Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I saw your messages but I was on my phone – not the best method of typing the answers. My password is a devil to type in on a tiny keyboard. And re-reading my message I may have missed a step. Obviously I haven’t taken my Brain Pill (see below).
So. I’ll begin at the beginning.
Using my phone to access the Straight Dope (boards.straightdope.com), when I click on a thread I’d get a message
I click cancel, as I don’t want to learn about Tapatalk, and on to the thread. At the top of the phone screen I have a backpage arrow, forward arrow, the box with the webpage address, and two buttons for favorites. (Sorry, I don’t know what they are called.) Normally, the backpage arrow is lit, indicating I can go back one page. Here, when I reach a thread, it isn’t lit, so when I finish reading the page I use the phone’s backarrow to go back.
Now, if you follow me, since forever, or at least as long as I remember, the phone’s backarrow doesn’t go back one page. It goes to a page touting
The sub-headline says Hawking “recently” commented about this in “an interview with Anderson Cooper”.
Which is weird, I know, because why would Cooper let Stewart scoop this groundbreaking story?
Like I said, this has gone on forever. Forever and a day, if you will, as yesterday I thought it was forever. Same ad. You’d think they’d update it. Then Ed Zotti, gormless as may be, has the thankless task of keeping this show on the road, comes up with the mobile-friendly announcement. Maybe this little sidestep back has been eliminated! I carefully work my way to this thread on my phone, and… well, this was my error. I click on the first link I saw, the one I highlighted in red above. It was my mistake, I admit it, as I saw later when I got on my computer and saw this thread in all it’s glory with the real link Ed had later in his announcement.
Anyway, as I said before, the link (not the beta site http://staging.sd.suntimes.com/ link) lead directly to implied doom. Looking at it right now on my phone all the phrases “StraightDope.com” on this very page were changed to links, presumably to the same virus warning page. You’ll forgive me I’m sure that I didn’t stay on those pages to take notes.
For example, on my phone
gets changed to (forgive me for editing your quote)
but the item in red (is blue on my phone but I’m making it distinctive), all have turned into a link, and when clicked, goes not to www.straightdope.com but some virus warning page. Again, forgive me if I didn’t test them all to see if they were all the same.
I didn’t try the beta link, after all this. Maybe I should. Maybe some day. Maybe. Like a James Bond martini, my fingers are still shaking.
The Straight Dope is the only website this occurs, on my phone. I have another message board I go to on my phone and it has the Tapatalk message but not sidestep backclick. The Straight Dope is the only website on my phone that puts Hawking on my back button. I get none of the bonus linkgrabs on my computer. I don’t know how to get pictures of the page on my phone to send you, Ed, though I did manage to get the entire Hawkings ad address, if you want it.
You’re right, I was not tempted to buy his pills. 
Viglink? I dunno. Fnord? Messrs Hill and Thornley have nothing on this truth. I have not lied, as you implied. No legs were pulled. If you still have questions I should be available for the day. But as this is my last paragraph it must be a coda, so gnoitall has already stopped reading. Sorry it’s a word salad, but remember, I was asked for details.