# Connected to the internet but cannot open websites.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 13, 2012, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766 "2012-05-13T11:52:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![chowching](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@chowching](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowching)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766/1 "2012-05-13T11:52:21Z")

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Something’s wrong with my laptop again. The last time I was able to surf was when I connected to the internet using a usb modem. Now that I am connected to wireless, it says that I am connected to the internet. But when I open chrome or firefox, the page won’t load. I tried resetting the router to no avail. The problem really is in the laptop because I was able to surf when I connected my cell to the wireless. I also tried connecting my laptop to DSL. Again, it says connected to the internet yet I’m unable to load pages. Help. ☹

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**Author:** ![MannyL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MannyL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MannyL)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766/2 "2012-05-14T02:46:04Z")

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What Operating System?

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**Author:** ![Postariti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Postariti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Postariti)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766/3 "2012-05-15T01:46:05Z")

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When I had this problem my proxy settings were wrong. What browser are you using? You want to get into the Tool section for proxy servers, and uncheck if it says to use proxy servers.

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**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766/4 "2012-05-15T02:11:12Z")

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If you have XP you can right click on the connection icon in the system tray and select repair. Sounds like it could be proxy or DNS related if you are actually connected to the internet.

Click on start and then on run. In that box type CMD then press enter. Type in ping then a space then [google.com](http://google.com) then press enter. You should see on the next line:

Pinging [google.com](http://google.com) [74.125.225.41] then response times.

If [google.com](http://google.com) doesn’t translate into numbers, you have a DNS issue, if it does ping numbers but times out, you have a different set of things to try.

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**Author:** ![chowching](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@chowching](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowching)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/connected-to-the-internet-but-cannot-open-websites/621766/5 "2012-05-16T04:59:28Z")

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Thanks guys. It seems to be a DNS problem after all. I was able to solve this by fixing winsock.