Internet hang and problem shutting down in Vista

I have Vista SP1 on Dell Precision 390 that I purchased in February 2008. I also have Zone Alarm 8 and disable Windows Firewall. I have AVG 8.

A couple weeks ago, I found that after I had been using Firefox 3.0.4 for a while with several open tabs, the next time I tried to open a tab or click through to a link, it wouldn't connect. The new tab will just spin, and I can't open any other connections. When I closed Firefox and reopened it, Vista tells me that Firefox is still open and won't reopen the program. I open Task Manager and try to close the Firefox process, and it won't close it. When I go to log off or shut down, Vista will hang, and the second time, the choice to log off/shut down won't even come up.

I have found that this problem is also happening with Internet Explorer. However, I can ping websites, so the problem seems to be in the browsers, not the Internet connection. I do a hard reboot. When I go back in, the problem sometimes will come on more quickly. If I slowly and deliberately open new tabs, it seems to slow the onset of the problem.

I scanned earlier for malware with Malwarebyte, but didn't find anything. I'm currently rescanning.

My son has a separate user account, but he has not experienced any problems. However he rarely has multiple tabs open.

Any ideas on what is causing the browser to hang, and then Vista to keep from shutting down?

 

Try running the safe mode of FF (not windows in safe mode). If it has no problem then it might be one of your addons causing the problem.

 

OK, tried that but still had the problem. Firefox left a stub of 50 and 100 MB in 2 instances. I wasn't able to get Task Manager to restart a second time after trying to stop the firefox process.

Other ideas?

 

Download the latest build 3.0.5. Uninstall the current version you are using, reboot, and do a clean install of the latest build.

 

I'll try that, although the problem also arises in IE 7.

It may be an issue with ZA 8.0.065 free conflicting with AVG 8 Pro:

http://forums.zonelabs.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=83905

I"ll try uninstalling AVG 8 and ZA 8, reinstalling ZA 8, then AVG 8.

I also had disabled several Windows services. Is there anyone of them that are crucial to controlling clearing memory after a program closes?

 

I seemed to have solved my problem. I did 2 things, but I'm not sure which one worked:

1) uninstalled ZA 8 and AVG Pro 8 in Safe Mode and reinstalled ZA first, then AVG
(and I learned that when I had Windows Firewall turned on along with ZA, after uninstalling, WFW blocked me from even getting to my router! I had to turn off WFW.)
2) I turned off the two services in Link Scanner in AVG 8 Pro.