OT, but important: http://diystompboxes.com

[The Tone God]

maybe another browser would be good. Mozilla firefox seemed easy to transition to (similar look), least for me.

It certainly wouldn't hurt as both browsers can co-exist. One thing I really love about Firefox are the extensions. There are some great one out there. When surfing I have no pop-ups, no ads, no blinking animated graphics, no forced music/movies, etc. Its nice to have complete control.

Whether the absence of www works or not is not affected by registration, but rather the configuration of the server that hosts the site.

Not completely true. There are a few places where this can be done. The domain registration, the DNS provider, the web host, as well as the user's browser can all perform this function. The general rule is the non-specification of a sub-domain from a non-TLD name is sent to the "www" domain. This is not a standard just common. Some names do not do this for various reasons.

Andrew