Security update screwed my browser

Question

Hello to all,
I just updated today (a security update and itunes) and my browser freezes (spinning wheel) on some pages. It's driving me crazy. Safari and Firefox don't work on pages like paypal, ebay and other ones. Yesterday everything was fine; I started having problems after the update. I really don't know if it is related, but I would appreciate if someone told me how to unistall the automatic updates I just installed.
Thank you very much. Regards.

Answer 1

Without knowing the level of your Mac experience(s) some advice
about maintenance may fall into an area of no advice at all to some;
while to others, even though it is basic and sometimes totally over-
looked (esp. by new users) the idea of using Disk Utility's ability to
'repair disk permissions' on the Macintosh HD volume, is valid.
You may be able to simply repair an computer or user account issue
through use of the Disk Utility in the running OS X system, or from
the booted OS X installer disc's version of Disk Utility. When this
utility is run from the Installer (note menu bar in header, options in
drop-down allow more than just an install) you can run a Repair Disk
from the Disk Utility; you can't do that from the System's own version.
The booted install disc's utilities can be dangerous, and are capable
of totally erasing everything on the hard disk drive; so use it careful.
Some odd behaviors can be resolved, if you haven't been doing it,
by starting the computer in SafeBoot mode and once you are past
the point it asks for you to log into your admin account, and then
the desktop/finder appears, you then run Disk Utility from the Mac's
system (see GO in Finder, click Utilities folder, & find/run D.U. there)
& then run 'repair disk permissions' - when done, quit that, and restart.
If the general computer system is kept in a good state of maintenance
and appears OK, there may be a need to also consider later browser
versions that are updated and more secure. Also, the Adobe Flash &
Adobe Shockwave player/plugins should be updated. This would also
mean the older versions would need to be removed using an Adobe
Uninstaller for each of them. You can't have a browser running if/when
you are installing/uninstalling these items.
There probably are other basic and well discussed items to consider,
and the simplest would be to start in SafeBoot, repair disk permissions
and then restart. Or, if booted from the Install Disc's version of Disk
Utility, see about the health of the hard drive by checking Verify, and
note the status of SMART for the hard disk drive; also the percentages
of total capacity of the drive that are in use, verses the free/unused space.
The symptoms of a problem may have nothing to do with the cause; so
troubleshooting can sometimes involve performing general tasks that
may help the system fix itself. Without knowing what else is going on in
a computer half-way around the world, there really isn't much else to
do remotely. Except hope you do make back-ups and/or full clones of
the entire contents of your computer's hard disk drive, and do so when
the computer is healthy, and before or between major updates Then, you
may have something to revert back to (you can re-clone a clone back in.)
Anyway, I've said too much; and perhaps nothing at all. It would have been
quicker to have the computer in question sitting on a bench/table near me
and just taking 15 to 45 minutes time and see where my intuition would go.
Best wishes & regards, in any case...
Good luck & happy computing!