Ok, here's my issue (LONG READ):
Yesterday I picked up my cousin's pc to work on (HP w/ XP home w/ SP 3), as there were pop-ups warning about a trojan virus. The warnings were coming from the malware itself, as it was hijacking internet explorer and sending it to other sites, and giving warnings and fake scans from antimalwarescan.com.
I did a boot/ram scan with avast that found a monder 2 trojan. After using avast to delete the infected files (mostly it's dll's in the system32 folder and infected system restore files), I did another scan, and everything looked OK. Now is when I started having internet connection issues.
I decided to get the newest windows/IE 7 updates, so I connected the computer to my DSL (using my linksys WRT-54 GL router), and tried to update through IE 7's own link in the tools. When I opened up IE 7, it gave an error that the page couldn't be opened. I tried different URL's but got the same error. I used the built in tool to troubleshoot the connection, and it said it couldn't connect using HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP, and recommended I check firewall settings.
-I checked the connection settings in IE, and made sure everything was set to detect settings automatically, and that no proxy settings were on.
-I checked the only firewall (Windows XP's firewall), and allowed IE to the exception list. No joy. I disabled the firewall altogether (along with the protection on the connection), and tried. No joy.
-I checked the connection with ipconfig in command line, which showed I had a good IP address from my router.
-I pinged known sites like google.com and yahoo.com and everything looked good, so I know there wasn't a hardware issue.
-I started up the other internet browser installed, which was Yahoo's own browser, and that started up OK and was connected and allowed me to browse, so I know there's no issue with connectivity.
-I checked avast's protection settings, disabled them, and still nothing. I uninstalled avast to make sure that wasn't the problem, and still no connection for IE.
-I re-installed IE 7 and got all the current Windows updates, and it sill gave the connection error. I decided to install Firefox to see if this was just a IE problem, and FF didn't connect either.
When I installed spybot and went to update it, it couldn't connect to it's server to update. I checked it's auto update settings, and there wasn't a proxy problem. So, I now have a serious problem.
Every program that tries to use the internet gives a connection error, with the sole exception of Yahoo's browser. Prior to removing the trojan, I was able to connect with IE, but the malware would then send pop ups and hijack it. Once avast removed the trojan, nothing but Yahoo's browser can connect.
I called a buddy to see if he ever came across this problem, and described it. He suggested it might be the Norton 360 software or the Yahoo applications screwing with the network access. As of now, I haven't uninstalled Yahoo apps or Norton 360. I think if those were the problems, it would have been an issue prior to the removal of the trojan, but there weren't connection issues before the trojan was removed (even prior to the trojan, there wasn't connection problems). I was wondering if any of you have seen something like this before, and any help is appreciated.
Connection problems (malware related?) 
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