I received another customer question on a third party website, where I earn supplemental income. Here is this customers question:
Won’t go to most websites, tried on three different networks, my other computer is fine on same network. Have tried Firefox, Chrome, and Edge all act the same. For instance Google and Yahoo (and others) work fine, Amazon Microsoft and most others don’t.
This customer claimed they might have updated their Mozilla Firefox web browser recently. However, if you notice in their question, they stipulated they were having problems browsing the same websites in three different web browsers. Also, possibly significant is that this customer said this problem started occurring right after installing some Amazon cloud software.
This individual removed this software, but that did NOT fix their problem. Here is my response to this predicament. You could try flushing your DNS cache.
You will need to open command prompt with administrator rights. Type this command:
ipconfig/flushdns
Also, you could reboot your computer instead. Now try to browse those websites, that were not available before. If this does not fix your problem, you can perform a system restore.
You will want to choose a restore point back to before you were having this problem. This individual was using a computer with Microsoft Windows 10 operating system. They tried using powershell, however you want to become aware that power shell is different from command prompt and commands are not the same.
You can right click the Windows icon in lower left corner. Choose “Command Prompt (Admin)”. If that is not available you can click on the Cortana search icon and type in “cmd” without quotes.
Right click “Command Prompt” and choose “Run as administrator” from a pop up menu. They were able to access command prompt and issue the ipconfig/flushdns command. Flushing the DNS cache immediately fixed their problem where they could NOT browse most websites in three different web browsers.
As an added bonus tip, I will give you instructions on how to perform a Microsoft Windows system restore. Keep in mind that ipconfig/flushdns does NOT always fix this type of problem. However, it is worth executing this command because it is quick and easy.
Another point of contention is that Microsoft based operating systems are supposed to flush the local DNS cache at shutdown or reboot. However, this is not always the case as proven in this blog post. Now to your bonus tip instructions.
These instructions are written for Windows 10 operating system. However, you could use them as basis points to run a system restore in Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1. The exact steps needed to perform a system restore on operating systems besides Windows 10 will NOT be the exact same.
Click on the “Cortana” search icon. Type in “System Restore” in a search box. Choose “Create a restore point”.
You should have been taken to a window with “System Protection” tab selected. In this tab click on “System Restore…”. Click “Next” on “Restore system files and settings”.
Choose a restore point by clicking on one, then click “Next”. Try to choose a restore point back to before you were having this problem. Click on “Finish” to confirm your restore point.
Windows 10 system restore will need to restart your computer and can take awhile to run. Eventually Windows 10 will boot normal. Hopefully, this will fix your problem.