Why is STW formatting and performance so dire?

I use many, many website, forum etc. STW is the only one where I get consistently frustrated with the amount of advertising, the appalling formatting, overlaying of adverts, slow loading times, bugs, errors etc.
I’m on a 200mbps fibre connection. Bang up to date Chrome (Version 111.0.5563.111), never have issues elsewhere.
I have to log in every time I visit despite cliking the ‘stay logged in box’, and yes, this works fine for any other site.

The latest and greatest, is your idea to have pop up videos overlaid over the text.

I love STW, I’ve been a member and a reader for many years (decades!), and I know its a mammoth task making everyone happy and running the site, the ad services, the content etc. I know you’ll say ‘oh the problem must be at your end’. But honestly, no other site gives me any bother. Its putting me off.

Screengrab of todays latest weirdness:

[Mod] apologies for this and Tech have been informed.

That’s our Humix video provider. It’s certainly not deliberate. If you refresh the page it should right itself. We have reported this back to the techs behind Humix video player.

Noticed you aren’t logged in though. This bug shouldn’t affect logged in full members.

You know, as a full member, you can turn the ads off in your profile?

Woah! That’s very odd.

@snotrag have you pressed the ‘stay logged in’ button before you’ve entered your login details? That should mean you stay logged in.

@snotrag have you pressed the ‘stay logged in’ button before you’ve entered your login details? That should mean you stay logged in.

One small improvement which would help here is to move the ‘stay logged in’ tick box above the username field. As it stands, you fill in the form top-down so by the time you’ve got to the option, the chance to choose it has gone.

Anthony is looking at moving that box now.