What do you get when you try to load http://www.google.com/ - blank page? 404 error?

Can you describe what you've tried so far?

When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

1. Clear Firefox's Cache

orange Firefox button or Tools menu > Options > Advanced

On the Network mini-tab > Cached Web Content : "Clear Now"

2. Remove your google.com cookies

You can right-click this page and choose View Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"

In the box at the top of the dialog, change mozilla.org to google.com and remove the cookies

Then try reloading Google. Any progress?

Obviously I have tried those steps before I posted.

Unable to connect

         Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.google.com.
       

 The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
   moments.
 If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
   connection.
 If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
   that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

The Reset Firefox feature can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your essential information. Note: This will cause you to lose any Extensions, Open websites, and some Preferences.

To Reset Firefox do the following:

1. Go to Firefox > Help > Troubleshooting Information.
2. Click the "Reset Firefox" button.
3. Firefox will close and reset. After Firefox is done, it will show a window with the information that is imported. Click Finish.
4. Firefox will open with all factory defaults applied.

Further information can be found in the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article.

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

didnt do anything. still same thing.

Unable to connect

         Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.google.com.
       

 The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
   moments.
 If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
   connection.
 If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
   that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

Do any other Google host names work?

http://maps.google.com/

http://mail.google.com/

https://accounts.google.com/

Yep those load.

But if I try to goto Gmail from my College account, the same way I have done it for 4 years, I get that same error. I have to physically type mail.google.com for gmail to load.

Could it be a problem with Firefox's DNS cache? You can disable it by creating one or two new preferences in about:config. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Preferences/Mozilla_networking_preferences#DNS

Its not worth all this crap, im just uninstalling firefox and moving on to a browser that actually WORKS.

Pathetic.

Generally speaking, Firefox 15 works with Google. I just spent an hour Googling up ideas for you. Sorry that we couldn't figure out what's wrong on your system.

I have firefox 15 and google does not work. but thanks.

Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
• http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
• http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

• http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684

See also:

• "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Error_loading_websites

For the record, I am having the exact same problem. I have a Mac with Firefox 15 and OSX 10.6.8.

My firefox works with all websites except www.google.com and www.gmail.com with exactly the same error. As a software developer, it def feels like a bug in firefox.

You can check the network.http.* prefs on the about:config page and reset all bold user set network.http prefs to the default value via the right-click context menu -> Reset.

You can also try to disable SPDY by setting the network.http.spdy.enabled pref to false on the about:config page.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config