GOOD NEWS…

I contacted the developer of the application to ask if he had heard of such a problem and ask if he had some workaround.

He had not, and did not. But he did have a new version where development is nearing completion and he was good enough to let me have a pre-release copy. When I replaced the old with the new things got right back to normal.

The name of the application is “MONTAGE” and it has tamed the unwieldy IE for me.
The version I had, the original, was indeed freeware. I don’t know about the new version, nor do I know when it will be ready for prime time. But I will ask the developer and report back here once I have his reply.

regards