work from what is called "shared ram" .The video adapter is on board and utilizes the physical memory you have installed. The more you set it to use in BIOS or UEFI , the less RAM that becomes available to the OS and applications. Say you have 3 gb and set the shared ram for 1024 (1GB) . Now say you open enough applications to use that 1gb. Now you have only 2 gb to use of RAM. And if it uses more , that is place in a "swap file" on your HDD .

Check the amount of physical memory you have available . You may want to add some...

yep, same here. I can`t read through an entire thread without my browser freezing of crashing and having to "recover the webpage" at least once.
I did notice though that if I have Java turned off then the site works fine.
now if I could only figure out how to close that jeep ad that pops up on the left side and has no X to close it. it blocks the entire page so I can`t read anything.

a reply to: Tardacus

Common theme here is the ones with the most popups all blame "just this site"....that its all on you and something yourevdoing, not doing, should be doing, or don't know how and you should...or shouldn't...be doing.


Change yours methods, browsers, security settings, ad choices, popups, firewall etc etc....most of us...even with simple average devices....don't have or ever get any of these complaints.

Everyone in trouble right away says the problem is why this site....when its all them and theirs apps, browser settings, and thing they neglect to investigate or don't know how to.

Don't blame the site...it all on you...otherwise it'd be everyone. Good luck

I'd echo the advice about clearing your browser of cookies, history etc. It might also be worth checking your DNS servers (changing to OpenDNS or Google's servers can make sites load faster) and your antivirus.

I had problems recently with sites which (like ATS) link to Google services such as analytics, YouTube, maps etc. Turned out that Avast antivirus, for reasons I don't understand, was causing some sites to load slowly, partially, or not at all.

another thing to try to check if it is a hardware issue is to download a "live" linux "flavor" you can then burn a CD or make a USB boot and boot up linux without having to install it, then go to ATS to see how it loads then, if you have the same issue, it's hardware, if not then most likely "bloatware" is slowing your system.

if it is bloatware this may help you Trend Micro online antivirus scanner

run the scan overnite and see if it finds something (it's free) or get Kaspersky 10 ISO and boot that and run the scan.

(it's all free)

also, when was the last time you defragmented your HD? That can also slow the load times

Download a program call Lynx..Its been around since the 70s.

Boot up either the windows command shell or the CMD dos emulator and start lynx.

It's a text only browser

a reply to: thedigirati

Defrag can be a scheduled operation in Win 7+ I have mine done every Sunday night at 1:53am Monday morning.