SLOW loading

My Yahoo! mail is taking ages and ages to load ...........like still waiting after 15 minutes. Other sites are slowish too, but not like Yahoo!

Could there be something about my security settings? Something else? I use Windows XP and an ADSL internet connection.

Try This sit (or one like it) to get a speed test of your connection. That will at least give an indication of whether it's the connection or something with your computer.
15minutes is a looong time to wait. I don't know anything about Yahoo mail...yahoo seems to load a bit slower generally than other similar sites.
There are settings you can optimize to help internet speed, with XP the defaults are pretty good. Could try an optimization program...Advanced Windows Care by Iobit is pretty good.
Sometimes antivirus or firewall settings (or incompatibility with your particular computer) can be a problem, but that is generally across the internerd, not just one site.
Also check that there's no malware on the computer stealing your bandwidth. Superantispyware is good, as are AVG AS, Asquared, and SpywareTerminator. All free or free versions.

Thanks for your reply. I found the Speedtest site you recommended, but it asks about Server Processor and Memory, Available Inbound Bandwidth, Server IP or DNS, and Server Ethernet Speed.

Unfortunately I haven't the slightest idea about any of these, so can't proceed.

Hmmm. I don't recall getting any of those q's to fill out.
Couple of basic maintenance things to try out, and a couple of questions for you.
What OS is it? What is the RAM, CPU, and available disk space? What security programs installed?
'Till the answers arrive, I'm going to assume windows XP, the basics below should work on any windows OS though.
Run a disk cleanup (start>programs>accessories>system tools>disk cleanup)
Clean (delete) anything you don't need saved.
Also under system tools is disk defrag. Do one of those.
Go "start>run" and type, or copy and paste (include the space ahead but not the quotes) "ipconfig /flushdns " and press enter. You should shortly after get a message DNS flushed successfully, or similar. Restart. All those procedures should take about 10-30 minutes, depends.
Does that make any difference?

PS you'll have to re-log on to any sites you were automatically logged on to, after deleting the temporary internet files, which is recommended, 'coz the files that store that data (cookies) will be gone.