on my old laptop, my chrome also had been overtaken by adware. It was where sometimes when you click on links, it automatically takes you to some random ad page. I tried to get rid of it numerous times to no avail. I kind of just got used to having to instantly close all links and reopen them.
Now I'm on my work laptop most of the time and everything's smooth sailing on Chrome. It might be worth just uninstalling and reinstalling it? it's annoying because of your bookmarks and stuff.
Back in like 2009 Firefox took a dump and took basically 30 seconds to open a new tab or browser window. Not to mention incredibly slow load times. I have used it off and on since and it still just feels bulky.
Never used Opera, IE is even slower than Firefox, and never used Safari.
My brother has used (and I think still uses) RockMelt. No idea if it's good or not, never actually tried it. But it's a new option.