Free game crashes - crashing much more often?

[Edward Edgemenace]

It seems like it is intended. When you have the free game after seven days, a vicious border appears presumably to prevent resizing or something. Included in this border are "helpful" links to the POTC site, and some quasi-advertisements.

When the ads are POTC-related, there is no problem. When the ads are for the nightmare before christmas, no problem. Some of the other ads seem to cause POTC to instantly crash, however.

Since the ads only change when a POTC scene changes (boarding a ship, landing a ship, going through a door, starting/stopping PvP, etc.) the crashes also only happen then.

Lately, they have been happening about 30% of the time, instead of about 5% of the time. It used to just be that the ads would steal focus - now they make it crash pretty regularly. As if basic access wasn't bad enough...

Anyone know if this new crash behavior is intended, as a "feature" or something?