What's up with the ads

[Nothing To Do With Doodles]

This is getting very frustrating. Lately all the discussions I click on have ads placed right over the text and there doesn't appear to be any "close" button or X button to get rid of them. Does anyone else get this. Here's snippet from just one discussion this morning:

I can't read have of the last part at all. WTD indeed.

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

I see the ads, but they are not over the text. Try restarting the computer.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I haven't seen this sort of thing yet but I can imagine it's very frustrating.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

This would drive me bonkers! Fortunately, it hasn't happened to me....yet.

[Stella]

I haven't had that yet.  But, I am disappointed by how slow DK pages are to load now that we have the adverts.  I know thhey are necessary to help fund DK, but it is so frustrating waiting so long for each page.  I have to admit that I often give up, particularly on the multi-page discussions, it just takes too long.

[Christine & Camus]

I have not had a problem like this either.  Other than restarting your computer I would also clear all cookies.

[Christine & Camus]

I don't know what others think of Google Chrome, but I tried it and did not like it, cannot remember exactly why, only that I felt it tried to control my computer - and that I hate.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I have stuck with Firefox and I really like it.

[ClarkP]

We are a divided household:  I use Chrome and Adina uses Firefox.  (Both are pretty good, especially since Firefox tabs look just like Chrome now.)

[Christine & Camus]

I prefer Firefox too.

[ClarkP]

(See update at bottom of post for solution)

Wow, that is ugly and makes the pages pretty useless.  That is not the effect we are going for.  ;-)

That said, I can't reproduce the problem.  It may have been a transient glitch that somehow rendered the page improperly.  I do know we don't have two ads inserting into that space so I'm not sure why two would show up.  The advice to restart your computer might solve it if it is a browser issue.

The text above the second ad "ads not by this site" really makes me wonder too.  We don't have that language anywhere and so I'm not sure where that ad is coming from.  Try a different browser just to test.  Or the same browser on a different computer.  I know that second ad did not come from us.  It's an ad related to the one our site did serve... it's as if some browser plugin/extension 'saw' an ad for Clorox and inserted their own rogue ad for Lysol.  Very strange.  It's is possible that it is some sort of malware.  Testing on other computers and with other browsers could let us know if the problem is isolated to one of your computers.

Run a scan on your computer with your anti-virus / anti-malware software.

Also Andrea, send us a "Report An Issue" message (link in footer) from the page you are seeing this on.  This will give us more diagnostic info as well as info on your browser and OS.

@Stella
As to the page load speeds, ads are loaded after everything else on the page has loaded.  So every page should load just as fast (or as slowly) as it ever has on your internet connection -- and only after everything else is loaded are the ads inserted, the very last thing to load.  Now, DK has never been a speed demon.  We know that.  No Ning based site ever has.  We know this and remind the platform provider of this all the time.  Improvements are being made but we're no Google as far as speed is concerned.

So sorry you are having this problem Andrea!
/Clark

** Update **

Upon further research it appears the problem is caused by a program or extension you have downloaded or added to your browser.

Look in your Chrome Extensions (setup/tools/extensions) and remove or disable any extensions that you don't recognize or are not using.  Video players and codex's seem to be a common source of this malware.  Restart Chrome and see if the problem is solved.  Try disabling different extensions until you find the culprit and then nuke that sucker.

For further info just Google "ads not by this site virus" and follow some of the suggestions there.