script causing?

Hi,
sorry if this is in the wrong place but.. when I try to click on to the Daily Mail on line it is really slow loading and then I get a message saying that a script on this page is causing internet explorer to run slowly and it may freeze. I am offered the option of stopping this script and then everything is ok unless I click on an article and it all starts again. Does anyone know what this script is and what can I do about it?
Regards,
Chris

The Daily Mail home page runs scripts from around a dozen other sites, so it's not easy to find out.

If you download and install Firefox (easy to do - should only take a few minutes) you can use their NoScript add-on, which gives you complete control over which sites are permitted to run scripts on your PC and which aren't.

As a general observation, you don't need most scripts to be run for the page to display properly - most are either trying to advertise to you or to track your online activities. The main two exceptions are content delivery networks such as Cloudfront and Akamai, and some APIs such as Googleapis.

chrisvesey wrote:Hi,
sorry if this is in the wrong place but.. when I try to click on to the Daily Mail on line it is really slow loading and then I get a message saying that a script on this page is causing internet explorer to run slowly and it may freeze. I am offered the option of stopping this script and then everything is ok unless I click on an article and it all starts again. Does anyone know what this script is and what can I do about it?
Regards,
Chris

Chris,

This is God's way of telling you to stop reading the Daily Mail before one of their scare stories causes your heart to stop pumping!

Try the Daily Mash instead. It's much more informative and rational.

This one in particular may help you with your problem!

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/slow-computers-just-laid-back-2013050367536

Best regards,

Ian

I knew I shouldn't admit to reading the mail
Chris

Hi

chrisvesey wrote: Does anyone know what this script is and what can I do about it?

The script is a piece of code running in the background that’s telling your browser to do something. Some scripts you’ll want, for example a script may be used to start an application within the browser, perhaps running an animation or something similar.

Others you probably wouldn’t want if you knew they were running. One of the most common is a “tracking” script that’s sending information about you to somebody you don’t know and probably wouldn’t want them to have the information if you did.

You get the error because the computer cannot run the script some reason. An example might be a call to a java programme when your version of Java is out of date or turned off, or it may be simply that somebody has written a duff bit of code.

What do you do about it? For a start make sure that everything on the laptop is up to date, particularly Active X and Java are up to date and turned on.

Consider installing “Ghostery”. It will tell you when a “tracker” is running and can block most of them. It may well solve the problem by killing the unwanted script before you get the error box. I bet you’ll be amazed at how much stuff is running in the background.

http://www.ghostery.com/

-mojo- wrote:The Daily Mail home page runs scripts from around a dozen other sites, so it's not easy to find out.

Very true, but this is worth a try. In the explorer settings under “Internet Options/Advanced” un-tick the “Disable script debugging” options and you should get a “Debug” option when the error box comes up. Clicking on it may give you clue. Not that you can do much about if you do find out.

Brod.