Hey guys,

Ive run into a few problems tonight and was hoping if you guys had any solutions.

I recently reformatted my machine 3 times and every single one of those times something really odd has happened. Basically after a clean install and installing a nic so I could jump on the net, I would instantly go to Tomshardware.com with a fresh Internet Explorer and try to login but I get the error of:

Error: Your browser cookies are not active. This is usually due to:

(a) you have changed your browser cookie settings, in this case reset your browser cookie settings to their default configuration.
or
(b) you are running firewalls such as ZONE ALARM. In this case, adjust your firewall settings to allow cookies. For Zone Alarm info, refer to this thread:

I even tried opening all cookies, but still no luck. This happened all 3 times... it also happens when I finish updating all the Windows Updates and installing IE7.

sooo... I downloaded Firefox and it worked like a charm...

and another weird thing is that my IE has been freezing and crashing my machine when I connect to the site on occasion... perhaps one of the recent ads or somethign that triggers it? I thought it only happens in IE7 which is where I initially experienced it every now and then but Firefox just crashed as well... my whole system would freeze, I cant even warm-reset..... oddly it only happens when Im surfing the web to tomshardware...

anyway I hope I didnt bore anybody to death. thanks for any help.

I have been getting the same thing for ages with opera, but looks like it only happens on the index page, if you login from the login page then it does not happen.

that is a problem with the board not your browser, since I allow cookies so I don't even know what the hell its talking about.

unfortunately this forum is obviously here to make money and not help people seeing how many ads we have to deal with and I'm pretty sure its the ads that is causing your crashes

I don't put not one single ad on our main site or forum and I'm sure we don't make 10th of the money tg makes from its referrals.

to be honest when I first came here myself I was very disapointed to see all the ads and still am, they should atleast just keep the ads in site, wtf is all the ads for here?