>Is the log in screen no longer required? I noticed as of yesterday when I go to UT it just goes right into the forum whereas always before I would have to sign in.

There wasn't any new update since several months. And, I am not sure exactly how your browser behaved. Maybe a click was done when the browser was being loaded (or the page), putting it into memory, and doing the same as if you would have clicked on the Login button thus ending up immediately in the support area. Other than that, the only way to get in the support area as is would be to save the URL and revisit that URL for as long as the browser has at least one instance running. This makes it live for the cookies for as long as there is at least one browser instance running. But, if you close them all, and do the same, it won't work.