What happens when you type in an address in the bar? Can you give the sequence. Does the address just dissappear? stay for a wile and then go?
What happens if you type a search term in the desktop Google bar? (enable if necessary in Home/select apps/internet search). This should start the browser and go to the search results.
What do you have in the browser under view/encoding? Mine is Unicode (UTF-8) FWIW.
Have you tried a number of different sites?

Just some random things to check (not an expert)