websites won't open

Question

websites won't open

Macbook Pro with Maverick. Sophos antivirus. Firewall on

I use Safari as my primary web browser. I can access certain sites with Safari such as Facebook and Twitter. I cannot access other sites. I am in the Netherlands at the moment and I noticed that I seem to be directed to google.nl. Websites with .nl do not work. Anytime I get redirected to google.nl nothing works. What happens is that the website doesn't load. It is only a blank white page. I try to access the same sites with my IPhone and they also don't work. I have run a Sophos scan on my Mac and nothing came up. I also have the firewall up. I think this may be a problem with the internet in the Netherlands, but I don't know for certain and I want to make sure I don't have a weird virus or something.

For example in trying to troubleshoot this problem many people have suggested thesafemac.com, but I can't get the website to work. In this case it doesn't redirect, it just won't open.

Any thoughts?

Posted on Jun 21, 2014 12:48 AM

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Answer 1

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Jun 21, 2014 5:30 AM in response to Melissa M. Bellitto

Recent versions of Sophos have a web filter that has been known to cause problems like these. Disable that and see if it makes a difference.

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Answer 2

Jul 3, 2014 8:45 AM in response to thomas_r.

Thank you for the response. I actually fixed the problem shortly after I posted this. I had the option to connect to more than one wireless connection. I tried the other one and that one worked. I will keep the Sophos issue in mind if I encounter the problem again though.

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Answer 3

Jul 4, 2014 6:10 PM in response to Melissa M. Bellitto

I second Thomas' recommendation to remove Sophos. The biggest threat to using our Macs now is adware. Adware is not a virus and Sophos is not going to protect you.

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