Browser slow to start

After solving another problem (see "File sharing" in XP networking by eingram),
My browser (either IE or Firefox) takes a very long time before it even
begins to load. I have repaired lsp, winsock2, run ntrights, and reinstalled
XP home ed and SP2. I assume that what is happening is I messed something up
in doing that. ( I also ran some things from server 2003 Resource kit, but I
don't remember what. They would have had to do with permissions and or
sharing). the original problem was that I could access one comp's shared
folder from the other but not vice-versa.
The answer was incredibly simple: I finally just removed file sharing from
both machines,rebooted then reinstated file sharing on both and rebooted.
Presto, I could then access each from the other with both read/write
permissions. But now it takes nine seconds before the browser even begins to
load. Other frequently used programs start almost immediately, less than 1/2
second.