google-earth server connection problem

Google earth hangs when connecting to the server:
If you encounter a problem with google earth so that it can not connect to the server
and if it exits with a error code:29 then check the proxy settings.
I had this problem where google earth could not connect but all other browsers
could. I had to edit the file /etc/proxy (on SUSE 10.2) and manually switch off the proxy settings.