[wrappedinsky]

Wasn't sure where to post this, but in the past week, after a certain amount of time online, I notice that my Firefox and IE browsers will suddenly stop working. In other words, I will go to open up either and they will never resolve to the any site. The "hourglass"/time display thing, will just keep spinning, but will never finish. It just will continue to show a blank page.

I even try turning my modem off and on to see if it's the connection, but then I noticed
that my chat programs (yahoo and aim) were still working fine.

I have to restart my system in order to fix the browsers.

Has anyone else experienced this or suggest how to fix it?

Thanks much, everyone.

[wrappedinsky]

Anyone, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[wrappedinsky]

Wow, has no one else experienced this problem?

[infomagick]

What OS are you using? The most common cause of this is either firewall or anti-virus software, disable those and see if you get the same results.

[wrappedinsky]

I've always had XP for over 3 years and never had a glitch. Also had the same
firewall and anti-virus program the entire time and never had any issue.

If I disable my firewall and AV, won't that just open me up to getting bombarded with
attacks?

[infomagick]

Momentarily disabling your firewall and av to just isolate the problem should not be a problem, I do it all the time. You can re-enable them immediately if you determine that they are not to blame.

Are you using Zone Alarm by any chance? There is a known problem with this one which relates directly to what you are experiencing.

[Dave_H]

A possible reason could be a large cache, I set Firefox to clear all private data every time Firefox closes. Also in IE do a 'delete browsing history', delete 'temporary internet files'.

Do you maintain your PC? When was the last time you did a scan disk and a defrag? Your browser is writing loads a small files to the HD all the time. It helps to maintain the filing system.

Best regards

Dave

[wrappedinsky]

Originally Posted by infomagick

Momentarily disabling your firewall and av to just isolate the problem should not be a problem, I do it all the time. You can re-enable them immediately if you determine that they are not to blame.

Are you using Zone Alarm by any chance? There is a known problem with this one which relates directly to what you are experiencing.

Ok, I thought you meant to disable it in general. I do not use Zone Alarm anymore, but have been using Avast Antivirus for some time now.

Thank you for your response.

[wrappedinsky]

Originally Posted by Dave_H

A possible reason could be a large cache, I set Firefox to clear all private data every time Firefox closes. Also in IE do a 'delete browsing history', delete 'temporary internet files'.

Do you maintain your PC? When was the last time you did a scan disk and a defrag? Your browser is writing loads a small files to the HD all the time. It helps to maintain the filing system.

Best regards

Dave

I strictly use Firefox now. I do delete my history and temp files too.
And, I do maintain my PC. I do a scan disk about every 2 weeks and a defrag about once a month or so. Should I do those more often?

Thank you for your advice.

[infomagick]

avast!? Try right clicking on the avast! icon in the Task Bar and disabling the Web Shield provider. There is a problem at the moment with it interfering with browsers ability to connect to the net on many systems at the moment. See the Web Shield thread on the avast! forums. There is at least a 35% probablility that this may be your problem. Good luck!

[wrappedinsky]

Yah, Avast has been pretty good thus far and never had any problems with it. However, I think you may be right. It seems to have just started interfering with my browsers within the last 2 months. Thanks much for all your suggestions/help.

[infomagick]

You are welcome. I also used avast! and may return to it once they get the bugs out. In the meantime, Avira AntiVir (free version) is very good as well.