closed by request.
donald, if you're certain you havent done anything wrong (that includes trying to play the warez version or ever using a pirate key at any point in the past on your steam account), try this link first...
I'll fix it in about 5 mins when it's 8am GMT :)
edit - done, see this announcement if anything goes wrong
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/announcement.php?f=41
It might sound harsh, but really reading about any enemies/weapons is a spoiler, so if you want to play the game with no spoilers, stay away from sites like this until you've played it :)
That's one of the main reasons we have it here - we give some editing time for changes and corrections, but once you've made a post and people reply to it, you could edit it to change the whole context of the thread.
Not gonna happen while I'm here, ever :P
It's got nothing to do with connection speed, but most people are here to read the posts, not spend ages scrolling through someones avatar and image sig just to see a 3 line post.
My personal opinions are that the banners are fine - most sites these days have banners.
I'm against the links in posts because I feel that it's forcing people to endorse things which they have no control over. It does seem to me to be morally wrong.
From what I know about our ads (not much I admit), that isn't really possible. I'd assume it's what TDE said about it being spyware from somewhere else is true.
Feel free to email me (starmonkey@ this domain :)) any extra details which would help pinpoint it - if it is from our ads then I'll...
Patches will be posted in our news section, it's likely we'll include a list of common problems at some point as well.
As for drivers, it's best to try the latest ones for your setup :)