Browsers hang and don't respond

About 6 weeks ago, following a Java update and a waterfox update, all potential browsers stopped working or become responsive, except IE (but not working normally, forcing reloads often, and other issues) and also the browser inside of realplayer also worked to some extent.
I am not a big fan of IE (any release) and prefer to use waterfox (since my machine is a 64 bit) . I have tried other browser like firefox, chrome and Opera and none will work, they hang up and become responsive right from the start. I even have to use the task manager to close them.

I have cleaned my machine of any potential malware and virus and whatever one can think of, still no success.
I have tested the RAM and the CPU, all fine.

I have been tempted to reinstall Windows 7 but have held back so far. I am still hoping someone can pinpoint to the issue. I am thinking there are either missing W7 files (not found which one) or W7 is corrupted..

Help please?...
thanks