Netscape 7.0

[xyorkie]

System P3 512MB ram running Windows XP.
In the last week or so when accessing websites at least 50% of the time I get an Alert message "The connection was refused when attempting to contact

http://www........."

clicking OK sometimes connects to the site. Other times I have to click the link again. Anyone any ideas??.

 

[joegz]

Is the browser set for direct internet connection or do you have it configured to go through a proxy server? joegz
"Sometimes you just need to find out what it's not first to figure out what it is."

 

[xyorkie]

joegz
Connect to my ISP via modem.

 

[nmbeck3]

The same problem has plagued me lately. I originally thought that it was simply a Netscape 7 problem, except that I was using a non-standard Hosts file. My hosts file was designed to minimize popup ads, by redirecting known offenders sites to 127.0.0.1 (local host) - effectively blocking popup ads.

Do you have a "working" Hosts file? Most Windows computers have a simple placeholder file that really does nothing - every line begins with a hash mark, with the exception of this line:

127.0.0.1 local host

Check your Hosts file - it might contain an entry like this:
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net

If it does, then simply precede the line with a # (hash mark), to comment out the line. Try to access the same site, and you should see that the error does not appear - though the advertisement or popup will.

Test this theory by substituting the URL mentioned in the error you see. And please let us know!

It seems to me that two things might have happened:

1) Doubleclick ads have become more intelligent, to the extent that they can detect an incorrect IP address for their message, and respond with an error message.

2) Netscape 7 (maybe even version 6) has become hypersensitive to certain html error messages - in particular "connection refused" messages.

If Netscape is indeed causing these messages we can probably complain them into submission.

But if the advertisers have found a way to "nag" us to death by some clever response algorithm we may have a real problem.

Please try my suggestion and let us know what happened.

Nate