IE dead but chrome works! HELP!

[Pappa Lurve]

Morning all,

Help please! Using a tosh Satellite, i3, 4GB, Windows 7. IE has become more and more useless, slow, crashes with multiple windows open etc recently and then insisted I needed to update Flash and Java which I did. Now it wont do anything! Loads ok but wont even bring up the home page just kind of sits there appearing to run but does not do anything. Chrome works fine but in general the speed of either browser is hardly great and I know its not my web connection as I get the same issue at work, home and on other Wifi hotspots.

I used to be rather good at all this stuff back in the days of w95 and XP but well out of date now and forgotten a lot of stuff! Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Similar note, to give my PC a general clean and tune, other than the normal defrag etc, are any of the free apps on places like downloads.com any good and if so, can anyone suggest a good one please.

Thanks all!

[Pappa Lurve]

gobuddy - wont let me into tools other than the options of "File" and "Safety" - any way around that? Is there anyway I can just uninstall the sodding thing and re-install?

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

[Pappa Lurve]

Rutter said:

Does it work if you launch Internet explorer (no addons)?

No idea as I don't know how to do that!

Just did a system restore from a couple of days ago. Now works ok but generally my browsers do seem to run very slowly despite a decent web connection. Short of rebuilding my laptop, any suggestions or software that will just give it a decent clean out?

Appreciate you all taking the time to advise me on this as I am a little stumped (or a little dumb, take your pick!).

[Pappa Lurve]

Ok, so it seems to be related to flash / java as they display fine on Chrome but not on IE9. Installed the latest version of flash but seems to make no difference. Anyone?!

Cheers

[Pappa Lurve]

indi pearl said:

Virus?
Have you run Malwarebytes,Spybot etc to be certain you have not picked up a nasty?

Computer says no.... well, AVG says no anyway.

[Pappa Lurve]

The_Jackal said:

Pappa Lurve said:

Computer says no.... well, AVG says no anyway.

Thats why you need to you Malwarebytes, Spybot etc.
Any reason you are not using Microsoft Security Essentials.
Also, you may have a load of crap in temp files etc so download and use CCleaner
Obviously Windows Update is fully up to date?

Jackal, thanks for the post, any change you could put it in English?! What is Microsoft Sec Ess and how do I find if I am using it? Sbybot I shall download and I assume CC cleaner is another download?

Really appreciate you taking the time chap - sorry for being so thick!

[Pappa Lurve]

OK, so tried everything and CC cleaner and anti malware seemed to sort it but its still very unstable so I just use chrome for everything now rather than having multiple different browsers open.

Not ideal as I having different browsers open makes spotting what I want on the task bar but either IE has an issue that I can't solve, or it is just a bit rubbish!