Please help me regain my sanity.
Yesterday, in an attempt to just start from scratch, I completely wiped my WordPress site and my database. Just wanted a fresh start for my blog (it's also a jumping off point to inform people I do freelance IT work. Nothing special, really. No eCommerce, etc.)
After wiping clean, here's what I did, start to finish:
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1. Downloaded WordPress 4.2.2
2. FTP'ed the downloaded contents into my public HTML folder on my webhost
3. Ran the 5-minute installer and launched the site (no issues during install)
4. Tried to install JetPack 3.5.3 through wp-admin. Problem #1: IMMEDIATELY ran into a problem. I receive the message that it is downloading, but it never downloads (I left it here for hours, retried multiple times). I can download it manually elsewhere, but I don't know enough about WordPress to know where to FTP the contents of that download (besides... it should be working through wp-admin, dont'ya think?)
5. With no plugins enabled, I install 2 themes
6. Made one of those themes the active theme and customized it with some default widgets, changed color, etc.
7. Added a menu, two pages, three posts, and one comment.
8. Shared my site online. Problem #2: Some buddies of mine point out that there's pop-ups when viewing my site via mobile. I try it out myself and, sure enough, there's some JS pop-ups.
9. Used PageSpeed Insights to see if I could further identify the problem. I'm seeing some questionable hosts within the details: stats.hosting24.com and creative.xtendmedia.com.
10. Google searched those hosts, and it looks like malware. Malware? I just friggin installed the site!
I just want to know where to point the finger: my webhost? Some hacker somewhere? Me??