After looking over several tcpdump results, this morning, it seems that the problem is DNS.
The home (NTT America, Inc.) for the old FreeRepublic.com IP address: 209.157.64.200 , still remembers that IP address refers to both:
freerepublic.com
www.freerepublic.com
And some things on your computer, that mentions those two names in relation to the old IP address: 209.157.64.200
Like a hosts file, some cache file, a bookmark file, a firewall rule, a routing entry.
This morning, I found a clue in one of the tcpdump results, that led me to dig further into my own computer’s hosts file . . . and hidden therein (down among several entries made over the years), I have had an INCORRECT pair of entries:
209.157.64.200 freerepublic.com
209.157.64.200 www.freerepublic.com
Those two entries did not occur to me; I failed to remember that I had added those some years ago. I failed earlier, to search for those possibilities. Major Duh!
And, my apologies for not getting to that discovery, earlier.
BTW, Freeper “rarestia” is correct in regard to TLS - the FreeRepublic.com connection uses TLSv1.2
Microsoft Internet Explorer - how to enable that:
https://help.hotschedules.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020184072-Enabling-TLS-1-2-on-web-browsers
More precisely, the problem is name resolution.
Thanks for the update. “Host file” is what I was trying to think of for the dns stuff, i couldn’t remember the name of the file. I just don’t deal with this stuff enough to remember. Perhaps you mentioned it before, but it didn’t register at the time. I’m on a tablet right now, not sure where the fi,e is there, but will check my co outer host file when I get home, see if it has those old entries or not too
Thanks for keeping us updated on this. Connection and other computer issues seem to crop up fro. Time to time and family comes to me to try to fix, so this will be good to know to look for in the future