Well all of a sudden all my browsers(IE, chrome, firefox) in my laptop have been unable to open a certain website. However the same website can be opened through my mobile phone and the desktop pc, using the same wifi connection. Also it does not say anything like website cant be opened but instead just shows a blank screen and stops loading within a second of me pressing enter.I have no idea whats wrong so help me out here please.

Using windows 7 and avast says no virus. Also for some reason the homepage of all the browsers became http://www.quick-quote-insurance.com, which directs to http://www.goong.info/. Additionally whenever i restart my computer google chrome returns to its default settings(original theme and stuff) howeever the bookmarks remain

Clear your cache and cookies on Chrome and Firefox and try again. You might also want to try pinging the site from your laptop to see if you are able to access it - it could be that your firewall or other software is blocking it. Open a cmd.exe window and run the command: ping host.domain

Example: if the site is http://www.xyzzy.com/something, then execute the command ping [url]www.xyzzy.com[/url]

the ping thing says it connects with website. also when i access website through ip address instead it takes me to it however the site is barely working, no images load nor does any flash work, it is basically text only. read somewhere about the hosts file mine says:


# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

You might want to check on your DNS settings for the laptop then. From what you report as the system's behavior, the DNS server is either not finding the hosts, or is reporting incorrect IP addresses. Go back to the cmd.exe window and try this command:

nslookup www.xyzzy.com

where www.xyzzy.com is the web site address as I illustrated previously.

well it returns the same ip address

Ok. Is this connected to the same network as your desktop?

yes

Ok. On both the desktop and the laptop, open a cmd.exe window and execute the command: ipconfig /all
Then post the output from each here.

finding it hard to paste it, but they look the same

finding it hard to paste it, but they look the same

As they say, the devil's in the details. If you can paste them it would be helpful to diagnose the problem.

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