In article , Oliver Breitfelder says...

"N. Miller" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
om...
In article , Oliver Breitfelder says...

The only things that come to mind for the failing computer are a
misconfigured software firewall, or a hosts file with bad entries.

Hosts file sounds interesting and possible. I'm gonna check that out.
Thanks!

If your computer ever harbored hijackware, some of that kind of malware is
known to modify, or create a hosts file which blocks access to certain "good
guy" sites.

The hosts file does not exist in a default installation; it is a throwback
to a time before the DNS system was set up. It holds the key to converting a
Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) to an IP address. Most people today
create one to redirect HTTP requests to the "localhost".

If there is a hosts file, the first "active" line should be:

127.0.0.1 localhost

There should be a "hosts.sam" file which includes some rudimentary
instructions, including the spacing. I think at least two are necessary; but
I usually use four, or so, for legibility.

I include a couple of entries for my router, and such, so I don't have to
remember the IP address. An example:

192.168.102.1 Chihiro

With that entry, I just type "Chihiro" in my browser URL bar, and I go
straight to my router configuration pages. Beyond that, I have "blocking"
aliases for sites I do not wish my browser to access. An example:

127.0.0.1 doubleclick.com

Wildcards won't work. Nor can you alias one IP address to another; the
purpose is to create a one-to-one table of FQDNs to IP addresses. So you
have to have separate entries for undesirable sites, if more than one FQDN
exists. An example

127.0.0.1 doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net

So all you need to do is first see if you even have a hosts file, then open
it to check the content. Notepad will work if the file is under 40k, or so;
anything over that size and you should use Wordpad. Any text editor will do
the job, though.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint