Updated Safari last night. Now the free online games on AARP, will not load. It's not the website because my husband's macbook pro still loads them

Got it. You mean this.

You've clicked the button to launch the game, and this is all the further it gets. I had this happen under Sierra with both Safari and Firefox. I was testing in El Capitan before with Safari 10 figuring it would be the same.

What's wrong is the box is a Flash ad that insists on running before you can actually play a game (one of those, "You can skip this ad in x seconds" things). I hadn't installed Flash in Sierra yet. The giveaway was small text that appeared before the black box covered it saying Flash was required. So the AARP site is stuck because it wants to cram an ad down your throat before you can play the game, but it can't do it without Flash installed and enabled in Safari. So it just sits there and stares back at you with a black placeholder for the stalled ad.

Once I installed Flash and re-launched Safari, it stated that Flash was detected and conveniently turned it off for my safety. Sure. That's just what I would want the OS to do. Disable a plug-in I intentionally installed so I could use it. 😐 Went to Safari's preferences and told it to use Flash all the time.

To get there, click on the Security heading, then the Plug-in Settings button at the bottom. In the left column, Flash is turned off. Turn on the check box. Then at the right, change the drop-down menu at the bottom right to On. Click Done.

The games should now work in Safari. Though even with an ad-blocker installed, you're still forced to watch the Flash adds before the first play, and in between most requests to play the same game again.

Did the box look something like this?

If so, you've got VoiceOver turned on. Open the System Preferences and click on Accessibility. Turn the check box off.

What may be happening with it on is the the OS is trying to "read" the graphic for the game icon so it can speak what it says. But there's no readable text for an image, so you get the spinning lollipop as the OS tries to figure out what to do with it.

Do a backup, using either Time Machine or a cloning program, to ensure files/data can be recovered. Two backups are better than one.

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferenes, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.

Isolating an issue by using another user account

If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once.

Safe Mode - About El Capitan

Safe Mode Startup – El Capitan.

If it works in the Safe Mode, try running this program when booted normally and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. On the screen with Options, please open Options and check the bottom 2 boxes before running. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy to Clipboard” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown.

Etrecheck – System Information

Safari - Unsupported third-party add-ons may cause Safari to unexpectedly quit or have performance issues

Safari doesn't load a page or webpage items are missing

Safari/other browsers – Website not loading

Have you tried another web browser (i.e. Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.) If your game works on one of those it means that their is probably a bug in Safari or that Apple has removed support for the game from Safari. I hope this helps!

FireFox is fine but, it still have Google for its main search engine. You can change the search engine within the preferences of FireFox. (Download and install firefox --> open it ---> click on Firefox which can be found next to the apple logo in the top right hand corner ----> click on preferences) From what I know, I.E. is not compatible with Mac, but you can use this guide to install I.E. on a Mac: http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/19/use-internet-explorer-11-mac-os-x-easy/ I hope this helps!

Also, I forgot to ask you what Mac you had (i.e. macbook, macbook pro, mac pro etc). If your Mac has an option to upgrade to Mac OS Sierra, I would suggest that you update. (Just in case) I hope that I have been helpful with your situation.

Just be aware that the suggestion offered involves a process similar to screen sharing which means you are allowing strangers access to your screen online. I'd suggest due diligence before doing that.

And, as for the games, it is most likely a compatibility problem - I'd check with AARP and ask them to check with their webmaster as to which browsers are supported with their games.

The suggestion to follow the instructions was here in another post:

http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/19/use-internet-explorer-11-mac-os-x-easy/

Personally, I would not expose my machine just to play a game.

As for the AARP website: all websites are coded/designed to work with certain browsers/versions. The webmaster is usually the one in charge of that. I changed banks when mine told me that their site only works with Internet Explorer. FWIW, I have been using Firefox for years and it is working well with Sierra.