Applications :: All Browsers Malfunctioning - Page Fail To Load

All of a sudden every one of my browsers has problems browsing sites, particularly with web-apps. My primary browser has been chrome, with safari as secondary. The problem manifests in Chrome as pages that fail to load. Examples would be gmail and some torrent sites. Other times, I get onto the sites, but when I use a search function, it stops and fails. I've also tried safari (tries for a bit then crashes), firefox (refuses to start now) and Opera. Opera seems to work, somewhat at least.

I've already tried some things - thought it was a plugin problem since it affected all of the browsers so I basically deleted every one I could find and got fresh versions. No dice. In fact, when I throw out the latest Flash plugin, it seems to improve things, then I run into sites requiring flash, so I get it and things stop working. Tried repairing permissions on the hard drive - brings up a bunch of corrections all concerning flash. Tried deleting every browser and installing a fresh copy - no dice either.

Finally tried installing Snow Leopard again - not completely fresh, did preserve my profiles and files and just set up the OS. Since this seems also to affect stuff like taking a time-machine backup. Tried 3x to take a backup, and it stops after 2-3 gigs and becomes really really slow. Also, the whole OS seems to slow down - freezing at times - when I have the browsers going.