@mesome713: This is more than just another annoying ad problem. It's a big memory leak that slows down Firefox to a crawl. The issue is not present in Internet Explorer or Chrome.

Hi,

visiting your site without an adblocker is problematic in Firefox. Your advertisements cause Firefox 38.0.5. to have very high CPU usage, high memory usage and to leak memory. This may be a regional issue, since advertisements served can differ per region. I'm in The Netherlands. More details below.

EDIT: SINCE THE LAYOUT BELOW IS BROKEN, please read my bug report at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1174447. It contains the same content, but it is easier to read, because the layout is not broken.

Steps to reproduce: 
- Restarted my browser 
- Opened a new tab 
- Visited Gamespot.com 
- Visited http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ in a new tab 
- Browsed through all 10 images on that page 

Actual results: Opening gamespot.com causes quite high CPU usage (around 30% on an i5-4590) for a while. Opening a new page on Gamespot also causes high CPU usage and high memory usage. Browsing through images also reloads advertisements which causes high CPU usage and memory usage. Closing a page on Gamespot also causes high CPU usage (I think in an attempt to free memory). The browser feels very slow and laggy. I have recorded the memory usage of Firefox: Before visiting Gamespot 353,4 MB after opening gamespot 637,9 MB after waiting 10 sec 535,2 MB after opening http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ 666,9 MB waiting 10 sec 589 MB browsing to image 5 out of 10: 755,4 MB browsing to image 10 out of 10: 1008,1 MB waiting 10 sec 798,1 MB closing tab http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ 757,1 MB closing tab http://www.gamespot.com/ 686,6 MB w aiting 30 secs 655,1 MB Total leaked memory= memory usage after visiting Gamespot (655,1 MB) - before visiting gamespot (353,4MB)= 301,7MB Firefox seems to leak quite enormous amounts of memory when browsing Gamespot.com Expected results: Browsing Gamespot.com is a much smoother experience in Internet Explorer 11 or Google Chrome. These browsers don't leak as much memory. CPU usage is also lower when browsing this website through these browsers. 

I have verified the bug in a new and clean profile. Note that the starting amount of memory usage is much lower because there are no other inactive tabs open (with the above measurements, I had just restarted the browser but there were other tabs open, that were inactive). In new profile: Before visiting Gamespot (and no other inactive tabs open) 88,5 MB after opening gamespot 211,2 MB after waiting 10 sec 198,5 MB after opening http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ (in a new tab) 269,6 MB waiting 10 sec 249,3 MB browsing to image 5 out of 10: 342,9 MB browsing to image 10 out of 10: 405,6 MB waiting 10 sec 370,0 MB closing tab http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ 365,6 MB closing tab http://www.gamespot.com/ 330,5 MB waiting 30 secs 305,8 MB Total leaked memory= memory usage after visiting Gamespot (305,8 MB) - before visiting gamespot (88,5MB)= 217,3MB After repeating all these steps a second time in the same browser session, memory usage ended up (after 30 sec wait) at 401,5MB. So another 95,7MB was leaked. After repeating all these steps a third time in the same browser session, memory usage ended up (after 30 sec wait) at 565,7MB. So another 164,2 MB was leaked. After repeating all these steps a fourth time in the same browser session, memory usage ended up (after 30 sec wait) at 674,7MB. So another 109,0 MB was leaked. In total, 674,7-88,5=586,2 MB was leaked, when browsing gamespot.com during a 10 minute time period (would've been a 5 minute time period if I hadn't been noting down the MB's). This amount of leaking is not acceptable. I have thus verified the memory leak in the new profile. CPU Usage in the new profile was similar. Gamespot also felt slow and laggy in the new profile. This may be affected by the region, since different advertisements may be served depending on region. I live in The Netherlands. 

