# Why does my computer display red Xs instead of pictures? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 25, 2003, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563 "2003-10-25T22:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2003, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563/1 "2003-10-25T22:13:54Z")
On certain web sites (like [this](http://io.acad.athabascau.ca/html/students200/webpage/Project_2.htm) one), I see red Xs instead of pictures. Is there a program I need to download? ---
**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563/2 "2003-10-25T23:30:00Z")
It usually just means that the images no longer exist on the server, or the images were moved to a different directory and the page was never updated. It’s also possible that the page designer is stealing bandwidth and pulling the picture from another site. The webmaster of the other site gets wise to this and changes the file name. Apparently in this case the page has been neglected or long forgotten, but no one bothered to delete the html file, just the pictures. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2003, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563/3 "2003-10-26T00:22:34Z")
For that page, looks more like they forgot to FTP the picture to the website. ---
**Author:** ![JohanDane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@JohanDane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohanDane)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563/4 "2003-10-26T03:16:04Z")
The explanation is most likely that you have installed Kazaa Lite on your computer. Kazaa Lite comes with a feature that blocks a huge list of web sites that are well known for serving ads and pop-ups. The problem is that some of these web sites (such as Akamai) are also used to serve benign and useful images for faster loading. So those get blocked too–It’s an all or nothing way of dealing with pop-ups! So there is definitely a trade-off involved. Check your hosts file to see the list of blocked sites and remove the ones that are giving you problems. This file is typically located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc directory. Make sure you know what you’re doing before you modify it. ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563/5 "2003-10-26T03:18:14Z")
Darn hampsters ate my post. I see red X’s a lot because I use an ad blocking hosts file (from [http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html](http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html) ) which is excellent, but I’m not sure why it affects images from non-ad hosts sometimes. But it’s still worthwhile, I rarely see an ad. He does tell how to uninstall on his site, you can check to see if you’ve got a hosts file on your computer to see if this is your problem. ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2003, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-my-computer-display-red-xs-instead-of-pictures/209563/6 "2003-10-26T03:19:21Z")
Wow double post both regarding host files **JohanDane**!