Browsers stop working a while after start-up

[Tom7172]

Recently my Firefox had started not loading web pages after about 10 minutes of being started up, at first I passed it off as my internet having a moment, and when I closed Firefox about half an hour later and it didn't re-open I thought nothing of it other than "it will probably fix itself next time I restart."

When I restarted it the next day, I was able to open Firefox and all was well for about half an hour when it stopped loading webpages again. I tried using chrome and IE, but chrome acts exactly the same and IE crashes on start-up.

When I try re-opening chrome and Firefox, I recieve no error. There is nothing on my processes on Windows Task Manager about any of the browsers. I use Steam to play games, I can use the steam browser fine for any searching, but I can't use the Overwolf in-game browser either.

I've not found anything online that has helped me resolve this issue. I've already tried things like "Firefox -safe-mode" in cmd and the same for chrome and IE. Any help is appreciated, thank you. I am currently running a full system scan using a free version of avast.

 

[paul1149]

Next time you boot up open Task Manager. On the Processes tab click Show All processes and then sort by CPU. Then open the Network tab. Keep this open as you browse. You'll see any abnormal network activity, and the total cpu in the status bar. If cpu goes high switch to the processes tab to see what's driving it. I would do the scan with MBAM rather than avast, personally.

 

[Tom7172]

Thank you for your assistance, I haven't found a reason or a fix but I've found out more information. When starting Firefox and chrome, neither of them reach 1,000 K of memory before disappearing of processes. IE however brings up a window and can reach almost 7,000 K me or before the window stops responding and crashes without an error.

I would use MBAM, but I'm not able to access a browser easily as you may know. I honestly don't know what I was supposed to be looking for in the networking tab. After checking these things on startup I hadn't noticed anything perculiar, but I've never looked at it on startup without a problem.

 

[paul1149]

I was concerned about abnormal network activity, which could indicate spyware. Something else you can do via pressing F8 before the Windows boot screen, boot into Safe Mode with networking and try there.