Presario CQ56, Win7+Norton 360: will not connect to Internet except IE

.: Hello. Recently my parents bought a new Compaq CQ56 laptop with Windows 7 installed. They brought it with them on a trip to my home city this Christmas. They also installed Norton 360.

I have worked with the computer for two days. It runs IE8, but no other browsers. I can install FF, but it returns error pages, unable to connect. I tried installing Opera, Safari and Chrome, but cannot: the installations themselves fail.

Even if I connect with an ethernet cable, none of these will install, and FF will not run.

I've added Firefox to the Norton 360 firewall settings. It made no difference.

I have never seen anything like this happen on any laptop before. It is beyond frustrating. How can a laptop run one browser and not any other?

I have no idea if this is a Windows 7 issue or a Norton issue. I've added Firefox to the Norton firewall, but it made no difference. I do not understand why the Compaq allows IE8 to connect to the Internet, but not one other program. Even the Norton 360 LiveUpdate cannot connect. I've tried this using the Compaq wirelessly, or with ethernet cable.

Has anyone else every experienced this? If anyone has any insight into why this is happening, I'd be very grateful for advice, guidance, solutions!

Thank you

podbay said:

.: Hello. Recently my parents bought a new Compaq CQ56 laptop with Windows 7 installed. They brought it with them on a trip to my home city this Christmas. They also installed Norton 360.

I have worked with the computer for two days. It runs IE8, but no other browsers. I can install FF, but it returns error pages, unable to connect. I tried installing Opera, Safari and Chrome, but cannot: the installations themselves fail.

Even if I connect with an ethernet cable, none of these will install, and FF will not run.

I've added Firefox to the Norton 360 firewall settings. It made no difference.

I have never seen anything like this happen on any laptop before. It is beyond frustrating. How can a laptop run one browser and not any other?

I have no idea if this is a Windows 7 issue or a Norton issue. I've added Firefox to the Norton firewall, but it made no difference. I do not understand why the Compaq allows IE8 to connect to the Internet, but not one other program. Even the Norton 360 LiveUpdate cannot connect. I've tried this using the Compaq wirelessly, or with ethernet cable.

Has anyone else every experienced this? If anyone has any insight into why this is happening, I'd be very grateful for advice, guidance, solutions!

Thank you

It is a setting in IE.

Go to tools>internet options>connections>Lan settings>UNCHECK auto detect settings.


If that is not it then Its norton.



ken J

zigzag3143 said:

podbay said:

.: Hello. Recently my parents bought a new Compaq CQ56 laptop with Windows 7 installed. They brought it with them on a trip to my home city this Christmas. They also installed Norton 360.

I have worked with the computer for two days. It runs IE8, but no other browsers. I can install FF, but it returns error pages, unable to connect. I tried installing Opera, Safari and Chrome, but cannot: the installations themselves fail.

Even if I connect with an ethernet cable, none of these will install, and FF will not run.

I've added Firefox to the Norton 360 firewall settings. It made no difference.

I have never seen anything like this happen on any laptop before. It is beyond frustrating. How can a laptop run one browser and not any other?

I have no idea if this is a Windows 7 issue or a Norton issue. I've added Firefox to the Norton firewall, but it made no difference. I do not understand why the Compaq allows IE8 to connect to the Internet, but not one other program. Even the Norton 360 LiveUpdate cannot connect. I've tried this using the Compaq wirelessly, or with ethernet cable.

Has anyone else every experienced this? If anyone has any insight into why this is happening, I'd be very grateful for advice, guidance, solutions!

Thank you

It is a setting in IE.

Go to tools>internet options>connections>Lan settings>UNCHECK auto detect settings.


If that is not it then Its norton.



ken J

Thanks for the suggestion, Ken. I checked the setting, and "auto detect setting" was already unchecked. So I guess it must be Norton.

How bizarre is that, though? If that is the case, then the Norton program is actually preventing itself from connecting to the Internet as well. What puzzles me is why it would allow IE8 to connect, but nothing else.

Thanks again - Randy

Hi Randy -

If you have a trial Norton version which you haven't paid for yet, we recommend MS Security Essentials or Avast which are free AV's which work perfectly with the Win7 firewall and have no impact on performance at all.

IE is finally perfected in Win7 and make the others look amateurish IMO. Hope you will give it a try, but you shouldn't have to due to a bossy Firewall or AV!

gregrocker said:

Hi Randy -

If you have a trial Norton version which you haven't paid for yet, we recommend MS Security Essentials or Avast which are free AV's which work perfectly with the Win7 firewall and have no impact on performance at all.

IE is finally perfected in Win7 and make the others look amateurish IMO. Hope you will give it a try, but you shouldn't have to due to a bossy Firewall or AV!

Hi gregrocker, thank you for your reply. In the end, we had to restore the computer to its original state on the day it was purchased. No tweaking or changing settings in Norton made any difference. The machine seems to running fine now, although Norton is not installed at the moment. It can be reinstalled at a later date, but for now we're using Avast until further notice.

When we installed Firefox, it DID install, but wouldn't run. Opera, Safari, and Chrome, however, would not install. Very strange.

Some tips for taming a factory bloatware install which might help clean up whatever mess is blocking browser install: HP laptop has used up all four primary partitions