# Why can Firefox access Internet when Chrome has difficulty? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 5, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021 "2019-02-05T19:32:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/1 "2019-02-05T19:32:07Z")
For a few weeks I’ve been having serious Internet problems. I get delays and messages like > [@](#): > > This site can’t be reached [Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/)… took too long to respond. > Try: > Checking the connection > Checking the proxy and the firewall > Running Windows Network Diagnostics > ERR\_TIMED\_OUT The problems come in spurts — after a few minutes [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com) might be OK again. Some sites are unaffected; besides SDMB, Google is another site which _is_ badly affected. I use Chrome. Acting on a suggestion I fired up Firefox. _It works much better._ When I can’t get a response from Chrome I copy/paste the URL into Firefox and get a good result. A second later Chrome loads the page; I suppose it gets it from a cache Firefox just filled. Why? And how to fix so I can use Chrome again? (The hints suggest _Proxy Server(s)_. Firefox is set to “Use system proxy settings.” Chrome’s Settings takes me to “Open proxy systems”, clicking takes me to a Windows “Internet Properties” window, which has LAN settings, where I tried two options that didn’t require me to know an IP address. Neither helped) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/2 "2019-02-06T17:58:50Z")
No answer. ☹ I debated whether to post in GQ or IMHO. My post definitely is not an Opinion. It’s a Question I’d really like resolved. \*\* Mods\*\*, move this thread please! (I avoided GQ initially because I wasn’t sure it had a single definite answer.) ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/3 "2019-02-06T20:24:12Z")
**Moderator Action** > [@septimus](#): > > \*\* Mods\*\*, move this thread please! Since this seems more like a general networking / proxy issue with Chrome rather than something SDMB specific (and hence not relevant to ATMB), I’ll move it to GQ (from IMHO). ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/4 "2019-02-06T20:25:58Z")
What version of Windows are you using? ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/5 "2019-02-06T20:29:38Z")
Doesn’t Chrome talk to google for saving history and stuff? Maybe it’s a problem in the communication back to the mothership. Do websites load any faster if you use a private/incognito window? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/6 "2019-02-07T04:37:33Z")
I run Windows 10. I’ll try the Incognito experiment. It’s hard to “schedule” such experiments since the problem comes in spurts: For a few hours I’ll notice no problem, then there will be a problem period for several minutes. The “Google Chrome talking to its mothership” idea might make sense — I live in Thailand which probably doesn’t help connectivity. ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/7 "2019-02-07T06:48:04Z")
You can try clearing all your browsing data in Chrome. Everything including history, cookies, etc. (Back up your bookmarks first, if you don’t log in to Chrome and let Google sync your bookmarks.) If that’s not satisfactory, you can uninstall Chrome, and then reinstall it. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/8 "2019-02-07T08:23:04Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’ll try the Incognito experiment. It’s hard to “schedule” such experiments since the problem comes in spurts: It appears that Incognito Chrome is faster than regular Chrome (and doesn’t time out), but not as fast as Firefox. Maybe — the symptoms aren’t consistent enough to draw easy conclusions. > [@road\_lobo](#): > > You can try clearing all your browsing data in Chrome. Everything including history, cookies, etc. Does this have a high probability of success? Clearing all of Chrome’s data is _highly_ inconvenient to the point of _danger_! :eek: (One bad click once caused all my saved passwords to be lost IIRC; some of them I’d forgotten.) Google needs a plethora of “cookies” (or something) before it knows English is my preferred language. (Google Books, Google Finance and Google News still don’t even know it.) I’m muddling along, copy/pasting URL’s from Chrome to Firefox as needed. With SDMB tabs now open in three browser windows, things are getting confusing! 😃 As I say, different websites are affected differently. I have a huge SDMB history I’m sure — is that a possible problem source? OTOH, I’ve also gotten time-outs from sites I don’t recall ever going to before. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/9 "2019-02-07T09:40:20Z")
