Why can't I get into gmail?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been using gmail on this computer since like forever. This morning when I tried to get into my account, I clicked the gmail “Favorites” option. It took me to a blank browser screen, with a banner that says “To help protect your security, Internet Explorer blocked this site from downloading files to your computer. Click here for options…” So I click on the banner, and it gives me two options: “Download File…” and “What’s the risk?” Clicking “What’s the risk?” redirects me to a Windows information page that tells me the risks of opening untrustworthy sites.

Clicking on “Download File…” openns the same Security Warning box three times. The box invites me to either save the file or find an online program to open it. If I click on Save, I can download a little file to my desktop, but when I try opening it with Internet Explore, it puts me right back where I started. If I select “Find”, it redirects me to a page marked Microsoft Application Search, with the following:

I’m using Windows XP, and running IE7, version 7.0.5730. 11IC.

I have not made any changes to my internet browser security settings.

The ISP we use is DSLExtreme, which uses gmail as its webmail platform. A couple of days ago, doing anything on the DSLExtreme site gave me a warning that the security certificate was not up to date, either for the main site, or for the webmail, but it allowed me to click through, at which point I operated with the address bar pink. This anomaly has gone away, and I now log onto our webmail with no difficulty.

If I try to go to google.com and click on the gmail option (or if I type in www.gmail.com to the browser’s address bar I get “Internet Explore cannot display the webpage”.

Any idea what’s going on?

2

Have you tried clearing cookies and that kind of stuff?

IE7 should be Tools > Delete Browsing History > Delete All

3

Well, I hadn’t thought of it. But when I did it, there was no apparent effect, beyond it letting me get to the login page of gmail. I logged in, and got back to where I had been at the beginning.

Thanks for the suggestion, btw. It does help the browser respond faster.

Any other suggestions? Bueller?

4

I’m not a Windows user, but it sounds to me like you have some Malware on your machine. Try typing this IP address into your address bar, instead of www.gmail.com, and see what happens: http://74.125.19.83/
(this is one of Google’s IP addresses - there doesn’t seem to be a direct IP address for Gmail)

5

You really, really, really, need to get some computer safety sense before you do anything else. Opening unknown files like that is really dumb and exposes you to, well, what you probably already have, viruses and other malware.

6

If all else fails, and you come up clean for malware, try installing Firefox to see if the problem is repeated.

7

What’s supposed to be unsafe about gmail.com?

I opened it at work and was able to get to my emails with no problem.

8

So a man comes to your door and says “hello, I am your mail carrier but today, before I can deliver your mail I need you to drop your pants and bend over for me. Don’t worry, I’ll be finished in a matter of minutes. You’ll like it. Trust me.”

And it does not occur to you that this guy is a different guy from the one you know, and he is acting totally different and, heck, even if he really is the mail carrier you prefer not to drop your pants and bend over? Really? You just click on the link and bend over because it looks like a site said so? Really? You must be a very trusting person.

People who do that often find themselves pregnant up the ass with a virus. Or two or three… hundred.

9

I still don’t get it. Is a fake gmail.com site somehow getting only to my computer?

Or has my IE browser been taken over by a pod-person of some sort, and only gmail.com is perspicacious enough to realize that?

10

The latter, in a way. It is probably something nasty that’s sitting on your computer reading all URLs you use, and when it comes to Gmail it hijacks the URL and offers you another nasty thing to download - possibly relying on you thinking “well if it’s Google it can’t be a bad file”.

If you are going to a big, reputable site, and it suddenly starts acting differently to normal, your first question should be “what is going wrong at my end?” And never, ever, ever, ever, ever download something that you haven’t specifically requested, let alone execute it.

After you’ve used some anti-spyware and malware software, and have found and removed the probable malware, the long-term answer to this sort of thing is to stop using IE wherever possible - use Firefox or Chrome instead. And get some decent antivirus software. I recommend the entirely free “Avast” suite.

11

I have heard this said many times and I think it is unfair. I only use IE and have never been infected. Some common sense and a little knowledge is much more important than the browser you use.

I suppose this advice makes sense for people who have little knowledge and go clicking on every link they see but in my experience AV software has always been more trouble than it was worth. It has conflicts, it reports false positives and, worst of all, it uses so many resources it slows computers down to a crawl. I prefer to run a web-based AV once in a while and they ocassionally detect stuff. It has been a false positive every single time. The thing is that people like my boss really believe the AV is “killing viruses” every time it reports something so they have the incentive to keep it running even if the machine is slow as molasses.

I just run IE with scripts disabled for general surfing and only enable them for trusted sites. I have never had a problem.

And, believe me, the odds should be against me because more than once I have clicked on some porn link or enabled some script knowing full well I shouldn’t do it.

My answer to that is to make a copy of the partition once in a while so I can just restore the partition if I need to. Much better than running AV software IMHO.

12

Huh. Well, I guess I’ll be running spybot again as soon as I get home, then see how strange and foreign it is to use Firefox or Chrome.

I think this might have happened because I allowed AVG to lapse. I tried installing the new version, but it told me it wouldn’t work until I removed the version of Roxio I have on my computer. And the Roxio site won’t allow me to update to the newer version. So I was waiting until I could get another CD writer installed.

I can wait to burn any more CDs, I suppose.

13

I solved the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling internet explorer 6.0, I have Windows XP home edition.

HOW TO UNINSTALL & REINSTALL INTERNET EXPLORER

Go to start >> Run >> control panel >> Add or remove programs (in classic view)

There are four tabs on the side of Add or remove programs:

  1. Change or remove programs
  2. Add new programs
  3. Add/remove window components
  4. Set program access to default

Click “Add/remove window components”

A new window opens up, called Windows Component Wizard.

Uncheck the internet explorer box.

Click Next.

internet explorer will now be uninstall.

Then go through the same steps, and reinstall internet explorer by rechecking the box.

Your bookmarks are NOT lost.

ACCESSING GMAIL

Start gmail, the same “To help protect your security, Internet Explorer blocked this site from downloadinf files to your computer. Click here for options…”
Other solutions suggested here which DO NOT work :confused:

Clearing cache

Does not work, Result was same as other user:
“But when I did it, there was no apparent effect, beyond it letting me get to the login page of gmail. I logged in, and got back to where I had been at the beginning.”

Accessing http://74.125.19.83/

http://74.125.19.83/ works, you go to the Google search page, but does not help the problem

The file is a virus

FALSE. The “mail” file that internet explorer asked me to download was harmless. I checked it with virus program. It maybe malicious, but it is not a virus.

Installing Firefox

Gmail works on Firefox fine, but does not solve the internet explorer problem.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THIS

I accidentally removed the two Microsoft certificates, listed as untrusted to prevent spoofing, listed here:

http://www.pcdoctor-guide.com/wordpress/?p=4093