I’m having a problem connecting to the internet on my desktop. And it’s really weird. I can log into my gmail account, but it won’t take me to google or to any other sites.
Also, instead of connecting me to my home network, the wireless card keeps defaulting me to some unnamed (and unsecured) network that doesn’t appear to have an internet connction at all.
Ny netbook is working just fine. Could this be a corrupted wireless card? Any other ideas?
Thanks for any responses.
What desktop OS?
Has it always been like this, or only since what change or update?
Try connecting by cable to the router, is it OK?
That sounds like that phantom wireless virus thing thats circling the world.
Windows XP. It’s a Belkin wireless G card.
My netbook runs wireless with no problem at all. I’ve tried multiple scans with spybot and NOD32. Both scans turn up and fix problems but I still can’t get any further into the internet than my webmail (gmail, that is, and my wife’s DSLextreme account which runs on a gmail platform).
The only salient change I can think of is as follows: About a week ago our dsl modem failed to connect us to the internet. I called up the ISP and they arranged to send another modem. Meanwhile, the card stopped defaulting to the wireless router’s network, and started defaulting to what was being called an unsecured “ad hoc” network. Since then, the card has always wanted to connect to that network first on boot-up. The wireless hardware on the netbook does not see this network.
Forcing the desktop to connect to the home network does not improve my connectivity. I haven’t tried a cable connection to the modem yet. Since they’re in different rooms, this is a bit challenging. I’ll see what I can do.
Bumping to point out another thing I’ve noticed: If the URL begins with https:// the computer will open it. If it’s just http:// I can’t. Since https is used for such things as sites where I pay bills, I’m concerned that completing transactions on that computer will expose me to data theft, possibly followed by money theft.
Any ideas about what I might have picked up?
And how to get rid of it?
Okay, crisis averted. kaylasmom just reminded me that my brother-in-law is a computer guru by profession, and he happens to be available this morning. He walked me through resetting the defaults on IE, which did the trick (spybot found that one of the changes made by doing this was the deletion of something called “global browser toolbar.”
Then he walked me through replacing IE with Firefox. Thanks to those who posted.
There are five major free browsers available:
Internet Explorer
Safari
Firefox
Chrome
Opera
You can download and install them all, and when you have a problem with one browser, try it in any of the four other browsers to see if the problem is only with one particular web browser.