[SOLVED] Help! Does my Macbook need a cleanup?

I've had my Macbook a year or so and certainly no expert. Today it is just sitting staring at me for most clicks to go to any web site. It doesn't respond for a while and then it will. It occurs to me that maybe I need to clean up temp files (and that may be a stupid thought). I just don't know where to find them. I've been browsing in Finder and Preferences but I'm afraid to dump anything since terminology is different from Windows.

I don't have much loaded on it but can't tell you how much 'cause I don't know where to find that either. :0

Any ideas?
Thanks mucho!

Hi.

Does this problem occur only for web surfing? Do you use Safari (compass needle) or have you tried in FireFox or Opera as well?

In Safari, Firefox and other browsers, under the application menu there is an option to Empty out cache. You should try that first, then close Safari (Safari -> Quit) and reopen it. You can also try to "Reset" Safari. You won't lose bookmarks, but it will reset the preferences. Similar things in other browsers.

If that doesn't help, then the first thing you should try to do is go to Finder and /Applications/Utilities (Shift+cmd+U) and run Disk Utility. Make it first check permissions and then attempt to repair them. If that doesn't help, try to check the disk as well. You should restart (turn off/on normally) your Mac inbetween the permission fix and the disk check.

Let us know now this goes?

Hello ljuvefreya ... Can you believe I had not tried rebooting? That seems to have cleared it up. In the meantime, thanks for the tips. I'm using Firefox and I now know where to find Applications.
Thank you and have a wonderful day!
Eliza

It's often the easiest things we check last