Sounds like someone configured it to be tolerable on dial-up and they turned off the pictures. If you right-click the X and choose “Show Picture” do you then see the picture? If so, the fix is easy:
Head up to the main menu bar, and click on Tools, then click Internet Options. Click the Advanced tab, and find the “Show Pictures” line and ensure there’s a checkmark in its box. At the bottom of this window, click Apply, then OK.
I haven’t seen the little red X for years - back in the days of slow connections, it was quit common if a timeout prevented the image from being downloaded, but heck.
One thing it could be is a cache problem on a proxy server at your ISP - some ISPs still set you up to access the internet through their proxy servers (not sure why - maybe they skim the data to target you with ads or something).
Have a look in your internet connection settings - in IE6, it’s Tools>Internet Options>Connections - then Settings (if you’re on dialup, or something that resembles it), or LAN Settings (if you have an ethernet connection to a router)
If the ‘use a proxy server’ option is checked, try unchecking it and see if that helps. Make a note of the proxy server address settings before you do this, in case they disappear after unchecking.
Long shot: If you use Opera, it means you pressed the G key when the browser had focus, but the focus wasn’t in a text box. If that’s the case, just select from the main menu: View|Images|Show images.
It could still be a timeout problem. I get them from time to time when I’m having connection problems with the DSL. The text comes through nice and fast, of course, but pictures do not.
Could it be a broken link? Either someone hotlinking to an image or something linked wrong on the site?