Maybe this will make it easier for you, here's the direct link that you are directed to, when you click the Advanced Search option:
http://forums.dealofday.com/search.php
So you can bookmark that page if that makes it easier, then no issues with clicking the link and not having it work.
On that page, you will see that you can search by topic, username, date, and etc., you can even select which forum to search, so if you are checking for a dupe freebie post, you can just select the freebie forum to search, which makes it a lot faster than searching all forums on the site, which is what the basic search does anyway. For users with dial-up, that makes it a lot smoother of a search process.
Let me know if that link works for you and helps any!