for some reason on certain links (that goes through an ad site or an intermediary site) my FF & IE both get stuck in this GIF Image, 1x1 pixels dead in the water page. I tried turning off my antivirus (don't do that) I tried reinstalling things, nothing.

any suggestions?

 

Don't do that?

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Try posting this in the computer section.

 

Its site code that keeps people from hotlinking images hosted on other sites and thus, stealing bandwidth. Site like Flickr employ this, and you need to know how to get to the image via source code to hotlink or dl the image.