Please help....freuently used website got blocked

what are some of them? could be that they all went down

Thanks jdelidc

few blocked sites are www.indianrail.gov.in, www.bankofbaroda.com. I thought same first time, but all these sites are up and working fine. I verified it by going to cybercafe (on different m/c).

It does not seem to be a filter problem at ISP end either.

 

try turning off any firewalls and see if it works. if it does work, we'll have to fix the firewall, if it don't work, we'll have to fix something else

Unless you are behind a hardware firewall (such as is found in a router), "turning off any [software] firewalls" and connecting to the internet is a very bad idea!

At the very least, if you disable your McAfee firewall, make sure Windows firewall is enabled before re-connecting to the net:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/security/winfirewall.mspx#verify

 

 

let's check your HOSTS file.

 

download HOSTSXPERT from http://www.funkytoad.com/content/view/13/31/

RIGHT-click on the (zipped-)folder, and "unzip" it by clicking on Extract All, then Next, another Next,

make sure the box that says "Show Extracted Files" is checked, and click Finish,

click on the HostsXpert folder, then click on the HostsXpert program (the icon has a red h in a circle).

 

[you may get a "security warning" about an unknown publisher... it's okay to proceed and run it]

 

the default file, as supplied by Microsoft, should contain the following text:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

 

does yours show anything else??  

in particular, do you see any additional lines, that start with 127.0.0.1 , and then list the name of the website that's being blocked?  for example, does it contain:

127.0.0.1  http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

if so, there's the block.

Thanks Ky331

 

Host file is also clean and has only one entry of locahost as shown in default file.

 

I even tried opening website by turning windows xp firewall off but could not connect to those sites.

 

Is it worth looking at option of installing new browser or uninstalling and installing IE7? to isolate browser issue if any

 

 

one other thought (though less likely):   check to see if the site has been placed into the restricted zone:

 

in IE, tools, internet options, secuity tab, restricted sites, sites ;

 

installing an alternative browser (such as opera or firefox) couldn't hurt.    in fact, I like to keep one around just in case IE "freaks out" (as was the case for many people a few months ago when microsoft delivered a "bad" update).

 

i would not uninstall IE.

 

i'll try to get back with another idea shortly....

LPTuser, are you using a phishing filter?

Thanks to everyone for the help

Problem got resolved. I do not have any logical explanation, but I uninstalled IE 7, ran registry clean up and then installed it again and it worked.

Glad to hear that you solved the problem.

" registry clean up"?? What process did you use for doing this?