Q: R-ad-somware--is there a remedy?

So, is it your opinion (or a fact?) that OSX 10.11.xx, with more RAM, has sufficient built-in protection that it would stop this incessant ad invasion? I'm reluctant to spend a bunch of money (even as cheap as RAM is) to replace the hard drive with an SSD and add memory if it might just be better to forgo "fixing" this 6-year old computer and instead buy a new computer entirely. (That will significantly affect my budget, as a retiree on fixed income. But then, so will spending over a hundred dollars for a new SSD....)

And, if the problem is not from my hard drive (no adware), and not from my ISP's wireless router, but from the servers running ebay and Swifty's.....will doing ANYTHING on my end resolve that problem? OR will I just end up with a new, faster computer that still throws ads up in my way without any possible remedy?

Thanks. I don't and won't download anything "offered" without my direct solicitation of that product. (I apparently made the mistake a year or so ago and did find adware installed by another attempt to download an update to something, possibly flash player or something else....and the user support community here gave me the procedure to clean up my hard drive, which I completed successfully.) (It was MacKeeper that was installed....though I have no recollection of clicking on any link in any ad anywhere for MacKeeper....but still my default search engine was changed to one of those adware-specific search sites, and I had to go through that whole procedure to remove all traces of MacKeeper and the various search engines that were installed. Mea culpa: I think the source then was I clicked a link to "update" Microsoft Office to a 'newer' version.....thinking it was a legitimate update....and I received a link to Office updates or something like that....but of course, no actual software except the MacKeeper and other adware tagalongs that were sent with the link. So, I don't do that any more.

I have a tendency to overexplain sometimes. Yes, I was responding to your answer to my question about RAM, but you also said "the answer is to not download it", referring, I believe, to not clicking on the ads' "download" or install buttons. So I noted I don't click on those ads. With my usual verbosity (as in this reply).

And, I know/knew RAM has nothing to do with it.....I guess my frustration overruled my brain when I asked that question.

And to ChitlinsCC, if I catch your drift, yes, the "User eXperience design" of these forums confuses me a bit....never sure when I "reply" to a specific person/topic, how it's gonna show up to everyone else....what I see is my replies as the "newest" entry, separated from the users' content to which I replied. I remember forums and perhaps back to usenet when threads and responses were indexed immediately below the content to which they referred...so it was a visible order/organization that was immediately recognizable to whom it referred.

I asked other users at Swifty's if any of them were experiencing similar 'hijacks' to what I was seeing, and several of them, including one of the admins, said they too had seen both: obnoxious ads replace Swifty's window, and the ransom pages doing the same thing. One of those affected (an admin) said he would contact Zetaboards' admin to advise them what's happening (that was Saturday or last Friday). So far, nothing has changed on my end; Swifty's has become an unfriendly site because I can't visit it without ads or ransom pages interrupting my user end experience, frequently and almost instantaneously (almost as soon as I enter a forum simply to read it....). It doesn't matter which browser I'm using; I've looked into updating the browsers, but as it turns out, neither Chrome, Safari, or Firefox support OSX 10.6.8 any longer, so there are no more "recent" versions of any browser for my box. (That's also an issue because I can no longer even access my bank online because they have stopped supporting old versions of all the browsers and I can't log in because the banks' system won't allow the use of the browsers I am stuck with.)

This morning, the Flash ad that took over Swifty's literally prevented most action from my end. No "Quit" command in Safari's menu (same with Chrome); no navigating back or forward; it was difficult and took a few minutes even to close the browser window(s)/tabs that were open. The popover dialog box that appeared 'floating' above the ad and it's "install now" dialog had two 'buttons' that both highlighted under mouse-over as if they would perform some action, but did nothing. Nothing at all. Those fake buttons were under the text "Are you sure you want to leave this page?"....even though when the ad appeared I didn't have time to do a **** thing before the "leave page" dialog appeared. And, of course, as long as that dialog box remained on screen--it wouldn't go away, since the buttons did nothing--I could do nothing else in the browser except "force quit" from the Apple menu.

This seems like it should be illegal; but of course, the perpetrators are probably in Russia or some authoritarian country and don't give a **** about laws or a person's right to be unassaulted by jerks and criminals.

Anyway, it appears I'm left with a very few choices: buy and install more memory and upgrade my OS hoping (without evidence) the latest Mac OS will help prevent this stuff; wipe my Mac's hard drive and throw the box out and buy a new Mac, again hoping this will result in some more effective built-in suppression of scams and crapware, without any evidence it will; or simply never visit Swifty's again, and hope no other site I want to visit will use a "free" web hosting service.

Thanks again, all of you, for trying to help me. I will end this thread the next opportunity to click a button that allows me to close the question. While it hasn't been "solved" or whatever the option is, I'm tired of fighting this battle against unscrupulous "advertisers". They won. I'm defeated.