Hey All Anyone out there who knows there stuff and might be able to shed some light for a friend to the below problem ? For your info Optusnet is an isp.

I wonder if you be so good as to pass this email onto your computer guru's to see if they can help me with a problem (see below) which is driving me nuts! I have had numerous long and meaningful discussions with Tim over this issue and he has come up with what may be a significant difference between his machine and mine. The screen grab screen shot Screen Shot
from my machine has a highlighted item which is not on Tim's machine or my old one. The question is - if I uninstall this item will it solve my problem?

I have already contacted Optusnet and their reply was not particularly helpful. My email to them reads in part as follows......

"The problem:-

I am able to log on via my Optusnet dial-up facility without problem, surf the net for a short period of time with no problem but then for some inexplicable reason my net surfing capabilities are 'turned off'. I am still able to send and receive emails without problem (unless they contain web links) but am unable to access any website addresses. If I reboot my machine sometimes I have no problem at all and then on another occasion the same scenario will occur. Unfortunately, lately it seems to be getting more regular.

Have tried:-

New browser - I normally would use MS explorer but have tried Opera and Netscape both with the same result.
New Modem - still no improvement.
Turned off Norton firewall - no improvement
Restored my machine to an earlier time when the problem was not evident - the problem still exists.

Which really only leaves me with a couple of options
1. There is some sort of problem at your end?
2. I have a problem with my 'phone line?
or ????? Any ideas????"

Optus suggested that my copy of IE was corrupt but if that were true then Opera should work ok but it didn't. They further suggested that I may have a modem problem but it worked ok earlier and it worked ok on my old machine so I don't see how that could be problem either.

I hope that explains the problem sufficiently and I hope you can shed some light on it for me. Many thanks in advance.