yeah occasionally your cookie/history gets too full and ya need to empty it ….that’s how I found out that theres a history folder in the first place waaaaay back in the win 95 days …… my folder had years of stuff in it …and it killed trying to get anywhere now just be sure to uncheck the saved passwords ect you wanna keep ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/10 "2019-02-07T09:43:38Z")
Is there some way I can have TWO copies of chrome? Install Chrome into a different folder, so that clicking on a new icon gives me a completely different environment than the old Chrome icon? ETA: Would this big-history problem explain the symptoms? Sometimes Chrome is fine; the periods of too-slow response come in spurts. ---
**Author:** ![EdelweissPirate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@EdelweissPirate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdelweissPirate)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/11 "2019-02-07T18:13:04Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > yeah occasionally your cookie/history gets too full and ya need to empty it ….that’s how I found out that theres a history folder in the first place waaaaay back in the win 95 days …… my folder had years of stuff in it …and it killed trying to get anywhere It sounds like you’re suggesting that one must [empty the bit bucket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_bucket). This simply isn’t so. It’s certainly not the root cause of the OP’s issue. One thing to consider: if your ISP has a flaky router causing intermittent packet loss, then some requests would go through and others wouldn’t. It may not be a Firefox/Chrome issue at all; if Chrome fails to load a web page, it may just be that some packets were dropped for that request. It’s not that Firefox works when Chrome doesn’t; it’s that the first request fails and the second succeeds. If your ISP’s DNS server is flaky, it can cause failed lookups, so your computer can’t correlate a URL to an IP address. You might try setting a different publicly-accessible DNS server like Google’s: 8.8.8.8. I’m not saying that Chrome isn’t the problem; I’m suggesting that we don’t have enough information yet to conclude that the browser is the source of the problem. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/12 "2019-02-07T18:22:17Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It appears that Incognito Chrome is faster than regular Chrome (and doesn’t time out), but not as fast as Firefox. Maybe — the symptoms aren’t consistent enough to draw easy conclusions. One other possibility is that one of your Chrome plugins is behaving badly. When running with Incognito mode, Chrome disables all add-on plugins. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/13 "2019-02-07T19:02:50Z")
I run both Firefox and Chrome because invariably something will not work with one or the other. > [@septimus](#): > > It appears that Incognito Chrome is faster than regular Chrome (and doesn’t time out), but not as fast as Firefox. Maybe — the symptoms aren’t consistent enough to draw easy conclusions. Consider also disabling all your Extensions and see if that makes things better. If so, enable them one by one to narrow down which one is messing things up. It may be that a recent update to core Chrome doesn’t play well with it. > [@](#): > > Does this have a high probability of success? Clearing all of Chrome’s data is _highly_ inconvenient to the point of _danger_! :eek: (One bad click once caused all my saved passwords to be lost IIRC; some of them I’d forgotten.) Google needs a plethora of “cookies” (or something) before it knows English is my preferred language. (Google Books, Google Finance and Google News still don’t even know it.) Strongly consider using a password manager, like LastPass or KeePass. > [@nightshadea](#): > > yeah occasionally your cookie/history gets too full and ya need to empty it ….that’s how I found out that theres a history folder in the first place waaaaay back in the win 95 days …… my folder had years of stuff in it …and it killed trying to get anywhere > > now just be sure to uncheck the saved passwords ect you wanna keep As a teenager at the time with reasonably tech-savvy parents, I learned to purge history pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-firefox-access-internet-when-chrome-has-difficulty/829021/14 "2019-02-07T20:10:42Z")
Chrome keeps its own DNS cache, independently of the host operating system’s DNS cache - the Chrome DNS cache can get corrupted or polluted and this can often result in Chrome failing to find or open pages which other browsers on the same machine are OK with. The Chrome DNS cache can be manually cleared by following the instructions here: [https://techwiser.com/clear-dns-cache-on-browser/](https://techwiser.com/clear-dns-cache-on-browser/) (it’s perfectly safe to do this - it will just clear the cache and start building it again - your saved passwords etc will not be affected.