Do you have an Anti-Virus or other Security program running?

That will block until you tell it not to. Most security software thinks accessing the internet is a breech.

Also while I'm here, why are you reinstalling your software, do you have an issue with XP? If your having disk corruption then fix XP don't remove and install other programs, that won't fix anything.

If you want Firefox fresh and clean just use the reset in the Help/Troubleshooting area.

SEE https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems

A possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Server+not+found
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firewalls

Thanks for the help. The problem was Zone Alarm on the desktop. Uninstalled and reinstalled Zone Alarm. BTW, in my original post I did not mean to imply that I reinstalled my XP software but rather just Firefox. Again...thanks