What the hell is going on with my internet (Firefox/Chrome)?

[aafusc2988]

About 2-3 weeks ago now I noticed an issue with my Firefox taking forever to initially load my homepage (google.com) - we're talking 20-25 seconds. On a connection that speedtest.net confirmed to be 37 Mbps down / 6 Mbps up (exactly what I am paying Spectrum for). My speedtest results never change or look bad.

I even tried to get Spectrum technicians to my apartment to test my line/modem/router after a bad storm we had but they said any issues I was having had to be on my computer's end and never sent a technician over - I even canceled an appointment one Saturday AM which is this past Saturday when I decided to reinstall Windows 7 completely. Prior to that I had run a check disk on the HD and nothing came back as an error.

So here we are 6 days later and my Firefox was still acting strange, as in showing a lot of activity in the bottom left corner trying to load webpages, messages such as "transferring data from.." etc., etc. I then found a topic on mozillaZine forums that seemed to indicated FF is indeed having some issues and one user fixed them by rolling back to an older build of FF. I didn't want to do this... but last night finally got fed up and completely uninstalled FF. Installed Chrome.

It's loading webpages seemingly fast but it's still doing odd things as well such as saying "waiting for cache" at the bottom left on any page I try to visit. It may load the page pretty quickly but when I'm scrolling through lots of content (say ESPN or CNN or news sites with lots of stories/videos/windows), I can still see some stuff still load in later than other parts of the site and any site I visit shows this "waiting for cache" message.

I tried just about everything imaginable before reinstalling Windows 7 by the way. That included running CCleaner/Malwarebytes about 5 times total and my full virus scan with Avast. I flushed the dns cache, got rid of a ton of programs in msconfig from starting up. Obviously did a complete power cycle of my setup. Tried web browsing after turning off antivirus and Windows Firewall still didn't make a difference. I never did try Google DNS or OpenDNS... but I really don't see why I'd have to use these when my ISP's have always been fine.

Seriously what the hell is going on?


Specs: in my signature.

 

[COLGeek]

Are you using any ab-blockers/add-ons with your browser(s)? If so, what ones?

 

[aafusc2988]

With Firefox I was using AdBlock Plus and NoScript, but the other day I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it setting up a new profile. It still didn't fix the issue, so I just ported my stuff back over from my external HD. Even though FF has it's own built in way to back your stuff up I do it manually. So even with a clean FF profile same problem.

Now with Chrome I literally just installed it less than 12 hours ago and only downloaded AdBlock Plus. It can't be any of these adblocks/add-ons because I still see some issues even when I try IE.

I should also add that browsing my phone via my WiFi in my apartment is lightning fast. No issues. Online gaming on my PC is fine, from such games as Team Fortress 2, Overwatch and Rocket League. Netflix streaming via the Roku in my bedroom on WiFi is fine... I cannot figure this out.

 

[aafusc2988]

I used AdBlock Plus in Firefox before I got rid of the whole damn program last night. And the first thing I did upon installing Chrome was to add the AdBlock Plus Extension, and even further I went into the settings of AdBlock Plus to turn off ALL ads (it seems it wants to allow some one-off ads, but says you can disable this to have no ads at all). Funny thing I tried a webpage and still saw one ad at the top of the page that loaded this morning..

 

[aafusc2988]

I'm complaining about mere seconds but I just don't recall my browsers ever acting even this slow. Should I just deal with it? I mean I don't know what else to try except Google DNS or OpenDNS and I rather not do that.

 

[aafusc2988]

How can I completely remove Firefox from my computer? I uninstalled it via normal means (Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs --> Mozilla Firefox --> Uninstall). But I know Firefox leaves behind a folder in %APPDATA% and my computer won't let me delete the folder. Says I need permission, despite the fact I am the administrator. How do I get rid of this folder, which also contains the profiles/extensions/etc. I do not need it anymore, and if I do get Firefox again I'll just install fresh and import the settings from my external HDD.