IE and FF work ONLY with proxy settings, but then Chrome will only work without... Why?

On Windows, Google Chrome uses the same proxy settings as Internet Explorer so it doesn’t make sense that one works and the other doesn’t work. Firefox, on the other hand, uses it’s own proxy settings so you can configure those yourself.

When you say “unless I put in a web proxy,” what do you mean by that? It sounds like you a suggesting you malware of some kind with might be your answer.

@styfle beat me too it… I was going to mention that most fresh browser installs will snoop around to figure out what other browsers are installed and observer their configurations for a couple reasons: the whole access to the internet thing, and to offer to import your settings and favorites/bookmarks from other browsers. (and to offer to transfer default browser designation to the new one of course!)

what exactly is chrome built with anyway and why does “chrome” appear as the beginning of my fireFTP like so: chrome://fireftp/content/fireftp.xul

Whoa! Good question. I never noticed that… In that example “chrome” is in the spot for the protocol, typically http or ftp or https… I don’t know what “chrome” protocol is, hmmm.
I can’t get to that URL by the way… fireftp.xul not found from my location.

@anartist: You should make a new question for this.
@dabbler: The word “chrome” is actually used to describe the look and feel or the GUI. I’m pretty sure Google Chrome was named because of its simplistic chrome: essentially just an address bar. Mozilla has been using the chrome URI to specify the layout of its GUI for awhile now (as long as I can remember). It should be a .xul extension because Mozilla uses xul (pronounced zool) to define its interface/chrome. Pretty much every extension (in your case fireftp) will have a xul file that will define the look of the extension’s window. You can read more about the chrome URI here https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Chrome