[ThePythonicCow]

Some thoughts as I read quickly over the many replies ...

• I doubt it's the cookies causing secure sites to fail.
• But cookies for moral support sound good.
• As some else suggested, quit madly editing in regedit. It reminds me of a neighbor I had once who shot himself in the foot, trying to shoot flies with his hunting rifle.
• I second the motion to try Firefox. Go to the website Firefox 1.5, and click on the first Download link, for "Windows (5.0MB)"
• As someone else suggested, get a restore disk from HP. Or, if you have more money than patience, buy one. You can get a current Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) installation disk from newegg.com for under $100. See for example Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2 - OEM.
• Check out my list of recommended links, at ThePythonicCow's Best Sites for Computers, Networking, and HTML
• In particular, from my list of links, register at Geeks to Go, and try out these two procedures:
  1. Steps to clean up a system
  2. Steps to keep your system healthy

[najida]

Well,

I just downloaded Firefox and it says

Unable to connect Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at en-us.start.mozilla.com.

* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.

* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.

* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

And yes, I turned IE first.

[najida]

PS
I'd rather NOT spend anymore money, other than to just buy a new computer ;)