Why can't I use Firefox with Amazon.com?

April 30, 2006 4:35 PM

Why doesn't Firefox allow me to view Amazon.com without doing several refreshes?

I use the latest version of Mozilla Firefox and have noticed a problem when trying to access Amazon.com. When using Amazon.com the page shows up blank in Firefox until I press the refresh screen key (F5) several times. I use a laptop with wireless through several various sources with High Speed connections and location has no effect on this problem. All other sites besides Amazon.com work fine. Any suggestions?

posted by randomthoughts to technology (6 comments total)

Do you have any extensions installed?
posted by SPrintF at 5:14 PM on April 30, 2006

I once had a similar issue with eBay. It came down to MTU sizes conflicting with DSL max packet sizes. It just happened the cookie or whatever for ebay fell in the gap between these two, so ebay wouldn't work without refreshing several times (and then slowly).
I have no idea if the Amazon issue you have is related, but if you get no more specific suggestions maybe try changing MTU?
Try here for more info.
posted by bystander at 5:29 PM on April 30, 2006

It works fine on Firefox for me - it must be an extension/blocker or some such thing. Maybe you could list all the extensions etc that you have? I'm sure by a process of elimination we could work out which one was breaking Amazon.
posted by meech at 5:29 PM on April 30, 2006

Earlier Firefox builds had issues with layouts on pre-CSS Slashdot, that I understand have been fully fixed - is your build up to date?
posted by rc55 at 5:49 PM on April 30, 2006

My wife has this problem with amazon on FF on a Mac, and she has no extensions at all. I have it periodically on Linux, and it happened on XP with adblock, scrapbook, flashblock & tabmix installed. Very weird.
posted by words1 at 10:03 PM on April 30, 2006

rc55, "I use the latest version of Mozilla Firefox"

If you install the User-Agent switcher extension and visit Amazon as, say, IE6 and THAT works, then it is an Amazon problem, and you can call them up and complain.
posted by misterbrandt at 9:21 AM on May 1, 2006