Sorry to ressurect this, but I have a similar problem and I need to let off steam ...

I use my laptop from work (through a proxy server on our corprate WAN) and from home. The lightbulb function works independently in the two places - in other words it seems to be linked to the IP-address or something, and not to cookies on my laptop.

Every other forum/bulletin board I use has no problem and recognises me (using cookies I guess) wherever I log on. Why does FT have to be different? This isn't rocket science is it? Surely the answer is to have a "sign-in" function so that you can keep track of the last access time, and hence the lightbulbs.

And another niggle - there is something wrong with the way you interact with proxy servers - I have to do a refresh every time I load a page through my corporate proxy if it is still in the cache, even though I have my browser set to "check every time". Again everything works fine with every other board I use.

Perhaps you could talk to the guys over at PPrune to see how they do it?

Sorry for the whinge - FT is still a great resource, but it can be irritating sometimes!