This seems to have turned into the info thread, so, have tried Vista, XP, and Ubuntu, with Firefox, all work well in the off-peak hours. All hang up at around 9:30 AM my time. Usually exit/back in cures it.
IE on both Windows does it sometimes, any time of the day.
At 2 in the morning, everything seems to work.
It seems to be better now that the Who's on line feature left.
I don't seem to be having near the troubles that some are having, so this might mean absolutely nothing.