Vista - Holy Networks Batman - I can ping but no Internet Connection

I can not connect to the Internet. Here is the story.........

First of all...I did not have an Anti Virus program at all.....relatively new computer. Vista 32

1) Clicked some executable which I believe (per Vista Problem Reports and Solutions) is the W32 Gaobot.worm.gen.u - Win32/RBot.3eu!Worm
2) I started seeing msa.exe and my system would run strange marketing ads in the background.
3) I would kill msa.exe and some b.exe thing and the issues or ads would go away.
4) Downloaded the free version of AVG and a few other malware and virus cleaners
5) I believe a MS update ran but can not be sure of the timing now as it has been well over a month since this happened
6) All of a sudden I can not access the Internet with IE (IE8) or any other application that require Internet access EXCEPT Mozilla 5.0 /Firefox 3.0.11 (but that fails eventually too once an update for it runs)
7) msa.exe has not run since I lost Internet access
8) I have been trying to trouble shoot my Internet access by looking up information on these forums
9) I have a work Thinkpad that works fine with FULL Internet access.
10) I can do a restore to get Mozilla back but an update runs and then I lose Internet access
11) I can get out to 192.168.1.1 only if I restore and get mozilla back or on my work thinkpad
12) I CAN ping yahoo.com or google.com no problem get response no lost packets but can not get to the url
13) I have performed netsh winsock reset, netsh int ip reset , ipconfig /flushdns, ipconfig/release...renew and none of these worked...rebooted and everything that I need to do
14) removed avg and every thing else on my system I downloaded to try and clean the virus, i removed the trial version of Norton too. I did this because I was trying to remove everything that I thought could be blocking my access
15) I do not have a restore point prior to the virus or when I lost general internet access. Just the point to where I can get Firefox back
16) I bought this E-machine at a store (Fry's in So Cal) so I don't have any restore disks.
17) Tell me what else you need to know about my computer and I will type it in here. I am updating this forum using my work think pad.
18) Network and sharing center shows connectivity on private network and limited on public
19) I went into safe mode but I don't know what that is supposed to tell me, I was still not able to access the internet


I appreciate any help you can give me....