Web browsers are crashing

Dear folks,

This problem appeared out of nowhere several days ago. I thought it was a problem with Firefox so I didn't dig in deeper and was planning on re-installing it from a backup. (Yeah, did try that, and it made no difference).

No, it turns out that some websites are causing **all** the browsers on my MacBook Pro (running Sonoma 14.5) – Firefox, Safari, and Chrome — to crash when the browsers attempt to load them. This includes commercial websites like united.com and hotwire.com, so I don't think they've been hacked.

When I tried loading the same websites on my iMac (which is still running Mojave), they loaded fine. So it's gotta be something weird on the MacBook Pro.

I ran two antivirus/Trojan programs AVP and Malwarebytes), and they turned up nothing. On the off-chance that my DNS was getting hijacked, I tested it in Terminal and pings were doing what they were supposed to -- returning data for legitimate sites and reporting unknown for nonexistent ones.

I checked to see if it was something in my Wi-Fi/router/ISP, by switching over to using my iPad as a cellular hotspot and got the same results.

So... I think I've ruled out browser- and carrier-specific issues, viruses, Trojans, and (if pinging is a good test), DNS hijacking.

I've run out of ideas. Any thoughts about what I might investigate next?

(please excuse any word-salad. Apple Dictate's fault)

pax / Ctein