Amazon.com doesn't work

December 20, 2005 12:11 PM

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

For some reason I haven't been able to connect to Amazon.com (from Firefox or Internet Explorer) for a couple of weeks. Every other website works fine. Amazon works on my roomate's computer. Any ideas?

posted by apetpsychic to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Check your HOSTS file. Run a spyware scan.
posted by ori at 12:17 PM on December 20, 2005

HOSTS file. See sections 'location' and 'hijacking'. You probably just want to clear the file completely.
posted by ori at 12:19 PM on December 20, 2005

Uh, don't be so quick. I can assure you that my system is pristinely free of any kind of malware and I have been having the same exact problems in the last week or two that apetpsychic describes. I have just assumed that it's the holiday season and their servers are overwhelmed, but I'm glad to see it's not just me. The other day I was trying for a good 45 minutes to do something as simple as add two books to a wish list -- every time I clicked on any link the page would either time out or give a useless error message.

The reason it might be working for the roommate could be due to load balancing through DNS.
posted by Rhomboid at 12:59 PM on December 20, 2005