Can't open google pages, but ping works

[tyler.maxwell]

I am stuck on this one for the last few days.
I can ping and have a decent speed on any google.com address (client*.google.com, talkgadget.google.com, plus.google.com etc). But opening the pages on browser (Chrome, firefox) is not working. I am in a wired home network, and other computers on the same network work without any problem (a WinXP, two Win8, on RHEL and 3 andriod phones), but this Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Dell XPS15 is the only one with this devilry.

iptables is disabled and I don't have any other firewall, and didn't install any DNS caching. Tried several DNS servers with manual network connections, including OpenDNS and Google DNS servers. nslookup and dig also return okay.

Any page that has anything embedded from google, even a +1 button, will linger with "waiting on google.com..." in the status bar. Other pages like facebook and steam open fast and nice. On plus.google.com, I can only see the main frame, nothing on the hangouts panel shows, and sometimes I get "Something is not right; error 201, 202, 204, 205" or 301 (or a combination of those) and sometimes just a blank panel. Hangouts plugin and app also don't connect. If I click on any link or type address that is google-related on the address bar the status bar will stay on "Sending request..." or "Uploading (0%)..." but never changes.
Sometimes I get "No data received ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE" on google search home.

Other weird things happening: tracepath giver "too many hops" for any external address I try, but they to get to some external ips, including google's (as I said, ping, nslookup and dig work fine on all of them). And if I paste the IP address for any google page on the address bar, I am sent to "normal" google page (with "www.google.com" written on the address bar).

Things that I have tried: other browser, virtual machines with NAT and with bridged connections, clearing cookies and offline data, using incognito mode, creating a new user in Chrome with no extensions, tried other DNS servers, tried VPN servers with Hola extension. The only thing that does work is when I make a dynamic forward through my RHEL laptop. Route table is also "clean" (only entry for local network, local link and default).

I am stumbled, angry and tired. Can't think of how troubleshoot this. My two predominant theories are: google has another address for authentication other the those on the support page and I somehow am unable to access it; or I am maybe unable to send authentication data (because of the "sending request" and "uploading (0%)" hangs).
Any ideas will be very welcome.

[praseodym]

Is there a proxy activated? Or a firewall? Lets check

ifconfig -a
cat /etc/resolv.conf
lsmod

[tyler.maxwell]

Not that I knowingly installed.

$ ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 84:8f:69:b5:06:c7  
          inet addr:192.168.1.7  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::868f:69ff:feb5:6c7/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:20800417 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11711918 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:19163110485 (19.1 GB)  TX bytes:1356069967 (1.3 GB)
          Interrupt:50 Base address:0x4000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1989866 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1989866 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:655186283 (655.1 MB)  TX bytes:655186283 (655.1 MB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 4c:80:93:1c:92:1a  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 127.0.0.1

$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
uas                    18180  0 
usb_storage            49198  0 
bbswitch               13611  0 
pci_stub               12622  1 
vboxpci                23200  0 
vboxnetadp             25670  0 
vboxnetflt             27575  0 
vboxdrv               413934  3 vboxpci,vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt
parport_pc             32866  0 
ppdev                  17113  0 
bnep                   18281  2 
rfcomm                 47604  12 
binfmt_misc            17540  1 
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     32474  1 
snd_hda_codec_realtek   224173  1 
joydev                 17693  0 
arc4                   12529  2 
dell_wmi               12681  0 
sparse_keymap          13890  1 dell_wmi
btusb                  18288  2 
bluetooth             180104  23 bnep,rfcomm,btusb
dell_laptop            18119  0 
dcdbas                 14490  1 dell_laptop
snd_hda_intel          33773  6 
snd_hda_codec         127706  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep              13668  1 snd_hda_codec
uvcvideo               72627  0 
videodev               98259  1 uvcvideo
v4l2_compat_ioctl32    17128  1 videodev
snd_pcm                97188  5 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq_midi           13324  0 
snd_rawmidi            30748  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
psmouse                97443  0 
serio_raw              13211  0 
snd_seq                61896  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
iwlwifi               397012  0 
snd_timer              29990  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device         14540  3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
mac80211              506816  1 iwlwifi
snd                    78855  20 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
cfg80211              205544  2 iwlwifi,mac80211
soundcore              15091  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         18529  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
mei                    41616  0 
i915                  473298  4 
drm_kms_helper         46978  1 i915
drm                   241921  5 i915,drm_kms_helper
shpchp                 37277  0 
i2c_algo_bit           13423  1 i915
video                  19596  1 i915
wmi                    19256  1 dell_wmi
mac_hid                13253  0 
coretemp               13525  0 
lp                     17799  0 
parport                46562  3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
usbhid                 47199  0 
hid                    99559  1 usbhid
r8169                  62099  0

[tyler.maxwell]

I've been tinkering with Chrome net-internals page, and in my very limited knowledge it seems to come down to this error: HTTP2_SESSION_STALLED_MAX_STREAMS . I was looking for the requests that failed and most have the ERR_SPDY_PING_FAILED, some of those say there is already an opened session. I then go look for the one listed, and it has several SEND_DATA and SEND_HEADERS, but then it starts pouring about 30 of HTTP2_SESSION_STALLED_MAX_STREAMS and finally :

HTTP2_SESSION_CLOSE
--> description = "Failed ping."
--> net_error = -352 (ERR_SPDY_PING_FAILED)

This is, of course, when I try to open plus.google.com in one tab, I have no other working.
Does it say anything useful ? Is there other info I can get to help troubleshoot this?