There are many different scenarios behind broken links, dead websites or 404 errors. For one, the server could in fact be down or overloaded. Especially popular sites like Facebook or Twitter are often slow and timed out when hit by the masses. The same is true for pages that receive a short-lived hype via Digg, Del.icio.us and the like.
On the other hand it may be an issue on your side. Just think of a bumpy ISP or a bad wireless connection. In any case, it’s annoying when you cannot access a website, and constantly hitting the reload button doesn’t make it any better.
Here are three Firefox addons to ease your mind.
