Sites crashing WE on win 7

[madhattershouse]

I have a laptop from the education BECTA service...I want my ds to use facesbook as it was recommended by school doctor to help his keyboard skills (he has dysgraphia and finds writing very difficult). The problem is that every time we try to go to his profile or link to friends it crashes windows explorer and it keeps trying to recover the tab till it gives up. It is running windows 7..does anyone have any idea what I can do to stop this? There are some other sites that do this too, even when in my administrators account! All ideas welcome!!

I think you mean Internet Explorer. Windows Explorer normally shows your local files, but Internet Explorer (normally the icon is a blue 'e' with a yellow ring like one of the 'rings' around a planet) is generally used for browsing the web.

Anyway, there are other browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Opera.

www.getfirefox.com

www.opera.com

www.google.com/chrome

I don't know why you have had a problem, but would suggest you get Firefox or Opera and give each of them a go. There will be some differences between them and Internet Explorer but for most websites all should be fine. Good luck.

Thanks Networkguy, I did mean internet explorer ( posting so late I got it wrong . I have tried Google Chrome and that won't even allow me on mumsnet!!! I think there must be a setting in the system conflicting..it is set up for a child to do homework on..was one of the free laptops for those on benefits. I just wanted him to be able to practise typing as the school doctor advised..but half the internet sites won't work! On google chrome it says that the sites are not allowed or have changed address..can't even acess cbeebies through it!! Fear I need to get someone to look at it..there must be a way!

OK, if it is blocking some websites, how about trying www.http-tunnel.com (I think there's more chance of visiting that site than www.hidemyass.com :) )

You download a small application which then allows you to access websites via the http-tunnel.com web service in the USA. "moderate" use is free - it should allow you/anyone access to any websites.

If you look at the user guide area you can see what it says about how to set up the browsers (in this case I would recommend Firefox as Internet Explorer and Chrome use the Microsoft settings for your internet access [as set in control panel Internet Options, and setting Internet Explorer to work offline affects both browsers, but not Firefox]. Firefox can then be defined to work with HTTP-Tunnel software which you have to start before FF is loaded.

The way it works is that Firefox sends its request to the 'proxy server' which in this case is the HTTP Tunnel software on your PC. That bit of software forwards your request to their website and then on to whichever website you require. I cannot, of course, guarantee it will work, but will see if I can help if it is still blocking you from Facebook.

One word of warning... of course bypassing any website blocks in this way does mean that sites of an "unsuitable" nature might also be possible as well as Facebook. It's therefore down to you to consider whether you want to go down this route. There are ways to block other sites (via the hosts file, but getting quite a bit more technical to do that).

Before downloading anything I'd think to check the proxy server and DNS settings for the machine.

It might be that the machine has been set up to use a badly configured proxy or DNS and that that is knocking things (though even with that said that shouldn't crash IE!).

I can't get my hands on a Windows 7 Machine, can someone give clear instructions on how to check those settings?

Want to put a public thankyou to networkguy for going above and beyond the norm by being so kind and helpful! Problem seems solved...many thanks!!