In the Email Forms service manager, under "general settings", is a configuration item that says "Thank You URL". This should be set to the URL where your visitors will be directed, upon submitting your form. When you are trying this out yourself, Bravenet may recognize you as the owner of the site and prompt you to log in to your Bravenet account. This has nothing to do with the email address you are using. The recognitions would come from the cookies that Bravenet has planted in your PC. Normally, visitors to your site will not get this. If they do, there is either something wrong with your setup, or Bravenet has a problem. Check your setup first, then contact Bravenet.
All free Bravenet services are ad supported. For example, the verification page for your email form. The free service can not disable it and it's plastered with ads all over it. But there can also be popups. Which is probably what you are seeing with your hit counter. Popups can be very annoying, especially in small windows. They can easily be bigger than the actual window, and impossible to get rid of. The only option you have it to throw away the window and try the link again. It may take several times to get a view without the popup blocking you. Even though you may have your browsers popup blocker turned on, they can still get them through. The intent, of course, is to annoy you enough to spring for the paid service.
It makes the issues I'm experiencing clearer, although I am concerned with regard to the unsolicited ads appearing in the new browser window. (Hit Counter).
Insofar as your hit counter is concerned, I've been using Statcounter for the past 3 years. It is available free (www.statcounter.com) and is loaded with features-- and no annoying pop-ups
There is no requirement to use Bravenet's counter service on a Bravenet web site. There are lots of services available.
I use a free stat service from http://www.addfreestats.com. AddFreeStats is a full featured statistic collection service. All it requires is a little unobtrusive ad on your web pages. You can see it on my site in the bottom left. The ad is actually part of the collection script. While the image is being accessed for display, and the link created, visitor information is being collected.
Unlike Bravenet's counter, I can disable visitor access to my stats, so they never see any ads or popups. That is, of course, unless they decide to visit AddFreeStats through my link. Like any other service provider, they do have their share of advertisements.
While the AddFreeStats service is a little more complicated to implement, it gives very good information. I can see every site visitor, know where they originated from (country and server), know how they got there, how long they were there, what pages they viewed while they were there, where they went to when they left, what browser they were using, what resolution their screen is, yadada, yadada, yadada. You can get a synopsis of your site activity by day, week, month, or year. If a visitor found your site with a search engine, you can see what keywords they used to find it. This can be very valuable information if your trying to increase your search engine ranking. You can learn what keywords are working for you, and which ones are not.
To keep it even more unobtrusive, I don't display a counter. A counter is just an ego thing, and easy to fake. I personally, never believe what they say. The count is important to me, but I don't think anyone else really cares.
So, shop around. There is probably a service available out there, that better suites your needs.
