Solved Am I infected?

[Broni]

if I hover my mouse pointer at the bottom of the window I can see it running through all sorts of things to load, e.g. on this techspot page it says, waiting for adserver, waiting for googleads etc.

It has nothing to do with you but with those pages.

As for other two questions I'd suggest new topic in Windows forum.

 

[Broni]

The issue seems to be resolved.