Internet connection problems and 1.0.0.0

Factual Questions
1

So, I’m having weird problems connecting to the internet. Basically, every once in a while (well, every several times in a while), things that connect to the internet to find things will connect to the wrong place, almost always 1.0.0.0, as far as I can tell. this is neither consistent with all programs doing it at once, or even all things within a program (such as different websites in Firefox or IE) doing it at once.

This has included Google, Wikipedia, most individual Livejournal pages (ie: not my friends list, but each of my friends’ individual journals), Yahoo Messenger, and my email accounts (except for Hotmail, which Thunderbird can connect to just fine).

I’ve run Adaware, I’ve run Spybot Search and Destroy, I’ve run AVG Anti-Virus, AVG’s Anti-Rootkit tool, Windows Defender, various online scanners (Panda, Trend Micro, etc.) and nothing has fixed this problem.

Fortunately, for the sake of my sanity, I can still connect to the SDMB 90% of the time just fine.

I’m running Windows XP, so does anyone know of anything that would be causing this, and ways I can fix it?

2

Check the “hosts” file in a text editor for entries that are mapping specific web sites to the address you mentioned. It could be something is editing and changing that file so that some sites will not come up.

It should be located at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc

3

Oddly enough, my Hosts file is pretty much just a bunch of various websites that Spybot S&D has forwarded to 127.0.0.1, presumably to keep my computer from connecting to them (none of them look like websites I ever go to).

Anyhow, I was paging through a PC World magazine yesterday, and saw a blurb about a service called OpenDNS. It sounded intersting, so I got home, punched in the appropriate IP addresses in my router info and my Network Connection properties, and everything works fine now. Added bonus, OpenDNS also has a list of known Phishing sites that they cockblock for you.

I don’t know if this actually solved my problem (maybe not), but it at least put a big enough bandaid over it to where it probably won’t be an issue for me.