[kwisatz]

For a few weeks now an update from Firefox kept installing and failing, so I decided to do a clean uninstall and then reinstall Firefox fresh. Since this my internet browsing capability has died. I play MMOs and still connect through them, but both Firefox and IE get locked in a waiting for website message and time out before page loads. Have tried reseting router, multiple reinstalls of both browsers, cleared all caches and related temp folders, ping tests (all working fine), windows network diagnostics (again working fine), sfc/scannow (nothing), winsockfix (nothing), and am posting this from a laptop connected to the same router that also can access my PC through the network and vice versa. I have also scanned my computer for malware and viruses and found nothing. Any help would be appreciated.

[Doug Vitale]

Just uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox wouldn't do anything to prevent your computer from processing Web traffic (HTTP/HTTPS).

Do you get these time-outs with just one or a few websites, or all of them?

It seems like you're having DNS problems, which means that your browser can't "find" names on the Web such as google.com, yahoo.com, etc.

Open a command prompt and type "ipconfig /flushdns" and hit Enter. See if this helps.

If not, type "ping google.com", hit Enter, and see what results you get. You should see:

C:\>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [72.14.207.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 72.14.207.99: bytes=32 time=51ms TTL=240
Reply from 72.14.207.99: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=240
Reply from 72.14.207.99: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=240
Reply from 72.14.207.99: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=240

If you don't get replies, try "ping 72.14.207.99" and see what you get. If you get replies to the IP address 72.14.207.99 but not to the domain name google.com, you know you have a DNS problem. Make sure you have a valid default gateway and DNS server(s) in your IP configuration (type "ipconfig /all" in the command prompt).