Internet Explorer and Firefox suddenly show strange string of texts

From a couple of weeks ago, my browsers have been acting up and showing meaningless strings of text on top of the web page or simply did not load the page at all and instead filled the screen with the texts. At first, I thought it was Google-related pages. such as gMail and Google Calendar, but it seems to affect a broader range of pages, such as MSN and Flickr. Some screenshots:

Google Calendar on IE7


KRCLA.ORG on FF

Source Code of MSN on FF

More pictures:
http://flickr.com/photos/krcla/sets/72157602804873097/detail/

My system is a Windows XP SP2 with all official patches, and the browsers are IE7 7.0.5730.11 and FF 2.0.0.8. There’s a couple add-ons installed for Firefox, and IE7 has the del.icio.us tagging plugin plus the usual stuff (Flash, etc)

There are no sequence of actions that lead to this behavior. It disappears when restarting the computer, but after a few minutes of surfing it appears again. It’s somewhat reproducible. I haven’t seem it happen in Flock or Opera yet. (Don’t know about Safari or Camino)

Is this a computer virus? I am running AVG (and some other compters on the network run aVast) with latest virus info updates, and they haven’t found anything yet. There has been a swarm of viruses found in a cluster of computers in an office next door with whom we exchange files often. (But we are not connected via LAN)

String of Texts

On Most Pages
O€BBBBBBB^fBBBBjBBBBz2���������������������������������������������

gMail
O€BBBBBBB^fBBBBjBBBBz2����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xœµVmoÛ6þî_q°Ø^mÉî^ÚƦ‹ Eš :`ÐZ:It(R!)ËNÿ¾£¤øem}™
ØâñôÜsw™ç®‹ÞÈyÔ.zs)Ô=”,°¹6.®B 7˜²À‡´QT×u˜iIc]D<º7±ä¡6Y$ ž¡R¾ñ/†ô€#V,hv¢í¸Œ.½–mÀ“8£Žß18½HZQ™PÙ èÒ÷ÃŽ€”+˜ó®îÁ™ðŒ5ø”„y¹X%×·°âVÄp½¼½é¢Ö¹ˆsH4Ú†µñ*6Ç,F|ßcµP‰®áüZKHÎÞ× «Œ¢”H‹³Þsï™ÎQœpøôì±=„Óe(u{¾BŸaHX¸ýœúJÇ9Æ÷]ÏûÃ36ž¡:S5 /HgÂÞu¾w{íyÿã‡þ½}ý+µq̾¢ÙVÇ¡u±Ö÷YmÛ’oc.EÒŸõW…϶ó:¼0kýkŸØÁoȺ”N)vô®¨�› ½å[D¿OáU†Û’”lÙ2¯F0™’¤Lß½™ÀdrÑüÁ§ÛeÖ¥Ë3ÇMÊŒæ– éȘËÌ#;}Cçß|à¶Ó„Oœ}*¬À¶;^{JJZ÷Nu‰†÷›´½ï)ûû‚ôzHeô=³˜Ä|¸±ÑV§.ür{s½þ·–¦ôë½aF’}ò”¿$-oðËçÕc7ˆ‡³ƒ”¿×Þ¼²íZðܶ 9¡·ìŠ·çdmÂ6XJšƒvü{éí§¿_4Ãm;ý©NßH½+õd#wÁ°ÅoêÞ¶>û:×FÐÉíÏSC(t­Ò8‘š’¬ááϦ“É£X5sŸM­34qi©ÿp7yLšÃû»i[mÞ‰x‡?§Õ}� Þ< Rҝx¤ O­‘t¹fLé“ kû?…ô¸+Ä¢íÕxì/Ì£«³ù÷åM¨ü6

MSN on IE7
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