I have an odd technical glitch on my laptop that I cannot explain. Using Win 98 SE, my machine cannot access google.com. It has been going on for more than six months.
I have up-to-date anti-virus software and anti-spyware. I have the problem whether or not I have a firewall, and I have it with different NICs and different internet connections. The system just locks up going to www.google.com or accessing any materials on Google (except, oddly enough, news.google.com). Using ctrl-alt-delete, if I quit all background running processes except those needed to get online, the problem is still there.
Has anyone seen anything like this? It's driving me nuts.
* Update * Kathy Kinsley is brilliant. But then you all knew that already. In particular, however she pointed me to the problem. It is a particularly clever thing: a virus that changes your HOSTS file. Even if the virus is cleaned off your system, the HOSTS file is still changed. Indeed, my system doesn't even have the virus, it was obviously caught and killed long ago by Antivir. But not before it did its damage to the HOSTS file.All I had to do is open the HOSTS file on my hard drive, clean it out, and restart my browser. All is good now. Here's a writeup on how to fix the Google Qhosts bug if you have the same problem I did.
Kathy rulz.
Try going to http://www.google.com/ncr instead.
Where does that go to?
the ncr means "no country redirect" (as far as I can tell). This may be news to you Americans, but Google automatically detects what country you are in, and automatically redirects you to that national Google site. (I get automatically directed to google.ca, for instance.) I found that /ncr link through the "Go to google.com" in the bottom menu of the google.ca page. As far as I can tell, the /ncr turns off the country redirect. I'm almost certain that's what is freezing your computer. It might still do the country detection and everything, so it might still lock up, but it's worth a try.
Welp, that seems neat, but it doesn't work either.
This machine just simply says it can't find that page any time I try to access Google.
It's been going on for at least six months. I'm mystified.
Dean, do you have the latest version of Flash on the beast? If so you could try Kartoo out.
Gives you graphical maps of sites and how they're interrelated (or not). And a directory of supplemental search terms if you'd like to narrow your hunt.
It's a mega search site, using a number of search engines, and (in my egotistical opinion) gives better results than old fashioned sites such as Google.
Well, Kartook looks very coo, and I may begin using it. But I'd still really like to figure out why I can't even GET TO Google. That's the real frustration.
Try using Firefox 0.8
You'll be glad you did.
You might also try adding google to your lmhost file
Just go to start>find> type in "lmhost" (no quotes). Then open it with notepad and read all about it. You can edit that file so that regular visited websites can be accessed faster without having to do a dns lookup.
Basically instead of asking a dns what www.yahoo.com ip address is when you type it in your browser it will check the lmhost file first and see the ip address for yahoo provided you have manually entered it in.
Lmhost
File used by Microsoft Wins Clients such as Microsoft Windows 98 or Windows NT to provide mappings of IP addresses to NT computer names (NetBIOS) names. The file generally located in the Windows or Winnt directory should be lmhost.sam and contain information similar to the following:
127.0.0.1 localhost #example of the local host
123.0.123.7 example #example of a fake ip and name.
In the above two examples you can see that we specify the IP address the the name to be used in conjunction of that IP address the # is the remark for that name for later reference. In the above example the localhost or example would be the NetBIOS name therefore when typing localhost or example in Internet Explorer or elsewhere the computer would attempt to resolve that name by accessing the IP address. This is also commonly used when unable to access or having difficulties with the DNS server.
EXAMPLE lmhost entry:
IP DOMAIN COMMENT
216.239.37.99 google.com #this is one of google's IP addresses
Try clearing out your DNS cache, however you do that on Windows. Also, axe your IE history file, it may have become corrupted.
I already use Firefox as my primary browser. The problem appears there as well as in IE.
http://www.bitesizeinc.net/index.php/google.html
There's a trojan that does what you are describing.
That was it.
Damn. I can't believe I didn't even think to look in the HOSTS file, especially after checking LMHOSTS.
I am an idiot. You are a genius. But then, we all knew that. :-)
Now all that's left is to get that other virus off your system.
You know.
The one called Windows 98 SE.
I'm just saying.
Your HOSTS files? You mean /etc/hosts?
Oh, no, that's right... you're using Window$. ;)
Ara:
I see that great minds think alike.
I have no real reason to drop Win98. It's stable and reliable, I know it like the back of my hand--hell I'm even certified on it.
I woudln't mind moving to XP but I refuse to pay for that overpriced crap.
Dean:
Win98 isn't the real problem. It took the thunderhead of Longhorn looming on the far horizon to get my ass in gear and get me to change over to Linux.
There is a learning curve to Linux (and I thought at one time you were thinking of changing to Linux?) but six months down the road, I'm glad I made the switch. Among many other benefits, I no longer need worry about viruses doing odd things to my system.
Plus, overpriced is one thing Linux ain't.
I woudln't mind moving to XP but I refuse to pay for that overpriced crap.
Why did you skip over Win 2K? It's way more stable than Win 98.
IM me if you "want more information." Heh.
I ran into this last weekend when I helped my pastor clean off his PC. It was redirecting not only search requests but also other apparently random pages. I installed SpyBot and Adaware and set the HOSTS and LMHOSTS files to read only for good measure.
I have a pirated copy of Win 2k pro and it works great. ;)