Hi,
I originally asked for help on a spyware forum thinking that the cause of my problem was of that nature, but it turned out that my computer is clean.
Basically, I can connect to the internet but none of my browsers (IE, Firefox, chrome) will display/load anything. I can still log onto Windows live messenger and my antivirus can still update itself.
I have tried turning off my firewall and antivirus, using the winsock fix, resetting my browsers' settings, but none of that worked.