Hey Liz, did you delete the old cookies?
If your home page does a cookie update whenever you open the page then you may be blocking the natural path for that page and the result is a freeze?
You may be able to read the source code for that page and see if it has such cookies?
Do a quick change to Google as a home page to test this theory.
If IE opens without a freeze on a google home page then you can assume that the home page your using has timed or dated cookies.
I haven't had a chance to test your theory yet, however, my homepage is my internet provider, Bell South. I made it the Firefox homepage and it is normal.
I deleted some Bell South cookies very recently; saving the ones that looked like my personal info such as name, password, etc. Everything was fine until this AM.
Before I made the change to be notified when a cookie was to be installed, I was looking for four that I had put in by (not sure now exactly what to call it, they are nevertheless spying ) companies that do "market analysis".
The cookies, according to someone else I trust, are similar to a "do not call" list for telemarketers. If the cookies are in place you are suppose to be left out of those analyses. It wasn't obvious which ones they are, making it difficult to delete many.