Do Browsers get corrupt?

[martosprint]

Would like to know if browsers could get corrupted requiring an uninstall and a re-install. It seems that is exactly what happened to me using Camino and Firefox browsers. To be brief my home page on Camino would come up when opened and a few seconds later revert to a blank white screen still showing my home page CNN in the address bar. I checked and rechecked everything and still got the same result. At the same time the CPU usage was spiking and the browser became unresponsive requiring a force quit. I re-installed Camino and changed my home page to another news organization and everything is fine. So my question is: do browsers go ape sometimes and have to be re-installed? The computer is working fine with no problems. 
thanks for a reply.

 

[GGJstudios]

Would like to know if browsers could get corrupted requiring an uninstall and a re-install. It seems that is exactly what happened to me using Camino and Firefox browsers. To be brief my home page on Camino would come up when opened and a few seconds later revert to a blank white screen still showing my home page CNN in the address bar. I checked and rechecked everything and still got the same result. At the same time the CPU usage was spiking and the browser became unresponsive requiring a force quit. I re-installed Camino and changed my home page to another news organization and everything is fine. So my question is: do browsers go ape sometimes and have to be re-installed? The computer is working fine with no problems. 
thanks for a reply.

It's less likely that your browser itself is corrupt. Just empty your cache and cookies, and make sure you don't have any plug-ins or extensions that could be causing problems. If you haven't already done so, try changing your DNS servers on your Mac and your router to OpenDNS servers. This will show you how: Why am I being redirected to other sites?

 

[Weaselboy]

Ordinarily the app itself is not corrupted, but a settings .plist file or cache folder related to the app can get corrupted.

 

[martosprint]

Okay guys, thanks for the replies. I always empty the cache and history at the end of the day. It seems that the problem or whatever was causing it has cleared up. Thanks for the responses. 