# Snopes question **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 15, 2005, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-question/299460 "2005-04-15T08:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-question/299460/1 "2005-04-15T08:54:45Z")
Is it just running slow, or is there a forced delay to ensure you are looking at the ad banner? ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-question/299460/2 "2005-04-15T09:03:38Z")
It’s lightening quick for me. … and highly doubtful they’d slow down their whole site in that way. Can you be more specific? Perhaps your browser won’t render until all graphics are downloaded? That would be total shit, btw. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-question/299460/3 "2005-04-15T09:13:27Z")
when i click on the what’s new, or indeed on any of the articles, the top of the screen comes in quicklyu, but it takes 20 or 30 seconds until the article loads, leaving me sat staring at the ad. As you say maybe it’s just my settings or something. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-question/299460/4 "2005-04-15T09:23:00Z")
Ahhhh… that sounds to me like an overloaded php/mysql thing. Site serves up the easy part… the ad… then has to go digging for the content. ---
**Author:** ![YiBaiYuan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/f475e1/32.png) [@YiBaiYuan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YiBaiYuan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-question/299460/5 "2005-04-17T03:05:07Z")
I’m not a professional computer geek, so someone may post that I’m full of s\*\*\*. But that same thing happened to me at **Snopes** several months ago. Like you, I noticed that every time I went to _Snopes_ I had a long delay before anything happened. I ran a spyware removal program and found three different spyware programs running on my computer. I believe what was happening was that after clicking on _Snopes_, before loading the page I wanted, it would first connect with the aforementioned spy sites to read and report my browsing history. I used a spyware removal program to get rid of those programs and my browsing at _Snopes_ immediately sped up again. I then set my new spyware detection program to notify me any time spyware tries to load; and guess what – it alerts me every single time I visit _Snopes_! I don’t think the nice people at _Snopes_ are intentionally loading the spyware; but I believe they have an agreement with their server provider to get discounted service in exchange for the banner ads. (They acknowledged doing this a couple of years ago.) I suspect it’s whoever is providing their server hosting or the banner ads that’s letting the spyware through. Then again, I could be way off base. But as I said, my spyware detector indicates two or three attempts every time I visit _Snopes_. So whatever that indicates …