Fast enough on FF using NoScript but i do have a pronlem with the page links 123 next taking me to RSS feed page and other places on the site rather than the page of the thread I want.

Havent noticed any lag as yet FF OS Vista.

I found that if I just click under the no 2 for second page on this subject or any other I get facebook/ PCAdvisor waite a few seconds and you will get a new page.

It is fast enough for me using W/8 or W/7 + I/E or Firefox but really poor on an iPad.

I'm resisting the temptation to say the 'this site is free, etc. thing'

Ads have been a rich source of debate, ever since the first one appeared, quite a few years ago, and of course in an ideal world we wouldn't have them - everyone would work for nothing, we would all leave our doors open at night, and there would be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover.

Back in the real world, we have a very expensive server cluster to house and maintain, and quite a few people work many hours to provide the content that fills the other areas of the site, day in and day out. Traffic statistics tell us that those pages are very heavily used, and of course that makes them attractive to advertisers. The ads aren't loaded from our server, they come in from various ad servers, and they account for the waiting time that some people experience.

In truth we find that there's no set pattern to this slow-loading complaint; some people experience it, and others don't. Believe it or not, we do take complaints very seriously, both Matt Egan and I make nuisances of ourselves with the ad department and the web development team on a regular basis. They respond as rapidly as they can when there's a problem, but with a site like ours the situation is constantly changing, it can be very difficult to pin something down to a specific event.

We're looking at the ad question right now, and if we can improve things for you I promise that we will.