I can't answer all of your questions, because I'm not on the inside. I will say however that if you click on a button, select your picture, and then click post it, you are loading that picture to the forum's server. If you use Photo Bucket, or something like that you are linking your picture to another web site. The forum's server space is not used. That equals money saved. Server and bandwidth space for a forum such as this one is very expensive. Again, I'm just guessing based on what I've seen for other web hosting, could be $500 to $600 a month easy. That's why the other forums have tons of ads on their site. As for all the other problems, they are related to the switch over to an encrypted forum. As I explained before this is due to the use of TapTalk requirements, and a large number of members use that method to post to the forum. So it was a necessary evil. Now I would like to ask you a question, How many people support this forum, and I'm not talking money. I'm talking tech support. At the University od Southern Colorado when I worked in the IT department we had 25 to 30 people to support the University's system. As far as I know there is only one person supporting this forum. Do the math. If you don't like it, you're free to go somewhere else. But I doubt you'll be any happier somewhere else. I'll put up with a few problems once in awhile, for all the really good things this forum has to offer.