Computer/internet question. Geek advice appreciated.

[FinePhilly]

I know, this wins me the "most boring thread of the night" award, but I'm baffled.

I cannot successfully browse Ebay on my computer.

I can open any other web page with no problem and occasionally Ebay will open for me, but I can never get past the home page without it freezing up the browser window.

I always have to select "END TASK" from the Control/Alt/Delete key to get it to close the browser page.

This only happens with Ebay. It's only been happening since this morning as far as I know.

I have run a virus scan, spyware scan and even defragmented my hard drive before I realized that the only problem was with Ebay.

I am running Windows XP, I'm using Internet Explorer and I've got Zone Alarms as my firewall, but I haven't modified any settings in the last day or so that would have messed anything up, I don't think.

Any ideas why this is happening?

Thanks!

 

[beetlebum]

I'm using Internet Explorer

i suggest you convert over to firefox!

^__^

that'll solve your troubles, i'm sure.

 

[MCunnilinguist]

Sorry I can't help but I'd be interested too. I have no problem with eBay (I still have WinMe) and a friend with Windows XP has nothing but problems, so it might be some XP related bug or incompatability problem. Methinks eBay's systems are not up to snuff.

I also have IE as a browser and ZA as a firewall.

 

[FinePhilly]

i suggest you convert over to firefox!

^__^

that'll solve your troubles, i'm sure.

I thought about that, but I dislike change! LOL!

 

[MCunnilinguist]

I thought about that, but I dislike change! LOL!

Maybe you'll have to regress to WinMe then.

 

[FinePhilly]

Maybe you'll have to regress to WinMe then.

Who is WinMe?

Did I mention I'm only slightly functionally literate when it comes to computers?

 

[JammieDodger]

I thought about that, but I dislike change! LOL!

You can import your bookmarks/favourites from IE and the whole experience should be seamless.. of course, if you take advantage of the tabs feature, RSS feeds and all the extensions you may have the problem of never wanting to go back.

As for the ebay problem, I just checked in IE and it doesn't crash it, I checked in firefox and it doesn't either.. how up to date is XP? Downloaded all the latest patches for it? Thats the only software difference I can think of between my system and yours apart from the firewall (I run norton). Think about it the problem may be zonealarm considering mc's experiences. But still, an update may fix it..

 

[FinePhilly]

You can import your bookmarks/favourites from IE and the whole experience should be seamless.. of course, if you take advantage of the tabs feature, RSS feeds and all the extensions you may have the problem of never wanting to go back.

As for the ebay problem, I just checked in IE and it doesn't crash it, I checked in firefox and it doesn't either.. how up to date is XP? Downloaded all the latest patches for it? Thats the only software difference I can think of between my system and yours apart from the firewall (I run norton). Think about it the problem may be zonealarm considering mc's experiences. But still, an update may fix it..

Thanks. I'll try running any available updates and restarting and see if that does it.

 

[ma_guy]

Several hundred thousand people a day log into E-Bay with WinXP machines and IE. There isn't any inherent issue with using them to browse E-Bay (other than the fact the XP and IE are both from Microshit but I'll save that rant for another day! ).

I'd suggest clearing your browser cache and try again. It sounds like something is getting hung up when the page is trying to load.

 

[FinePhilly]

Thanks everyone! I updated Windows and restarted my computer and that seems to have fixed the problem.

I do clean my browser cache often, but thanks for that suggestion!

 

[KarlMartinK]

Who is WinMe?

Did I mention I'm only slightly functionally literate when it comes to computers?

"WinMe" was the Windows Millenium Edition. I wouldn't revert to it if you paid me. It was a sub-standard operating system to begin with. If you were going to revert to something, I'd say revert to Windows 2000, but don't revert to anything.

What exactly are the symptoms when you go to eBay.com?

A few more things to try:
Windows Updates (sounds like you're doing that already).
Look at Add/Remove programs for any programs you didn't add, like Cashbackbuddy, Search Assistant, Xupiter, or anything named Internet Enhancer or Browser Helper or anything like that.

It could just be some ActiveX setting or Java script setting on your computer. Do you have the latest ActiveX installed? Java enabled?

 

[The Heretic]

"WinMe" was the Windows Millenium Edition. I wouldn't revert to it if you paid me. It was a sub-standard operating system to begin with. If you were going to revert to something, I'd say revert to Windows 2000, but don't revert to anything.

What exactly are the symptoms when you go to eBay.com?

A few more things to try:
Windows Updates (sounds like you're doing that already).
Look at Add/Remove programs for any programs you didn't add, like Cashbackbuddy, Search Assistant, Xupiter, or anything named Internet Enhancer or Browser Helper or anything like that.

It could just be some ActiveX setting or Java script setting on your computer. Do you have the latest ActiveX installed? Java enabled?

I agree that a person should not go backwards.

However, a point; eBay does not use Java on the client side - very few websites do. Many use Java Script, but JS and Java are two completely different things.

The main thing is probably to clear the browser cache and history. I have similar problem with Firefox and Comcast - for some reason something gets stuck and the browser just won't access Comcast.net anymore. So I either have to switch browsers or clear the cache.

 

[KarlMartinK]

I agree that a person should not go backwards.

However, a point; eBay does not use Java on the client side - very few websites do. Many use Java Script, but JS and Java are two completely different things.

The main thing is probably to clear the browser cache and history. I have similar problem with Firefox and Comcast - for some reason something gets stuck and the browser just won't access Comcast.net anymore. So I either have to switch browsers or clear the cache.

So, if it's running java script and your options are set to not allow java scripting, you're going to have problems on the site:

In Internet Explorer,
Tools,
Internet Options,
Security tab,
Settings on "Active Scripting"

 

[FinePhilly]

K,

This thread was a month old, but thanks anyway!

I got it resolved by switching to Firefox.

 

[The Heretic]

So, if it's running java script and your options are set to not allow java scripting, you're going to have problems on the site:

Maybe - some sites do depend upon some kind of scripting support in the client browser. The good ones know how to degrade gracefully and still let the user navigate and use the site - the poorly designed ones do not. From what I have heard, most good and large retail sites, such as eBay, Amazon and others, are well designed.