Staying with an outdated version of Firefox leaves you open to major, known security holes as well as a potential for bugs and other issues. I'd love to help you fix your problems with Firefox, so you can continue to enjoy it and use the latest and safest version!

First, I would uninstall all unneeded and unwanted addons. Often, issues in Firefox aren't Firefox problems at all, but are instead a buggy or misbehaving addon.

Also, read the article on Firefox is slow.

If you can't make Firefox any faster, please let me know.

To change your Firefox update preferences, please read https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Updating%20Firefox#w_how-do-i-configure-update-31optionssf32preferencessf . But do remember, this is NOT recommended and can cause more severe problems.

Thank you for the comment and links. I tried checking add-ons and updating them which didn't seem to help but since I re-installed today I have a clean slate so to speak and it should be easier to identify which ones might be causing problems.

When you reinstalled, did you delete your old profile, or did you keep it around?

I set it to delete all preferences and bookmarks when uninstalling. I installed version 8 but when I began using that I was updated. However when it opened I had to import my bookmarks from a HTML file. It did show me that I had no add-ons and I'm adding things back into my bookmarks toolbar now. Hopefully the problem causing add-on will have been taken care of.

A possible cause is security software (firewall) 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