I don't think that clicking on the little circle next to a thread which shows you the number of unread posts always takes you to the first unread one.

Any reason the site goes blank often? Shows the thread for a few seconds then disappears. Really annoying. Using duck duck go if that makes any difference

Not working any better for me. Still a losing battle with the pop up ads. I also get the blank page

On my android phone I use the Adblock Browser and on my laptop I use Edge with the Adblock Plus extension and both do a good job on the ads on here. Maybe worth a try for you?

Thanks for the advice.  I will give it a try