Raistlin,
Disabled everything, and *thought* I had found the problem in XP's firewall.
I wasn't convinced though, as it's never been a problem before - and I surf a lot for my job, I notice the slightest problems! I have now switched to the proxy my friend is using (and re-enabled the firewall) - he's on the same NTL connection as I am and having no problems.
I can now see a significant improvement in browsing. Some sites are literally 'there' the second I click the link in my favourites. However, some (this one for example) are still painfully slow. I wonder if I can assume from that, that it is indeed a proxy issue? Why would my 1024 connection be fine though, & my 2mb connection lousy?
Incidentally, I had noticed that OE was hung trying to access Gmail's POP server. Not sure if that could have been contributing also?
Not 100% happy as yet, but I feel much better about it!
