Firewalls Can Prevent Web Pages From Displaying Properly

If you are having trouble viewing images on this site and you are using a firewall...

The problem with some firewalls ( Norton Internet Security in particular ) is that they may default to preventing your Web browser from sending referrer information between pages, and this referer information is required as part of the verification check at this site, used to stop certain internet abuses.

How referrer information works:

When you click to a new Web page, your browser notes the current page that you are on and it sends that information to the server of the new Web page. This way the server of the new Web page knows which page you viewed last. If you block referrer information, the server of the page you are requesting will not know what page you came from.

By default, Norton Internet Security (NIS) and Norton Personal Firewall (NPF) block this referrer information. Other firewalls may block this information as well. In order to allow referrer information to pass to a particular Website, you must create a rule for it.

To create a rule for Norton's NIS/NPF 2003 or NIS/NPF 2004, follow the instructions below:
Other products are not covered in this discussion - however, they may be similar.

Instructions for NIS/NPF 2003 or NIS/NPF 2004

1. Open NIS or NPF.
   
2. Do one of the following:
   
   • In NIS/NPF 2003, click Options > Internet Security or Personal Firewall (This step is not always needed), and then click the Web Content tab.
   • In NIS/NPF 2004, double-click Privacy Control, and then click Advanced.
3. Click Add Site. A new site/domain box appears. Enter the name of the site that you want to receive the referrer information and click OK. An example might be http://www.symantec.com
   
4. The site name appears in the left frame of the Options window.
   
5. Click the name of the new site.
   
6. Click the Global Settings tab.
   
7. In the "Information about visited sites" section, uncheck "Use default settings".
   
8. Click Permit.
9. Click OK to close the Options window.

Screen shot of NIS/NPF 2003 (NIS/NPF 2004 is similar):