Some email editors convert a URL to a clickable link when you paste it, and some do not. Just to understand what you are saying: an email program or webmail site that used to convert the URL to a clickable link isn't doing that any more? If it's a popular program or site, someone could take a look and see whether they notice any changes or errors. Do you want to mention the site?

Jscher2000 , thanks. Just trying the simple copy or copy link location from ANY website to past into an e mail, but all i get is html rather than the normal hyperlink embedded as it used to happen. i though this might be some failure of the new version since i did not have this problem with the last 5. version

When you say you get the HTML, which one of these is closer to what you see? I think normally with Copy Link Location you should see the first one (but as plain text; this site automatically turns it into a link when you post).

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/home

<a href="https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/home">Firefox Help</a>

it looks like the top line except it is in black. i have pasted and sent myself an email to check it and it does not come up as a hyperlink. obviously i could copy the black text and paste it into the location bar but this just seems like an unecessary step that i never had before. in fact, there is no option to "copy link" at all, simply the normal "copy" when i right clink on the url information I have tried this on Chrome and found no problem with the correct method, however, I would like to continue to use firefox. I have many add ons that are convenient. As I said, I didn't have this problem with the version 5. I kept putting off the update because something always seems to go wrong with newer versions, but finally I relented and updated. the new problem is the result.

Just above the textarea that you use to enter the message text on the "Compose New Mail page" there is usually a button bar with buttons to add text formatting like Bold and Italic.
That toolbar may also have a button to turn a text link into a clickable hyperlink (look for a chain like button).
You can select the text and click that button to turn the link into a clickable hyperlink.
If you can't find the button then hover them all to check the tooltip of each (e.g. Insert hyperlink).

• Make Link - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/make-link/

I can't read every post here (!!), but I wasn't aware that anything changed in this area between versions 5 and 6.

Many webmail sites require you to manually convert your URLs to links using a little link button above the compose area. If the site you're using didn't have that requirement before, I wonder whether the script that was doing the conversion no longer works in Firefox 6 for some reason. Since I don't know what site it is, I can't test.

Or if you had an add-on that did the conversion, perhaps it was disabled as incompatible with Firefox 6. Have you noticed any disabled add-ons here:

orange Firefox button or Tools menu > Add-ons > Extensions category

(disabled extensions are in gray and listed below enabled extensions)

Thanks for all your help. i see the button you mentioned and i'll give it a try. you're a mensch (good guy)