I was too busy to install Flashblock, so hit the Chrome button, which allows me to visit the site again, without the browser grinding to a halt. But it seems that this O2 ad is running more now than it was last week, and it still hasn't been fixed. Which is going from the understandable cock-up of hosting other peoples' adverts into a level of being quite annoying.
Also the O2 advert is now appearing in the square section inside articles, as well as the banner. I don't think I've seen that version on its own (without banner) so have no way of checking if they're both buggering things up.
I've deliberately chosen not to go totally shields up - because I want sites like El Reg to get their fair share of advertising cash. But if I do, I very much doubt I can be bothered to craft different acceptance policies for each site - so please don't push me towards doing it.
I've noticed sites getting slower and more crashy of late, and I'm not sure if it's just web admins getting more lax/profligate on how many objects / how much data gets shoved on the front page - or if its just recent bugs in flash and browsers, or a trend in adverts. Bring back the days of <blink>, 32x32 bitmaps, and pages loading slowly over dial-up...