# Is my firewall stopping access to a website?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 23, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216 "2005-08-23T02:11:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216/1 "2005-08-23T02:11:13Z")
I tried to go to a Panama Canal Webcam site that I use to visit and now get the following message from this [site](http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html):
(This may take up to 30 seconds to load.)
alt=“Your browser understands the APPLET\> tag but isn’t running the applet, for some reason.” Your browser is completely ignoring the APPLET\> tag!
I’ll probably survive to old age without this website but I’m wondering what the deal is. I’m running Explorer 6.0. I’m guessing Java might have something to do with it but I’m not sure what Java does.
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### Author:  [@nonacetone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nonacetone)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216/2 "2005-08-23T02:32:30Z")
I can’t help you with the technical stuff, but I’d just like to mention that I’m using Firefox and the site is working just fine for me.
Sorry that I can’t be of any help!
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### Author:  [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216/3 "2005-08-23T02:45:22Z")
Applet? Sounds like java to me. [What is java](http://www.ibiblio.org/javafaq/javafaq.html#xtocid190290), you ask?
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### Author:  [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216/4 "2005-08-23T02:53:15Z")
Huh. I’m using v6 also and it works just fine. You must be missing some java bits somewhere.
Try going through the Microsoft Update online and see if it fixes it. Or else just reload Explorer completely.
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### Author:  [@snailboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snailboy)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-firewall-stopping-access-to-a-website/318216/5 "2005-08-23T03:04:57Z")
It works for me with Mozilla in FreeBSD. You may want to check under advanced options to make sure Java is enabled. I don’t have Windows so I can’t give exact instructions, but maybe someone else here can.