[entwisi]

My suggestion of Opera was more about "hey, try this, you might even like it! " type of post. There is a lot more to web browsing than IE.

Most likely its a dodgy Dll with something like flash or shockwave that goes into a infinate loop sucking CPU cycles from your computer. i.e. you browse away happily till it hits a particlar site that has an advert or something on that uses the dodgy code, suddenly you are in swimming in treacle mode. kill it and it takes teh dodgy dll with it.


To find out where teh data is try checking the size of each folder off the C: partition. start at teh first level and then delve deeper when you notice ones that 'stick out' as larger than you expect.( In linux I can give you a command that will report each folder and its subfolders size, Windows doesn't have a similar one that I know off the top of my head).

With regard to ports left open for a browser, You should consider that firewalls are 2 way things, you can open port 80 for outbound but block inbound(firewalls can tell what was requested data and what is unsolicited), similar for 443(SSL/HTTPS) so they aren't an achilies heel at all. As someone who configures security on Internet facing servers for financial institutions I can tell you your safe from such 'attacks' unless you have incorrectly configured your firewall on purpose.