Cannot use amazon.com with either of 2 browsers

General Questions
#1

I quit using Internet Explorer in favor of Firefox a few years ago. So far, all was well–until the past month or so. I’m running Firefox 2.0 and I also have IE 6.0 (because you can’t get rid of it).

Now, 9 times out of 10, Firefox does not load amazon.com pages. It produces only a completely blank page. The title bar displays some sort of URL (instead of the actual page title), while the browser window is 100% blank. I can get a page to load if I go back and hit the link again… and again… usually 8, 9, 10 times. If I have enough patience, I can get the page to load with repeated attempts.

When I attempt to access my cart, Firefox displays some incomprehensible code in plaintext, though again after any number of repeated attempts, I can get the cart page to load.

I’ve never seen any browser go haywire in this way before, and it only happens with Amazon. I would like to know what could have happened recently to cause this, and how to fix it.

IE is worse. The entire browser just freezes up and hangs if I try to access an Amazon login page. I see the CPU usage shoot through the roof every time I try to do anything with IE. I’ve been dumping all the error reports in Microsoft’s lap for all the good it will do. The explanations they refer me to never explain anything. I’ve just given up completely on IE.

#2

Ooooh, this happened to me, in fact ebay wouldn’t work either.

I came on here and asked for help, someone gave it to me and I cannot remember the answer. Let me try to find the thread.

#3

gotpasswords answer solved my problem, deleting all my HOSTS info, in post #3.

#4

Did we forget something?

#5

I think this might be the thread fisha was talking about.
-Lil

#6

It was, thank you, percypercy.

You have a mouse in your pocket QED? Or was that the royal “we?”

#7

OK, I’m trying those instructions now. Between the Microsoft instructions and gotpasswords, I’m not sure if I understood right. My hosts file has exactly one line that isn’t commented out. It reads:

127.0.0.1 localhost

So do I delete that line or leave it alone?

#8

Leave it alone. That line should be in your hosts file.

I doubt your problem is with firefox itself. I use it all the time with Amazon and have never had a problem with it. Your operating system may be corrupted or infected with malware. Another possibility is that your ISP is caching web pages and not doing it properly. I would suggest that you uninstall firefox, download the current version from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ and reinstall the software.

#9

Wouldn’t you know… like what they say about calling the repair person and the washer starts working again right before they get there… the problem stopped happening mysteriously right after I posted the OP. It’s positively uncanny.

But I’ll take the uninstall/reinstall advice anyway.