So what happened ?

FireFox (latest)

Surfing then stopped.

Went to Google news ans scrolled through the articles.

Then I click on one of the links and was told that I had no Internet.

So I closed FireFox and opened Chrome (last one that runs on Win XP)

I went to Google News and scrolled down OK.
Click on a link and got a message that I had no Internet.
What ? I got to Google News just fine !

The error message in Chrome (nothing like this in FireFox) said to "Go
to the Chrome menu Settings Show advanced settings... Change proxy
settings... LAN Settings and deselect "Use a proxy server for your LAN".

So I did and unchecked the Use a proxy server ...

Now it seems that even FireFox works.

What happened ?
Why did a change in Chrome make FireFox also wor ?

AIOEUSER wrote:
FireFox (latest)

Surfing then stopped.

Went to Google news ans scrolled through the articles.

Then I click on one of the links and was told that I had no Internet.

So I closed FireFox and opened Chrome (last one that runs on Win XP)

I went to Google News and scrolled down OK.
Click on a link and got a message that I had no Internet.
What ? I got to Google News just fine !

The error message in Chrome (nothing like this in FireFox) said to "Go
to the Chrome menu Settings Show advanced settings... Change proxy
settings... LAN Settings and deselect "Use a proxy server for your LAN".

So I did and unchecked the Use a proxy server ...

Now it seems that even FireFox works.

What happened ?
Why did a change in Chrome make FireFox also wor ?

I think the setting actually belongs to Internet Explorer.

The browsers piggy-back off some of those settings.

The thinking was, if all the browsers each had their own
2000 settings, the users would go nuts. By relying on the
Internet Explorer settings, to set the policies for the machine,
it meant the other browsers only had to have "unique" settings
stored in their prefs.js.

Using some of the terms above, here is a sample article.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/5245/...rers-settings/

Just a guess,
Paul

AIOEUSER wrote:

FireFox (latest)

Surfing then stopped.

Went to Google news ans scrolled through the articles.

Then I click on one of the links and was told that I had no Internet.

So I closed FireFox and opened Chrome (last one that runs on Win XP)

I went to Google News and scrolled down OK.
Click on a link and got a message that I had no Internet.
What ? I got to Google News just fine !

The error message in Chrome (nothing like this in FireFox) said to "Go
to the Chrome menu Settings Show advanced settings... Change proxy
settings... LAN Settings and deselect "Use a proxy server for your LAN".

So I did and unchecked the Use a proxy server ...

Now it seems that even FireFox works.

What happened ?
Why did a change in Chrome make FireFox also wor ?

You never bothered to mention your OS. Firefox is available for
several. I'm assuming you are using Windows in my reply.

You installed software that added a local proxy to interrogate your web
traffic. Control Panel - Internet Options - Connections - LAN
Settings are applied to ALL web-centric processes. I'm pretty sure that
nav path in Google Chrome took you to the same Connections dialog or
they display their overlay dialog but settings are the same as for the
above Connections dialog (i.e., whichever you use affect the same
registry entries).

Something you did, some tweaker you used, or some software you installed
changed to using a local proxy. That local proxy was dead or decided to
refuse you a connection. For example, maybe you installed some
adblocker that injects its own proxy to interrogate your web traffic to
block some content from the Web. Some anti-virus programs use a proxy.
Most good ones use a transparent proxy (in parallel) so they don't need
to touch the OS proxy settings. Some, however, want to be inline
because they are not transparent. If that proxy becomes unresponsive or
blocks content (as designed or configured) then you cannot get to that
Internet target or perhaps not to any Internet target. Some web inspect
tools (developer stuff) might want to add their proxy so they can
monitor your web traffic. They might do it on-the-fly (when you load
the tool) but neglect to restore the original settings on exit or cannot
restore because they crashed. I have a video stream capture program
that used to use a proxy to inspect web traffic. When it loaded, it
changed the OS proxy settings to its proxy got used. When it unloaded,
it was supposed to blank out those settings (it never did a restore of
prior settings) but that wouldn't happen if the capture tool crashed.

If you are not in a domain, also make sure "Automatically detect
settings" is disabled. You aren't connecting to a PDC (primary domain
controller) host to access your network which would be serving a file
for auto config of workstations. Make sure "Use automatic configuration
script" is also disabled since, again, you aren't in a domain to be
using a config file in a domain. You probably already disabled the "Use
a proxy server" option. Even after disabling it, the address field
might still have an [IP] address and port number (greyed out) which then
SysInternals' TCP View can show what process (listener) is monitoring
that port.

Use msconfig.exe to see what startup programs are loading on Windows
load. SysInternals' AutoRuns is more thorough as to startup locations,
like WinLogon events but often msconfig is sufficient. Review Task
Manager's Processes tab to see what you have running on your computer.
For those unknown to you, Task Manager in WinXP doesn't give any info so
use SysInternals' Process Explorer to get more info on each process.

Thanks, I needed that .... I think.
It's all beyond my ability to comprehend.
Age 75.
But does give me some clues to consider.
Thanks !
This will be one of the very few posts I will print out for re-reading.