I have now done additional testing, with Adblock Plus enabled. This is in my regular Firefox profile, after restarting the browser (the starting memory usage is far higher than in the clean profile because of opened but inactive tabs). With Adblock Plus enabled: Before visiting Gamespot 344,2 MB after opening gamespot 402,3 MB after waiting 10 sec 374,1 MB after opening http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ (in a new tab) 395,0 MB waiting 10 sec 388,1 MB browsing to image 5 out of 10: 424,6 MB browsing to image 10 out of 10: 409,4 MB waiting 10 sec 391,0 MB closing tab http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-games-that-won-t-be-at-e3-2015/2900-180/ 386,9 MB closing tab http://www.gamespot.com/ 397,0 MB waiting 30 secs 367,9 MB Total leaked memory= memory usage after visiting Gamespot (367,9 MB) - before visiting gamespot (344,2MB)= 23,7 MB With Adblock Plus enabled, Gamespot.com uses far less CPU usage and is far more responsive (not slow and laggy). Gamespot.com also uses far less memory and there is no big memory leak. So the problems (high CPU usage, high memory usage, and a big memory leak) are all caused by the advertisements on Gamespot.com. This may be a regional issue, since advertisements served can differ per region. I'm in The Netherlands. I have also reported this bug to Mozilla, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1174447.

@edgework: Thanks! That would be great.

@edgework: Yes, in The Netherlands. The language of the ad is Dutch. I hope this will help you trace down the ad. In the past days I've seen several other ads in the same place on Gamespot, but they all had a functioning close button. Clicking on the close button actually closed the ad. But the ad in the screenshot had a non-functioning close button, that turned into a button "Bekijk advertentie" when I clicked on it. Bekijk advertentie is Dutch for View advertisement.

You don't want people to use an adblocker. Ok, that's cool. I'm OK with that. But then the layout of the site shouldn't regularly be broken because of ads. Example:

http://i.imgur.com/i1sWeiR.png

Why does the ad prevent me from accessing the forums? I cannot access the forum of my choice because the ad covers up the menu. Note: there is no way to close this ad (there was a close button which I pressed before I took this screenshot, but it did nothing). And why is there a big white gap between "The Point" and the Recent and Popular section.

@edgework: I had Gamespot whitelisted for some time already. The issue could be due to running an adblocker on Gamespot some time ago. And that somehow carrying over into the cookies.

I understand you don't want to have compatibility with Adblockers. But many people have one installed. So they will come to Gamespot with one installed, and after a while whitelist gamespot. But after whitelisting they might still run into problems caused by previously running an adblocker. Completely uninstalling the adblocker altogether doesn't solve the problems either.

So you're advise of turning off the adblocker, while meant well, does not solve the problem. It's part of the solution, in the sense that it prevents future problems. But getting rid of the problem once it has already established itself can only be done by deleting the cookies.

@pongley: Those videos do have quality options if you use a different browser than Firefox. So this bug report is a duplicate of my one:

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/bug-reporting-feedback-1000006/no-hd-video-option-available-in-firefox-38-0-1-32089150/#2

It doesn't really make sense to have multiple threads open about the same bug.

Are you using Firefox? I reported a similar bug a few days ago:

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/bug-reporting-feedback-1000006/no-hd-video-option-available-in-firefox-38-0-1-32089150/#2

This is still unfixed. How about a response Gamespot? I want to be able to watch your videos in HD, I don't want to watch crappy SD quality.

EDIT: I fixed this issue by deleting my cookies. Now everything works OK.

Hi,

since today I can no longer watch HD quality video for some videos on Gamespot, in my favorite browser, Firefox 38.0.1. I can still watch these same videos in HD quality in Internet Explorer 11 or Chrome however.

In Firefox I get a different video player. It has a sound level option, a fullscreen option, and a caption settings option. But there is no option to change video quality to HD quality, and I'm forced to watch in SD quality.

The following videos are affected:

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-beautiful-world-of-the-wit/2300-6425005/

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/hatred-gamespot-plays/2300-6425016/

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/batman-arkham-knight-ps4-exclusive-content-trailer/2300-6425004/

The following videos are NOT affected, they use the regular Gamespot player (and do allow me to select HD quality):

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/batman-arkham-knight-time-to-go-to-war-trailer/2300-6425001/

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/gs-news-free-ps-plus-games-of-june-ultra-street-fi/2300-6425000/