URL links from programs opening extremely slowly

I use a program called Rocket Dock (http://rocketdock.com/) that is kinda like the mac front row program, and I also use Pidgin. For some reason when somebody sends me a link to a website in Pidgin, or I click on a link saved in Rocket Dock, that opens a windows browser, it can take upwards of 5 minutes for the browser to finally launch. I have had this problem for a few weeks now. Also when I plug a flash drive or external harddrive in and tell the auto-start menu to bring up a browser for the drive I run into the same delay, there is no problem in recognizing the drive since I can open my computer and access the drive. If I click a shortcut to a directory on my desktop it opens like normal.

This is really annoying and if anyone has any suggestions I would really enjoy hearing them. Thanks for your time and I hope to hear back.