Internet Explorer keeps showing up

Well, I noticed recently that when I go to my task manager there is always at least one "iexplore.exe"

Internet explorer has never actually popped up before, but I believe it is making my computer slower and a message sometimes pops up that says "internet explorer is not your current default webpage, would you like to make it?"

oh and also, when I'm running itunes and listening to music, all of a sudden the sound will go mute...

So I opened up my volume control, and the Wave/Mp3 will be down to 0.

Even after I fix this, and put it back on, the same thing will happen about 5 minutes later.

I was told to download the "hijackthis" program and post here about the problem. Here is what came up:

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.4