Links not opening

[Rob Edwards]

I have a new Dell Laptop i7 with Windows 11
Links via email or searches won't open

Error message I receive is:

Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site.

We can’t connect to the server at www.googleadservices.com.

If anyone can steer me in the right direction to fix this I would be most appreciative

Thank you

 

[Ian]

Have you got an ad-blocker installed? It might be blocking Google's ad servers at DNS level.

 

[Rob Edwards]

Have you got an ad-blocker installed? It might be blocking Google's ad servers at DNS level.

No no ad blocker or anything like it
Thank you for your response

 

[Ian]

Does this only happen on links via Google search? If you can give a bit more detail and I'll do my best to help .

 

[Rob Edwards]

Ian it happens with Google Seaches and links that are within emails too

 

[Ian]

I wonder if it's blocked in your hosts file. Are you please able to browse to the following location and open the "hosts" file in notepad and post the contents in a new message:

C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc

 

[Rob Edwards]

Index of file:///C:/Windows/system32/drivers/etc​

Name	Size	Last Modified
hosts	1 KB	5/06/2021	10:08:54 pm
lmhosts.sam	4 KB	5/06/2021	10:08:54 pm
networks	1 KB	5/06/2021	10:08:54 pm
protocol	2 KB	5/06/2021	10:08:54 pm
services	18 KB	5/06/2021	10:08:54 pm

 

[Ian]

Can you try opening that "hosts" file in notepad please and see what the text is inside it? I guess if it's 1kb, that it doesn't have a block list in it.