Occasional strange characters

Every so often I will get some strange characters show up on my computer. These characters can be in an e mail, or other sites . There does not seem to be any one particular type of document. They can appear on IE 7, Firefox etc.
Here is an example that appeared on a "Delaware on line" article that I was viewing on Firefox.
"He was “less than cooperative†with police."

Using Windows XP home
Budo

 

Hey,
Do you have any language packs installed?

 

Dale456654
No I don't have any
Budo

 

How long has this been happening, could you do a system restore to the time before it started happening?

If you have another account on the computer log into that to see if the problem is still there. If not try the administrator account.

 

This has been going on back several months so I don't have a restore point that would be usable. The first time it happened I thought thats strange then forgot about it but it still happens. I remember once when it occured on a government site I wrote to the webmaster of that site and he replied that they were aware of it and were looking into it but as I indicated in original post it is a random occurence. Also I have administrator rights.
Budo

 

G'DAy "Budo ",

I trust you are reasonably Computer Savvy,
1. What is your Operating System please
2. Can you please check your "Regional and Language Options" in the Control Panel to ensure that the correct Regional options are selected (should all be the same language selections) - checking also the "Customize" setting to correspond to the language selections
- and that the keyboard setting also reflect the character set for the language setting and keyboard layout

pcbugfixer

 

G'DAy "Budo ",

I also visited the site and no erroneous characters appeared whilst I browsed the site and 30+ pages!

I, as a standard procedure, investigate the report in a post before I comment.

It is obviously not occurring with everyone, so do the checks anyway to make sure your PC settings are correct - you loose nothing by doing so !!

Clear your temp files and clear the temp Internet files and then re-visit the site.
- After re-entering the URL of the site, hold the shift key down and then press enter, the let go of the shift key - this forces a fresh load of the page of the site.

pcbugfixer

 

Have checked Regional & Language options and they are all as they should be as far as I can tell. Unfortunately the sites that showed these strange characters have been deleted. As I had indicated they seem to occur only occasionally so I cannot remember individual ones. Can we leave this open so that the next one that occurs I can provide a link to it ?
I am using Windows XP Home
I appreciate all of you suggestions.
Budo

 

I realize that but was just hoping that might. As I said I will post again when it happens.
Thanks