I have a brand new laptop running vista (I've had it four days). I finally have the software I need loaded on the machine (mostly MS office) I have installed firefox, since it is my preferred browser. Now there are certain websites I cannot access at all -- not with firefox and not with ie. They will hang for a very long time before we finally get the white "cannot display the webpage" screen.

I don't know whether the site I can't view worked in internet explorer prior to installing firefox or not -- I probably installed it before ever trying to access the site. But I cannot get to http://alaskaair.com whether I'm using ie or firefox. I can access it fine on my desktop, connected to the same network. But not the new lap top. The alaska site is one I use very often, so I need to find a solution.

I don't know what to do.

This post has been edited by KHC: Feb 17 2007, 02:18 PM

Hi KHC,

Thank you for posting a new topic. Can you get online at ALL with any sites? Have you recently changed anything or downloaded any programs?

Hi -- Yes, I can get online with every other site I have tried so far. Just not this one. (There may be other sites I haven't encountered yet. ) There are four computers on our home network (all running xp) and all of them can access it fine. Just not my new laptop.

The only thing I have downloaded is Firefox, which I have now uninstalled to see if that helped. But it didn't. Still cannot get to this site from either firefox or ie.

Thanks for your help.

This post has been edited by KHC: Feb 17 2007, 06:16 PM

Hey KHC,

Alright lets try something.

Click Start at the bottom of Windows. Goto control panel. Click internet options. Click Security tab.

You should see A globe, local internet, green check mark and a red check mark.

I need you to click on local internet. Tell me what is checked.
Next click on the red check mark. Do you see any sites listed? If so are they some of the ones you can not reach?

Do you currently have an anti-virus or firewall protection? If so, what brand (Norton, AVG, McAfee)

"Enable protected mode" has a check in the box. There were no sites listed in the restricted sites area. I do have McAfee, but their firewall is disabled and the windows firewall is enabled.

For kicks & giggles, I tried a trace route and got the following:

Number of hops: 16
Last hop responding to ICMP: 14, UDP: 14, TCP: 16.
There appears to be a firewall at 159.49.254.2 (hop 15) that blocks ICMP (ping) packets.
There appears to be a firewall at 159.49.254.2 (hop 15) that blocks unwanted UDP packets.

However, I don't know what that means. It says 159.49.254.2 is cerberus.alaskaair.com.

Could this be my problem?

It is possible. I find it odd that a site would block your request unless it dislikes you ISP. Which has happen to me before.

I am still not convinced. Is there any other sites that are getting blocked?

So far I haven't found one. I've been through a variety of them in my bookmarks/favorites and everything else has come up fine... I've had the other computers on my home network try to ping alaskaair.com, and they also could NOT ping the site. And yet, they can browse the site. Only my Vista computer can't browse. I just don't understand.

I sure appreciate your efforts to help me.

Is it possible that McAfee might have restricted the site...by blocking it. Can you check McAfee for restrictions?

Oh. One more thing I would like you to try. Please turn off Both McAfee firewall and Windows firewall. Disable both and run the ping trace route again. Post your results.

I think I've found it. I have uninstalled both the McAfee firewall, and their "privacy" manager, and now I can access alaskaair.com.

I hope this is a permanent resolution. I'm going to run it for a day or two and see. I have the same McAfee programs installed on my desktop (running XP) that I just uninstalled on this laptop, and they had no conflict with alaskaair.com site. So is this a vista/mcafee incompatibility?

Thanks so much for your help.

It is very possible the program could view the site as a "bad" place for some odd reason. It could be a number of things without really looking over the McAfee settings I would be unable to tell you WHAT really caused it. I can tell you that if you had to turn off your FIREWALL and ANTIVIRUS you are unprotected so please turn back on your firewall even if its WINDOWS. Something is better than nothing.

Also if you need an anti-virus please consider using AVG. It is free and it should not restrict sites like McAfee will. The link is in my signature at the bottom.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!