Applications that use the Internet?

Tech Support Forum General Software
1

Hello People,

Last night I was gaming as normal, no problem.

I come home from work today and attempt to login to the game’s online portal which from then enlists several servers I can join. However upon attempting to log in to the portal I got the error message “The server has refused your connection”, which is slightly odd because it was only 24 hours ago I could login as normal and I have not touched or changed anything on my computer since then. I then proceeded to login in to xFire, an application which requires the same logging in sequence. Again, a similar problem, cannot connect to server. So then just to test I use a different game and try to login to its multyplayer page; again, cannot connect to server. However I can still browse the WWW and download files from websites.

The similarity in the problem at hand seems to be that applications that are using the Internet to login to servers are not working properly. I am not using an anti-virus or firewall at this moment so I have no reason to believe the firewall has gone all wierd, and like I said I have not changed anything since it was last working. I was thinking it may have something to do with proxy settings; but then again I do not have an anti-virus or firewall.

Is there any suggestion as to what this could be? A virus perhaps?

Thank you for reading and I hope that someone can help me,
Thanks,
Kev.

2

If you are using windows XP (or Vista) you do have a firewall as it is included with the OS (but its not a very good one).

You can configure windows firewall from the control panel (sorry i cant be more precise, i don’t use windows).

But i agree, it is strange that multiple applications have stopped working and you haven’t changed anything.

[OT]
If your using windows you really do need Anti Virus software, Avast is a good choice (and they are both free for home / non-commercial use)
[/OT]

3

thats not a good idea when using Windoze

Avast is about the best (and free) antivirus there is (as Impy suggested)

you also need to scan for adware / malware about once a week (depending on how often the system is used)

scan with both Ad-Aware & Spybot S & D

BTW: ALWAYS update the definitions before scanning with either Ad-Aware & Spybot

Edit: and leave avast set to auto update