Something like this happened to me some time ago on my desktop PC and any dvice I used on my home network.
FR went down for a while (days?)
When it came back, I was whacked. So were a few other people. We were all from different parts of the country and had different ISPs.
I have no idea how far back to go to find the discussions here about it.
All the site checkers said FR was down. (It wasn’t)
I was able to access FR only thru a VPN.
(I could access FR on my cell phone and my laptop if I was logged on to an Xfinity hotspot, but not through my home network)
I tried everything.
Different browsers(alot of them)
Flushed DNS Caches til I was blue in the face.
Powered down\unplugged router\modem.
I changed DNS to use Google Public DNS.
I tried every “how to” I could find.
Ran Malwarebytes and anything else I had handy.
My pings to FR died after about 8 hops.
Had ISP (Comcast) ping FreeRepublic was ok on their end.
Nada...
What threw me the most was no browser worked. But the VPN worked regardless of browser.
It had to be hardware.
I ended up buying a new router, based on an obscure answer to a like question about this problem...
and that seemed to be the solution.
Whether it actually was or not, I don’t know.
(Figured I might as well upgrade everything - all CAT 7 cables, upgraded modem, ethernet controller and now running 1 Gbps and download speed is tickling 400 Mbps (though I am paying for 600)
If you have a different router you can try, that might be a start.
Good Luck...
I find it not a coincidence that the problems here all appear to have suddenly stopped being problems... at the exact same time as an update to the Linix core software files controlling repository access appeared.
The Linux guys use “mirror sites” to distribute software updates... assuming the many participants are all on the up and up, good guys, who will slavishly mirror the same (correct) stuff.
Clearly that’s not been happening. Someone has been spoofing the repository access control... changing the computers access to sites from which software is downloaded. That can have no purpose other than providing “alternative” software... ie., one quick hack being done enables them as mirror site providers in distributing false operating systems files... through routine “security updates”.
On my computer I observed that occurring in the click on the Spirochete provided link to FR... that one click quickly altering a bit of data in my system files... changing the preferred download site from (one I prefer) to a mirror site in Azerbaijan... which, if I’d not caught it... would give “whoever that was” kernel level access to my machine and full ability to rewrite my OS however they wanted with “updates”...
Not just about the mirror site... but the “preferred network”... so the routine optimization of routing sent my comms there...
That is likely an state level exploit of a chip level hack which gives kernel access, the access used to run a quick bit of code... changing where your software downloads come from... after which they can do what they want to your machine... and where your comms get routed...
Early indicators of that were apparent in the recent frequent changing of OS files that control routine kernel functions like the re-writing of the basic kernal load... with frequent updates there recently an obvious tell of something not being kosher...
Lots of suspicious enough stuff has been going on in relation to the elections... from well before election day. Some is probably spooky white hat good guys... some is probably not... as clearly the case here... but, even that still assuming the white hats are the good guys... while it isn’t at all obvious how white vs grey they are ?
I’d prefer being able to buy a computer with chips that aren’t pre-hacked... but, they won’t allow that.
You can re-write your own kernel and pre-boot control files and force them into firmware to over-write their spy crap... but it pisses them off.
Reality is basically nothing you do on the web is private... no matter how clever you think your workarounds are...
But, privacy is one issue... Commandeering your access and information flows is another...