Last place we were at a few websites I couldn't get to unless I used a VPN, at the time I put it down to being behind CGNAT and whichever public IP I was getting being on a list. The ISP was new(ish) and there was info online that some of the IPv4 addresses they'd bought were originally from known but since gone spammers.
We moved late last year and with a different longer established ISP (Virgin) and I am still seeing this with some sites including some I would like to be able to see without jumping through hoops. I tried looking to see if I could get anything useful via Wireshark but not that told me anything. e.g one example trying to access in https://electroverse.com/
I am wondering now if it is in the router which I brought with me. I cannot see anything in my rules and disabling them doesn't help but is there a way at least for a minute or two to disable the firewall totally?
the firewall isn't blocking any sites, unless you put the block there, and the screen shot you posted "correctly" attempts to connect to 76.76.21.21, which is the same IP I get when I run a nslookup.
are you running banIP, by any chance ?
unrelated, but 23.05.2 is EOL, you should upgrade to at least 23.05.5.
This address looked awfully familiar to me, and lo! it is in my DoH whitelist. That specific IP hosts not just a bunch of websites, but also a DoH server, so if you have DNS-over-HTTPS blocked, it's going to be on most curated block lists and thus the websites will be inadvertently killed.
You can never disable the firewall, it's the only thing that makes your router work (NAT is handled by the firewall, without it no IPv4 internet).
Apart from that, all routers on the internet are constantly probed and under attack, so if you could disable the firewall, you'd have 'uninvited guests' in your network, on your computer, your NAS, etc. within (less than) minutes - and many of those won't leave, just because the firewall is on again.
