Browser problems

Morning all, I am offering a free can of spam to anyone who can help me here. I am having trouble with my browsers. Both IE and Firefox are playing up severely. The problem is slightly different but I'm sure down to the same cause.

Firstly with Firefox whenever I try to enter any information (for example in the google search bar) it will freeze after the very first letter entered. The same for any any information I try to enter from my keyboard for any website, as soon as I start typing Task Manager reports Firefox sucking up as much CPU usage as possible and just sitting there hogging everything while not responding. If I do not touch my keyboard though I can sit and surf bookmarks and links with no problem at all.

Because of this I tried I/E which gives slightly different results. I can actually enter and submit information so for example, can Google fine. The problem occurs when I have to enter any details. If the incorrect details are entered I get the standard, 'incorrect password' notice if I enter the right information though it just reloads the login page. This was while trying to enter my Gmail account which I also noted was complaining about my browser not being compatible and not having Java enabled (which it is apparently)

I have tried allsorts just to make sure, Spybot Search and Destroy, MS Spyware, Ad-Aware, a few Trojan cleaners, Kaspersky virus scan, ZA Spyware and virus scan... and probably some other stuff that I forget right now and everything comes up totally clean.

Any ideas.... please? Remember, free if you can help.

[edit on 23/11/05 by Mark Harris]

Tough one. Sounds like a nasty to me. It seems like the past few weeks spyware - I'd rather call it viruses - have evolved into little buggers that's impossible to detect or detain.
You already tried the best software options I could recommend - just double check that you have the latest updates for all the programs. I recently "discovered" MS Antispyware (beta). It still needs to prove itself, but when I ran it on my machine, it caught some nasties the other programs did not catch. So it's worth a try. (Its real-time protection is pretty good IMO.)
Other than that you can try Hijack This! which is free. Just be careful with this tool as it can make things worse if you start removing system files that's supposed to be there. (Just make sure to make back-ups before you remove anything.)

Also, not many of these programs will run in safe mode. Try as many of them as you can in safe mode.

Then I can also suggest removing both your browsers and re-installing them (the newest versions). This probably won't solve your problem, but it might give your protection programs time to detect the nasties' activities.

Make sure you have the newest security updates from Microsoft (if you're running XP). I can highly recommend service pack 2 - although some people will disagree.

Hope it helps. Good luck.

The problem with IE sounds familuar with a problem I had once... The problem was ZoneAlarm Pro. I do not know what exactly was the problem, but if I turned it off it was fine.

Do you have anything like that running in the background? How long has these problems occured? Did they suddenly start?

Interesting problem.
Two things came to mind while reading your post.

The first was that you try switching your keyboard and see if that makes any difference.

The second was to go into the System Configuration Utility and look at your Startup list.
I've fixed some strange problems by eliminating some items I don't need, or want, from starting during the bootup. I've found a few little bugs that got into the system and turned on every time I started up, but I'd have no idea what to look for in your case. Sorry....

Thanks for everyone's help, it's greatly appreciated. Unfortunately nothing I have tried has worked.

Gemwolf, in conjunction with all the others I have tried MS Antispyware which I did hear a few people were impressed with, but nothing. I also removed Firefox and installed a newer version but again to no avail.

MetalHead I have tried turning off everything and still the problem persists. It did start out of the blue, I was online one night and everything was fine. I didn't D/L or install anything and the next day this.

Anxietydisorder I don't think it is the keyboard, not only can I type in IE for Google searches etc, but aslo in Firefox all I have to do is doubleclick the curson in any data entry field (for example Google's search bar) and in Task Manager you can watch it stop responding and suck up as much CPU as possible. I've checked the System Configuration Utility and everything I can see there appears legit.

The only thing that made me think was when accessing Google's personal homepage [uk/ig] with Internet Explorer there are a couple of warnings [which I don't get with Firefox] about my browser not having Java enabled although it is. Clutching at straws I went and got the latest runtime environment but nada. Everything else is fine, even browsing from link to link. it's just entering any correct login details that sends I/E into circles back to the login page, incorrect goes forward as usual and asks again; and any data (even a double click in Google's search) that freezes Firefox.

Again, thank you all very much for taking the time to offer your help. It is greatly appreciated.


[edit on 24/11/05 by Mark Harris]

Try dumping both your temporary internet files as well as your cache.
This should help allieviate your situation.

Originally posted by kenshiro2012
Try dumping both your temporary internet files as well as your cache.
This should help allieviate your situation.

In addition to Kenshiro's suggestion, look at your downloaded programs for your browser. (IExplorer>Tools>Settings>View Objects.
Look for anything unwanted or suspicious. Remove anything you don't like. You can just download it (a plugin) again later if/when you need it. Personally I don't trust plug-ins and add-on's.

Also immediatly after you restarted your PC, look at what tasks are running. Then start your browser and see if there appears any additional running tasks. Also stop running tasks one for one and see if stopping a spesific one makes a difference/the problem go away.
The fact that it's your browser that's running up the CPU probably means that the Browser's exe was infected (if it is an infection), and the "bug" isn't running on its own.

Also you can try these if you haven't tried them yet.

Look at your system start-up files. Start>Run>Sysedit ... Look for anything suspicious. Just make sure you have back-ups of these 4 files before you edit them. (Simply remove the unwanted text from the file and save the file.)

Look at your services. Control Panel>Admin>Services. Again look for anything that looks remotely suspicious. Simply turn it off.

Go to your Add/Remove Program Files panel, and look for any installed programs you're unfamiliar with.

Err... I'm running out of ideas. Have you tried Hijack This! yet?