Why would two different computers react differently to the same link?
With one computer (my lap top) I get to the designated page, but with a different computer (home pc), I get a 404error (page not found) when I click the same link.
Same internet connection?
no–laptop was dsl; home PC is cable
edit…I plugged the laptop into my home cable and the link works. On my pc it doesnt.
Clear the browser cache and try again, you will probably get the 404 on both now.
There may be a filter on the browser or OS (technically, the TCP/IP stack) that is redirecting or denying your request. It’s a longshot, but it’s another possibility.
Yes I’d try the cache-clearing thing first and see what you see. Is it also possible your PC contains some malware that is redirecting some of your HTTP requests? Then one machine may point to the actual address, while the other one is being redirected to something bogus. I’ve read about this but not experienced it myself.
Are you running the same version of OS and browser on both machines? Try a different browser on each machine and see where that takes you. If you don’t already have Firefox I recommend it.
Also is it possible that one of your internet providers is filtering what you’re allowed to see? If so, I’d like to know what company it is so I can spread the word to others to avoid that company…
Another possibility is that the ISPs DNS servers are not properly resolving the address. I’ve had cases where the the ISPs (Comcast or Cablespeed) DNS servers would not resolve a valid address. Switching to an alternative DNS server would suddenly get the site working again.
I now use OpenDNS. They are a free service and offer public DNS servers. They work well. Haven’t had any DNS problems while using them, unlike my experiences using my ISPs DNS servers.
The above link will tell you how to switch to the OpenDNS servers.
The quick answer is to use the following two addresses for your DNS servers:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
The longer answer is available at the above link.
It certainly could be that the DNS-servers spew different answers (for example in case of load balancing).
But even on just the IP level one ISP can have routes to a certain address, while another ISP’s router-tables simply have no route to a assigned IP.
And in some cases transits can even announce wrong or broken routes.
Some people think that if you are simply connected to the internet, that the rest of the internet can reach you.