I am unable to download anything from the internet... have reset all settings in IE, as suggested by many, and on some occasions that works... but not always.

Have disabled firewall, AV software, etc. Nothing seems to solve the problem.

What kind of files are you trying to download? Are you trying to torrent / rapidshare? Are you getting any error messages etc?

You can always try a different browser like Firefox to make sure it's not IE causing you grief...

Check your system with updated antivirus & malware.
Clean registry.
Unistall browser and reinstall.

First you install the Google chrome browser.clean up all the cookies,recent,prefetch,logfiles,temp files etc.upgrade your antivirus.turn off your firewall in antivirus software.clean the registry files also. After dong these all things if not downloading use combofix.