First and foremost, the version of Firefox you have installed is out of date and a potential security risk. The main reason for this is because there was a security breach at Comodo which is an SSL certificate provider recently whereby a number of fraudulent certificates were inadvertently issued. These allow a hacker to impersonate any site including online banking and the Firefox version you're running at the moment will not warn you that the site is a fake. The fraudulent certificates were blacklisted in v3.6.17 and beyond. See: http://blogs.comodo.com/it-security/data-security/the-recent-ra-compromise/ ---- So what I suggest you do in the first instance is to download 3.6.17 first of all and then check to see if it makes any difference. Here are the steps to follow to ensure a clean installation.<br><br> #Go to [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html Download Firefox v3.6.17] and download it to the desktop.<br><br> #Then go to Add/Remove Programs, scroll down to "Mozilla Firefox" and remove it, choosing to keep your bookmarks, customizations etc., (''don't checkmark the box'').<br><br> #Then reboot and delete the folder called "Mozilla Firefox" at this location: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox<br><br> #Finally run the installation file you downloaded to the desktop earlier.<br> '''Your bookmarks, customizations etc., are maintained in a different location and will become available to you again once you complete the installation'''.<br><br> ---- Also, some of your plugins are seriously out of date as well which exposes your system to exploits. Here are the relevant security advisories.<br><br> * http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb11-12.html<br><br> * http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb11-08.html<br><br> To check which others you need to update, please visit the [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/ Plugins Check] page If you experience a connection problem with any of these, either disable your proxy server, or use Internet Explorer to download the relevant updates, but choose "'''Save'''" when you see the prompt and save the files to your desktop. ''Do not use IE's "Run" option''.