After moving the mouse on to Flash content on a web page in IE6 and IE7, it
freezes for a few seconds, and then becomes responsive again. It seems that
when this happens, everything on the page including links and rollover images
become unresponsive as well.

I tried reinstalling IE7 (during which time I tested the problem in IE6) with
no luck in either browser. There was still a slight duration of
unresponsiveness. I also uninstalled flash player and installed the standalone
version of 9,0,28.

Firefox and Opera are both fine and do not present this issue.

I know this is confined to my PC only as I tested it on my flat mate's PCs.
But I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem or might be able to
help or suggest something to try.

It might be worth noting that when the Flash content is playing audio, the
audio does not stop when the mouse and visual frames halt for that short period.

Solved!

It was a problem with FlashGet 1.80. This version of FlashGet introduced a
Flash download button which annoyingly popped up right under the mouse cursor
when you moused over a Flash object on a web page and must have been causing
any Flash content to pause for a short time.

The latest version of FlashGet v1.82 does not present this problem :)