My Firefox hates me!

[Wyl Staedtler]

Okay. I downloaded Firefox onto my desktop computer. I got rid of IE. Now Firefox will not work. It says that it "cannot find Yahoo. Please try again at another time."

I'm not computer-friendly. Any suggestions?

[Darth McBain]

Are you sure it is a problem with Firefox and not your internet connection? It could just be that it's looking for yahoo.com and can't find it - that could be for a bunch of reasons, including a service or connection problem with your ISP. It could be something with Firefox, too, though - you probably shouldn't have trashed IE until you knew FF would work, that would have at least told you if your connection was bad or if it is a problem with FF.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Is Yahoo the only site it can't find? You can find your way here, obviously. :)

[Morgan Evanar]

Try google.com ?

If that doesn't work you have serious DNS problems. DNS is the thing that turns names (yahoo.com or google.com) to the numbers that your computer uses to talk to the web site.

Try http://216.109.112.135

[Figrin D'an]

Try this:

Start --> Run

Type "ipconfig /flushdns" (without the quotes), click OK.

Then try loading the site again.

[Wyl Staedtler]

I'm on my Vaio here, I only use my desktop for work. Firefox was working when I had IE, but after I trashed IE it stopped. It's not just yahoo either:( I'll try typing in the numbers, and I"ll try your suggestion Figrin.

My computer's pretty old, and it was dying before, so maybe this is just it's death rattle. :\

EDIT: I can't open anything on the desktop anymore. It either freezes or opens then says there's an error and the computer needs to shutdown. Argh! I really hate not understanding computers! It's ticking me off, by golly.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

You didn't delete IE completely, did you? As far as I know, IE is integrated into Windows itself, so dumping it in its' entirety wouldn't be a good thing. Of course, I could very well be wrong on that count.

[Morgan Evanar]

No, you're absolutely correct. IE is deeply imbedded into windows and you destroy important functionality if you really go after it.

How did you "Delete" IE? What version of windows are you on?

[Wyl Staedtler]

I'm on XP. I just deleted the little IE icon, and then my roommate said that wouldn't get rid of it and went into 'My Computer' and deleted some things... is that maybe what did it?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Find out what it was that he deleted. He might have gotten rid of a .dll file or two.

[Wyl Staedtler]

.dll? I need things dumbed down. Like this ---->
DNS is the thing that turns names (yahoo.com or google.com) to the numbers that your computer uses to talk to the web site.

I guess I don't really need to know, but it's probably about time I started to understand computers (or try to).

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

This place describes it better than I could:

http://www.easydesksoftware.com/dll.htm


A dynamic link library (DLL) is a collection of small programs, which can be called upon when needed by the executable program (exe) that is running. The DLL lets the executable communicate with a specific device such as a printer or may contain source code to do particular functions.

An example would be if the program (exe) needs to get the free space of your hard drive it can call the DLL file that contains the function with parameters and a call function. The DLL will then tell the executable the free space. This allows the executable to be small in size and not need to rewrite the function that has already written. This allows any program needing to obtain the free space the information without having to write all the source code and it saves space on your hard drive as well. DLLs in this fashion are also known as shared files.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Thanks. :)

... so basically the DLL is an awesome buddy who makes life easier for the executable program right? (took me four times reading to work that out, :rolleyes)

[Morgan Evanar]

Yes, the DLL contains bits of information that helps a program work.

Don't let your roomate touch your computer again. :p

[Wyl Staedtler]

I think I'm going to take a course or something (once I get money, that is), because she thinks she pretty much a genius and she always wrecks my work computer.

But hey, now I can add DLL and DNS to my list of understood terms (now I'm up to 4!! :o)

[Morgan Evanar]

If you have any questions about anything computer related or really anything at all (my mind is filled with semi-useful trivia), feel free to contact me with the info in my profile.

[Marceloi]

Originally posted by Wyl Staedtler
I'm on XP. I just deleted the little IE icon, and then my roommate said that wouldn't get rid of it and went into 'My Computer' and deleted some things... is that maybe what did it?


Here's a frying pan. Smash your roommate a good one for being daft.