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Intermittent hangs would occur when I would use Internet Explorer to open a new main page or new tab to a site I know would be up.

The browser would open and say "Waiting for site example.com" and do nothing more.

If I closed the window and reopened it it would immediately connect. Over time I would have to close and reopen the window to get to the page. This would happen to any page, including Google.

Got sick of it and started using Chrome. I recently upgraded my anti-virus and am now experiencing the same issue with Chrome. I use AVG for my antivirus.

Empirically it seems that if I don't make Chrome my default browser I don't experience the issue. I tested this theory for over two hours yesterday.

Possible issues I have found this could be but not confirmed yet:

  1. MTU settings are not correct.
  2. I am infected but my antivirus has not caught it (unlikely but possible)
  3. ??

I would like to think this is related to my antivirus but I am unsure how to verify. I don't like the idea of killing my antivirus if #2 is a possibility.

I am looking for tips on how I can troubleshoot possible issues.

3 Answers 3

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It could very well be your AV and/or firewall software. I had similar issues with Norton and when I switched to McAfee it went away.

Another option is if you have installed any plugins or toolbars for your browser, such as Google toolbar or a pdf reader plugin, etc. If the plugin is corrupt or incompatible with the particular version of the browser you're using or it may conflict with another plugin or application. You might try disabling or uninstalling these one at a time to see if the problem goes away.

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You might try to reboot in safe mode and reinstall your AV. Have ready the malwarebytes and clamwin setup files, and after another reboot in safe mode with networking, install these two and run full scans (this will take quite a long time but is worth it). After all this, reboot in regular mode and check browsers like you did before.

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I wonder if this is actually a DNS issue, and the anti-virus upgrade is just incidental.

The reason you sometimes might not see the issue on Chrome is because Chrome pre-fetches pages linked to by the page you are looking at. The pre-fetch would resolve any DNS entries before you need them. If that lookup fails and you try to click on a link, the browser will query again. Essentially, this gives each DNS lookup two chances to succeed.

Try changing your computer's DNS entries to Google's Public DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. You can always change it back if this doesn't help, but it's something to try.

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