I have recently experienced a problem whereby I was suddenly unable to access certain websites via Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox on both of my home computers.  These websites were for online banking, an airline travel website and the Dell Forum.  These sites all require a password.  The websites would not even load the first page and I got the standard Windows Explorer and Firefox message stating "unable to open, etc".  There may have been other sites affected, but I only noticed these - all other sites placed in my Favourites Menu loaded normally and quickly.

 

Both my Dell computers have Vista Home Premium, McAfee Security Center 7.2 (2007) v 7.2.147, SpyBot 1.5 and Windows is up to date with the last entry shown as Windows Defender KB15597 1.23.3847.0 dated 09/11/2007. 

 

I clean and defrag regularly.  I am on wireless and use the Lynksys G 2.4 Router.

McAfee is my firewall - the Vista one is turned off.  I use Windows Mail.

 

I have iTunes installed but most everything else on these computers are straight from the box.

After seeing similar Posts on McAfee and Dell, I downloaded and ran McAfee Virtual Technician which found no problems but indeed cured this particular issue with no apparent explanation.  I now have normal browsing and access to all websites.  Go figure.

 

Further digging compelled me to (temporarily) remove SpyBot 1.5 as I thought I saw a Post re:

a conflict with Lynksys?  Maybe re-load SpyBot later?

 

Thought others out there might find this interesting.  Could this be caused just by a recent update by

Microsoft, McAfee, SpyBot or iTunes?

 

Dell Dimension 9200 desktop and Dell M1210 latop