Various forum bugs

Up until a few days ago (I don't have a specific day, unfortunately), I had no problems in "Liking" people's posts, or using the emoticons or code shortcuts we all see above when making posts, but now I can't use any of this. The Like button doesn't even register me clicking it (javascript void, it said just now). Also, I can't click the Cookie Policy pop up off, and the address bar has the padlock icon greyed out with a yellow warning triangle, saying this connection is unsecured, apparently because of "images". I've tried adding the forums as exceptions to my AV, but it doesn't yield permanent accessibility, and I can't feasibly enter every page as an exception, because that's just silly.

For the record, all other things to do with FFXIV are secured connections; I'm definitely logging in under one. Just when I do, I can no longer make full use of the forums. I've requested help from Firefox (my main browser of choice, and what I'm using right now), but have also noticed the same issue using Google Chrome.

So, please, anyone got any ideas how I can resolve this? It's not an earth-shattering problem, just annoying and odd since I had no problems until a few days ago.

(As I'm about to post this, a pop up appears, telling me the connection is unsecured, and if I go ahead third parties may be able to read this. Do I really want to send this information? ...Oof.)

It seems changes SE made to the forum's configuration broke the like button if using old browers about a year or so ago as I had that same issue until recently, as I was still using the old ESR release of Firefox version 51 (the last compatible version with Windows XP) to access the forum, and the like button did not work in all that time.

I've since finally replaced XP with Win 7 and installed the latest version of Firefox accordingly (version 61)... and the like button was still broken. In order to finally get it working, I had to allow 'ajax.googleaspis.com' in the Noscript addon before the like button was restored. So I assume this script controls the like function on the site, and thus something with Firefox is interfering with it, whether an addon like Noscript or something like it.

As for that cookie alert overlay, it is indeed very annoying as clicking it once doesn't stop it from automatically appearing randomly (sometimes it hangs around forever and I only get rid of it by physically closing down the whole browser and starting again). So I agree that definitely is not working as intended and needs to be looked at (unfortunately SE has to have it on the site to comply with recent European law, that's not the issue, the problem is the warning message is broken and won't fully disappear after the first time it shows up).

Thanks so much for replying, Enkidoh! Based on your post, I poked around for other causes and it seems DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials needed to Whitelist the site. Now I was able to like your post, and the Cookie Policy has gone. Yay! Wish I could give you more than just one Like for the inspiration! <3