Right, this one is starting to annoy me. My laptop running 10 Pro won't connect to Google's Recaptcha service - amongst others. So I can't, for example, log in to Geekzone from the laptop. For invisible reCaptcha, the Login button won't respond - other than that there's no indication.
Vanilla reCaptcha gives an error message of Google can't connect, please enable reCaptcha in your settings - meaning website settings because it leads you off to developers.google.com & the API key generator.
Google Search works fine but Image Search - whether using a URL image location or uploading an image - responds with "This page isn't working www.google.com didn't send any data" & ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE. This response takes ages to manifest, the uploading file spinner hangs in there for sometimes 5 minutes before failing.
I've got fresh updated Eset Smart Security, no problems found there & nothing in quarantine. Windows firewall is circumvented but no errors there anyway. Hosts is bare except for localhost set by Xampp.
Running sfc /scannow returns a story about finding errors & fixing them, details are in the logs - except there's no log file written. Re-running the command responds with no integrity violations. Reboot & re-run, no violations but no reCaptcha either.
My time/date is true. The connection problem is consistent across Chrome, Brave, Firefox - with & without extensions. I've tried resetting the browsers & sent a bunch of ipconfig commands too. My certificates are all good.
Other devices connected to the same network don't have this problem & my network connected devices all show up normally (Sonos, Android TV, Android Tab, iPad, iPhone, Android phone). Nor does a dirty old Win7 32-bit VM running inside the afflicted laptop, accessing the WiFi adapter directly - that one works without a problem.
I can sign in & out & back in to my Google account. Gmail is the same old Gmail. I can use Google to sign into 3rd party accounts. But I can't pass any reCaptcha authenticated pages at all.
All Windows updates are done & installed successfully first time round. Browsers are all fully updated.
Apart from that, no problems at all, box of birds really. Anyone been here before, researched more effectively than me & found the answer?