# SBC/Yahoo! dial-up and Firefox **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 14, 2005, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sbc-yahoo-dial-up-and-firefox/321668 "2005-09-14T21:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sbc-yahoo-dial-up-and-firefox/321668/1 "2005-09-14T21:32:00Z")
A few months ago, I moved to a new apartment. While getting the phone number swiched over, I went ahead and set up a dial-up account while I was at it. It’s sort of wonky, as they wanted me to use their own browser (Internet Explorer based), but my Firefox worked fine once I was connected, so no worries. Then, back at the end of August, things crapped out on me. I could sort of connect, but no browser worked, and a lot of other apps were unable to update too. I could tell the connection was working, as windows update still did it’s thing. Anyways, I was too busy until now to call tech support, and i’m sort of back online. the only browser that works is plain IE with a clear cache, not even their own browser is working, and their own tech support suggested this is the ony way to connect. I can’t even get AdAware to update. Bleah. This sucks. I miss my firefox. Anyone know what’s going on? [sub]I was spyware/adware/virus free as of the cutoff day. So I don’t think that’s it.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sbc-yahoo-dial-up-and-firefox/321668/2 "2005-09-14T22:27:32Z")
Very odd, since generally if one browser works they all should. Perhaps the ISP has a firewall that’s blocking all requests not coming from an IE browser? That would be really strange and stupid of them, but who knows. Maybe IE is automatically picking up proxy information? You could try installing the [User Agent Switcher](https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=59) Firefox extension and then have Firefox pretend to be IE and see if that works. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sbc-yahoo-dial-up-and-firefox/321668/3 "2005-09-14T23:06:50Z")
Nope, can’t download any extensions, as firefox does seem to be blocked. ```auto Alert [x] /!\ The connection was refused when attempting to contact addons.mozilla.org ( OK ) ``` argh. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sbc-yahoo-dial-up-and-firefox/321668/4 "2005-09-15T03:28:18Z")
> [@Darth Nader](#): > > the only browser that works is plain IE with a clear cache, not even their own browser is working, and their own tech support suggested this is the ony way to connect. I can’t even get AdAware to update. Bleah. I suspect they are lying to you, since I am typing this in Netscape while I download Firefox’s update in Firefox. SBC/Yahoo’s version of IE sucks bigtime–it manages to be even slower than regular IE–so I stopped using it ages ago. ---
**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sbc-yahoo-dial-up-and-firefox/321668/5 "2005-09-15T04:55:58Z")
That just doesn’t sound right. The SBC browser is a big ad for Yahoo and I really hate it. You might try having XP (if that is your OS) do the dialing in for you to create the connection instead of the software that was provided by SBC. Once it connects you should be able to use Firefox. I have found that to be better than the Connection Manager software.