I need someone's help with my buggy computer

THROW OUT WINDOW

Sounds like your problem is browser specific. Slowness is often unrelated. Your internet browser is the first thing I would focus on. I hope to dear god you aren't using internet explorer. Lol. If you are. Don't tell me. Just secretly download google chrome :p If you already are using chrome (or firefox), then uninstall it and install it again. (backup any important bookmarks. Also your surfing history will vanish in case that's a concern) Either one of your browser plugins has malfunctioned or it has malware.

Let me know if this doesnt work and we can move to the next step

Hard to say on part of that - I'd have to poke around some to look for issues. See if you can get a computer savvy friend to sit down with you. One good place to start is to clean up Internet files (delete cookies and temporary files you don't need) and clean your registry. Also, go into control panel and run hard drive clean-up. Then power down then back up. As far as backing up files, using USB drives is fast and cheap. I also have an external hard drive that has enough speed and capacity to backup my whole PC pretty quickly.

Yeah, be careful what you download. I had a bad experience with my first laptop, and experienced a lot of blue screens and crashes. It could be a virus slowing down your computer. Make sure your antivirus is active. Scan your computer from your antivirus because that can detect viruses and remove them sometimes.

Also, try closing all applications running on your computer, then open "task manager." If your cpu usage is running at an unusually high percentage with nothing open, there's probably a virus running. I wouldn't recommend doing anything from task manager though if you're not experienced for the fact you don't want to end an important process on your computer.

Seriously, do not reformat. I'll give you some programs that will help you out. First one is CCleaner. It cleans up junk crap. When you run it, have it go through the Cleaner option, and then run the Registry option. Just that alone will make a noticeable difference. You can find CCleaner on Piriform's site. It's the first result if you Google it.

Also, Spybot Search & Destroy. GET THAT. It will find malware and other crap that can bog your system down. Just Google Spybot - it'll be the first result or near the top, at Safer-Networking.

These are both free. I work in IT. I am paid (actually, overpaid) to help doctors with their computers all day. Good luck!

Is it a laptop or desktop? Has it always been slow, or has it's performance gradually decreased?
I recommend doing a back up of all your files (use an external hard drive of the right capacity), then formatting the computer (basically a factory reset).
Also, if you're on Windows 7, I'd recommend switching back to XP as it's less demanding on your hardware.
Above all, once it's cleaned, you don't want any worm or trojan viruses, or ads; get Avast, which I think is partially free, AND GET BETAFISH AD BLOCKER. You won't believe the amount of viruses distributed through popups and ads, and this blocks them all. It blocks from 5-16 files and pop ups on most of my webpages.

Do the disc cleanup first, don't worry you won't lose any pics or anything. Then I'd recommend a de-frag and then a restart, both of these things could take ages so best left overnight.

so cleaning up the hard drive will delete these things? also I want to be clear .. is formatting the same thing as what you are mentioning or two different tasks all together ( such a Noob sorry )