On the advice of people much cleverer than me, and following a series of email and downloading problems, I finally dumped Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. It seems that many people "in the Industry" have already done this to get away with the never ending Microsoft security problems and patches.
On advice I had a choice of replacement with Mozilla and/or Opera as my new Browser...... I chose the Mozilla.
I am happy to add that all previous problems I was experiencing have gone.
My browsing (which I thought was OK for speed) has now improved and is conservatively 2 or 3 times faster. I can now zap about these forums in half the time. My email, loading and receiving is probably twice as fast.
Initial reactions to the change - very pleased with it.
As I use XP I have retained the IE etc and can go back to it easily if necessary for the odd built in Microsoft need.