unable to acess any websites - help needed

Hi,

Apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong bit but its my first post and I'm not really sure how this site works.

My problem is that I've got internet access, I can access AOL and my computer seems to be working fine in terms of anti-virus and stuff.

However, when I go onto AOL I can't access any websites. No matter what I click on, even the AOL home page simply fails to load. I get a white screen, a little message down the bottom of the screen saying "connecting to site" followed by a sequence of numbers and then nothing happens.

I can access Internet Explorer and everything is working fine on there. Also everything works fine with AOL on my sons laptop so I'm assuming something has happened to the settings?

I've tried a few things (uninstalled and reinstalled AOL, deleted cookies, system restore etc.) but I don't know a lot about computers so I'm hoping somebody on here will be able to give me some instruction on how to sort this problem.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks

Steve.

If visiting websites works fine with Internet Explorer, and the problem is only when using the browser that is part of the AOL software, then AOL support may be a better place to start.

The fact that IE works shows the connection and basics of the PC are Ok, but configuration of the AOL software may be the issue

Thanks for the reply.

I think I'll contact aol support and see what they suggest.

Thanks again

Steve.

Dumping the AOL carp would be the best place to start!

In reply to a post by Lecter:

However, when I go onto AOL

If you mean the AOL software on your PC than its configured wrongly.

Why bother with it? Just use IE to get everywhere; it does everything that the AOL software can.

Like others have said forget using the AOL software to get online, your using IE FYI there are other browsers that can be used, my own pref is for Firefox, seems to work fine for me on Windows XP, finally got around to using the latest version FF 16.0.1.