iMac 11,1 - Safari/Firefox crashes - Advice before I do a clean reinstallation?

[Lifequest]

iMac 11,1 27" i7
OS X 10.6.3
2 Weeks Old

I'm very new to Mac OS X, so I do apologize in advance for being a neophyte.

This only happened after I installed all new updates for Mac OS X via the updater.

Nothing of significant interest except the OS X update about 700MB and Java Update.

Installation was "successful".

However, after this, whenever I attempt to log into my University's "web ct" my safari crashes. I've tried search MROOGLE to no avail.
I even downloaded firefox suspecting the problem be reserved for safari. To my plight, t'was not so. The crash does not discriminate these two browsers.

I suspect something wrong with Java.

Whenever I want to log into the university's system, I would grab my laptop and log into boot camp Windows XP. The site loads fine.

Any advice? Thank you.

 

[nametaken]

I am also having the same problem on a new macbook pro 13" which i got a few days ago.

When I log onto webct on safari it gets to where you can select your subject then it freezes the whole browser, but if i wait a while it will unfreeze and show the page (it takes about 5min to finally load).

Firefox does the same but freezes as soon as I try to log in, but will also load up if i wait.

I just tried google chrome and it seems to be working fine.
Give that a try, I'm going to talk to the IT people at uni when i get a chance and see if they have any ideas.

I would suggest using a different browser anyway because webct is very buggy with safari at the best of times.