This was before they closed registration. Why would LE not have the man power to keep it running smooth if they controlled it for so long? Not a computer wiz by any means, really just lurk here. I assume having to log in was done on purpose, but why the captcha to just view a listing unlike before when AB was running?
Both were possibly set in place to refresh your stats that they wanted to monitor (IP etc) Obviously anyone with half a brain knows it’s better to have a vpn running.