OT - All of a sudden Hotmail won't access through Firefox

Is anyone else having difficulty accessing a Hotmail account from Firefox?

Yesterday I began receiving error pages stating I needed to turn cookies on to use my Hotmail account. I checked the program. I AM accepting cookies. I checked individual cookies from Hotmail as well as their Passport login system. All their cookies are in place and should be working. I even erased the login.passport cookie but no change.

I contacted Microsoft yesterday but haven't received a response.

Today I was surfing and discovered a notice that the people behind Firefox are paying $1 for each referral to FF off the Google Toolbar. (Google ads, maybe??) It sounds suspect to me, but I'm wondering if, in retaliation, MS has cut off access to Firefox users.

Can anyone shed some light on either a tech issue regarding cookies or a political/economic issue involving IE vs. Firefox?

I hate using IE, but it's the only way to access my Hotmail at this point.

I haven't tried to access my hotmail from FF recently, but havn't had any trouble in the past... I'll give it a shot tonight and let you know if I'm having the same issue.

I have so many problems with forms in FireFox -- including at the Open Source-oriented site OurMedia.org -- that I simply use IE for most form stuff (even if it's not "IE only") and FF for general browsing.

Funny you should mention the Google Toolbar and FF.

I was so excited when I found there was now a FF version -- UNTIL I used it and found that much of it doesn't work or works so substantially differently that it's a big pain. (WHY even HAVE the spellcheck? It's WORTHLESS in FF. In fact, it can really screw things up.)

Anyhow... they're both lame as hell, in their own ways. I find IE a far superior browsing experience (except for the resizable text issue, which FF jumps up and down on top of IE on)... and I KNOW FF has significant unfixed security gaps they've been dawdling over -- but I finally got IE highjacked a month or two ago and caught the worm that got planted before it could do any harm... so, practically and personally speaking, I'm trusting FF a bit more than IE for the time being...

But they're both lame.

I hear that Opera has cleaned up the memory leakage problems I experienced (BIGtime) last year when I installed it. Maybe I'll try the little guys again soon...

Sigh.

I've been nothing but happy with Firefox. Between tabbed browsing and the host of extensions I've installed, IE can't touch FF in capability. And now that Fedex's website works with FF, I don't use IE for anything. (Until now, that is. )

And if I ever run across a page that requires IE, I don't even have to open, cut & paste the address anymore. I have an extension that will open a page I'm at in FF in IE. This has solved issues on one or two occasions, recently. But again, I don't normally use IE for anything anymore.

My hotmail came up just fine though I had to go through the re-app 'cause I seldom use hotmail.

Firefox is my primary browser but for the business needs that require IE I use Netscape set to IE and Maxthon for the stuff Netscape won't work for. The only thing I've fired IE itself up for, is tech service when there have been problems with a site and the techs moan about their system being designed for IE. Then, after all that BS, it turns out to be some other problems as I tried to tell them all along.

I have negative on the repro with FF 1.5.0.1

I'm not sure what you mean, MorePaul. Is that a "hotmail login page works" or "hotmail login page fails".

For now I use the IE view extension to automatically redirect the Hotmail login to IE, but it's annoying not having tabbed browsing, etc.

My apologies - I wind up doing a lot of that stuff in a tech environment (The call ge s out "The new build is acting weird, can you guy try...")

Negative on the repro

as in I can't reproduce the (error) behavior

[there are some nifty reasons why ya get in the habit of saying it that way, but I'm trying to learn not to ramble so I won't go into it]

Yeah... I tried and have no issues w/ FF and Hotmail. For the most part now, I use FF for everything. The only thing IE does better for me is some media like watching video online etc. For that I just switch to IE

I don't know about Hotmail, but I'm using Linux with Firefox and MSN.COM won't let me access any *.wmv files for the past month or so. I have XINE and CAFFEINE which both work great for WMV but I only get the following notice with Firefox when clicking the VIDEO button at MSN.COM

Originally posted by fantasticsound I'm not sure what you mean, MorePaul . Is that a "hotmail login page works" or "hotmail login page fails". For now I use the IE view extension to automatically redirect the Hotmail login to IE, but it's annoying not having tabbed browsing, etc.

Have you tried clearing out your cookies? I had some seriously weird stuff going on at another BBS, and strangely enough that fixed it.

Go to Tools -> Options & select the Cookies tab. If you choose "View Cookies", you can look for the ones from Hotmail & delete only those - that will keep the ones for other places, like here, intact. Or, you can try the nuclear option & hit "Clear Cookies Now" to start fresh.

Firefox and hotmail are working fine for me.

Originally posted by franknputer Have you tried clearing out your cookies? I had some seriously weird stuff going on at another BBS, and strangely enough that fixed it. Go to Tools -> Options & select the Cookies tab. If you choose "View Cookies", you can look for the ones from Hotmail & delete only those - that will keep the ones for other places, like here, intact. Or, you can try the nuclear option & hit "Clear Cookies Now" to start fresh.

Yeah, that's what I've been looking at. I went so far as to make the login.passport cookies an exception to always allow, and still it tells me my browser won't accept cookies. Works fine in IE though.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I may have to nuke all my cookies.. which will suck. I'll have to remember all my passwords to different sites, etc.