Hello,

Many site issues can be caused by corrupt cookies or cache. In order to try to fix these problems, the first step is to clear both cookies and the cache. Note: This will temporarily log you out of all sites you're logged in to. To clear cache and cookies do the following:

1. Go to Firefox > History > Clear recent history or (if no Firefox button is shown) go to Tools > Clear recent history.
2. Under "Time range to clear", select "Everything".
3. Now, click the arrow next to Details to toggle the Details list active.
4. From the details list, check Cache and Cookies and uncheck everything else.
5. Now click the Clear now button.

Further information can be found in the Clear your cache, history and other personal information in Firefox article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

Thanks for the response feer56.

I spoke with the security department at my ISP this morning, and he said that the cause of the problem was a malicious redirect, and that I got the error message "can't find the server" because the ISPs already were aware of the problem and blocking the malicious site. Apparently Dallas Blog and other sites had been hacked or something which resulted in the malicious redirect.

However, shouldn't my Firefox browser have prevented the malicious redirection in the first place since the URL for the malicious site was different than the Dallas Blog URL on which I clicked from Google news search results?

Unless you have an anti-virus on your computer and the site being reported as high risk, Firefox will not block access to the website.

Feer56,

I understand that Firefox won't block a malicious site but isn't it supposed to prevent a webpage from automatically redirecting if that browser function has been enabled (as I did)? So in other words, when I clicked on the Google news search result to dallasblog [dot] com shouldn't Firefox have prevented it from automatically redirecting to the malicious site? Apparently it didn't but because the ISPs had already blocked it as a malicious site Firefox couldn't find the server. If I'm confused -- which is a definite possibility -- could you please explain to me what then is the function I enable to prevent a webpage from automatically redirecting? I appreciate your comments. Thanks.

If it was a malicious redirect as you said, your computer might have been affected as well so it really can't be dealt with. A redirect is a redirect. There are ways to stop a redirect if you'd like.

"There are ways to stop a redirect if you'd like."

How so if you don't mind explaining? I already have enabled "warn me when websites try to redirect or reload the page"

Thanks.

Since you already tried that then because redirects and malware is so powerful not much can be done.

Thanks the input; I appreciate it.

I just wanted to update for you Feer56 that today I reset my browser. The reason I did this was because I was reading that sometimes a malicious redirect is not the function of a hacked website but an infected browser. This got me thinking because on another forum a couple of people said that when they clicked on the dallasblog link from Google news they were not redirected, and had no problem getting through to the article. My ISP guy said maybe they were on a different ISP which already had fixed the problem -- maybe -- but I was wondering whether I had an infected browser. A couple of virus scans (including malwarebytes) had negative results, and so I reset my browser just as a precautionary measure.

Also, I printed out the server not found message page at the time I got the redirect on Saturday, and in addition to the message I already provided at the top it says "about:neterror?e=dnsNotFound&u=," and then after identifying the redirect site's address concludes with "&c=UTF-..." Do you know what UTF means? Is it pertinent to anything.

Finally, I don't want to be greedy with your time and knowledge, and this is off-topic for Mozilla but can you recommend some good forums or books where I can learn more about internet security? For example, where can I learn about what people can do with my IP address, will having a proxy server provide me better protection against malware and attacks, what are the best products to use, etc. Any recommendations for other sites or books that cater to the neophyte would be appreciated although I understand if you'd rather not go down that road.

Thanks for all your help.