Why can't I view eBay and PayPal homepages?

[Skiz]

I can't view either of the eBay or PayPal homepages. If I click on their links or type in the URL's, it goes straight to 'Page Cannot Be Displayed'.

www.ebay.com
www.paypal.com

I can view links to items and whatnot, but not the homepages. I have a couple hundred bucks I need to transfer from PayPal to my bank but I can't get in to it. Is this just me or can noone else see those pages also?

[Barbarossa]

Fine for me.

Check the contents of your hosts file, change proxies and see if that makes a difference, the usual sort of stuff, blah-de-blah...

[Skiz]

I have no idea what you just said.

[tesco]

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
open that with notepad and you might find ebay and paypal in there.

[Filliz]

or try a diff. browser

[RealitY]

Just wondering if you can you see ebay form this link...
http://www.unipeak.com/gethtml.php?_...5lYmF5LmNvbS8=

[Skiz]

or try a diff. browser

I tried it in FF earlier to no avail.

Just wondering if you can you see ebay form this link...
http://www.unipeak.com/gethtml.php?_...5lYmF5LmNvbS8=

Yes. It took almost :45 secs to load, but it did load.

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
open that with notepad and you might find ebay and paypal in there.

Check the contents of your hosts file, change proxies and see if that makes a difference, the usual sort of stuff, blah-de-blah...

Yes. They were both in there. I assumed I was supposed to delete them so I did. Now the pages load.

What is that file and what is it for?
How did those links get in there.

[Peerzy]

What is that file and what is it for?
How did those links get in there.

It's used to add different ips to a URL.

Such as:

127.0.0.0 www.google.com

That will make your browser try to connect to 127.0.0.0 when you type in www.google.com. Google's ip isn't 127.0.0.0 so it would show up as invalid page.

When you install Kazaa Lite it adds a whole list of spam and scam websites that try to sell you Kazaa Gold or some shit.

[tesco]

Set that hosts file to read only so programs cant edit it.
Some spyware or trojan or other program you installed or didn't know about must have added paypal and ebay to taht hosts file.

You should read through the file to see if any other sites are added that you think you might want to view.

[Skiz]

I registered an account with www.sell.com about 2 weeks ago. I bet that did it.

EDIT: I bet it was a virus. I just looked at all the contents and Microsoft.com was listed with about ten various links each to both McCafee and Norton AV websites.