Google Earth

I've used Google Earth for a few years. About 2 months or so ago it developed an odd problem for me.
It loads up right away, but when I change from satellite view to map view it starts to load the screen and then never quite finishes. I have removed and reinstalled and still have the same problem. In the upper right corner when I try to open the Map view is a button saying "Open in Firefox". If I click on that, the map view opens but it frequently loses part of the screen.
The Google Earth version I have seems to be the latest version (6.1.0.5001).
Anyone have any ideas on this?? Thanks.

 

OK, I have again removed and reinstalled the latest-greatest-up-to-datest version and it still performs the same way. The satellite view loads up immediately and is quick and responsive. However when I select the "map" feature it becomes basically unusable. I just selected "map" and it went again to the "loading" screen and the green progress bar appeared. I left it and it did eventually load the "map" screen. It took over 7 minutes to do that. When I entered a start/end point asking for a directions response. It again went back to the loading screen and green progress bar for another 4 plus minutes.

I'm not normally a suspicious person, but is this Googles way of attempting to get Chrome installed on my computer?

 

There is a google earth forum.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/earth/browse?hl=en