hi Phil , this problem might be happening in accounts restricted by microsoft family parental controls. microsoft is intercepting secure/encrypted network connections in order to record and monitor used search terms.

in order for that to work in firefox you'd need to some configuration work in firefox, and install the certificate of ms family safety that is getting used to intercept secure connections into the browser's trust store. while in the affected account, open this link in firefox - then a dialog about adding a cert should display. please check the box to Trust this CA to identify web sites & confirm the change.

alternatively you could also try the manual steps described at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2965142 in the section about firefox.

Another recent thread that might help: Firefox has problems with security certificates for yahoo and google when my son logs in as a child under a family account in windows 10.

Thank you for these answers. The fix lasted for one day. The certificate is in the child's account. I also added it into my account just to try it. Unfortunately it is still blocking Google and Yahoo. '

Can you detect the pattern? For example: after importing the certificate, it works until:

• you exit Firefox and start it again
• you shut down Windows and start it again
• a particular time of day
• other

It worked thru the entire evening and after several restarts of the computer. Again that same evening. The next day...mid morning Google and Yahoo were blocked. I had not logged into Microsoft family safety or made any changes to that account during that time. It's like something reset overnight. I did check to see if the certificate was in the affected account and it was still there.

Hmm, if the certificate was still in the account, it's hard to understand why Firefox stopped accepting it. Maybe a Windows update that modified the certificate?? You could compare what you see in IE for Google to see whether it changed.

I will check and let you know. I am also having issues with Firefox now freezing since the last update. Also when my daughters computer is on my wife's computer while running Firefox will also freeze up. The (not responding )she issue. If I shut down my daughters computer then my wife's will work just fine. Wife's computer is running win 7 pro. I have one more computer on our home network which is unaffected. It is running win 7 ultimate. We never had these issues before upgrading to win 8.1 on my daughters computer. Seriously considering going back to win 7 on my daughters computer.

Hi seaview, having slowness or freezing on one computer affect another computer is troubling, because normally, there should be no relationship... but either way, there seem to be problems going around with Flash causing freezes, so I have some comments on that.

Since Flash is used pervasively through the web, I suggest the following to minimize potential issues with Flash during your troubleshooting:

(1) To avoid unnecessary pain on sites where Flash is not actually essential, try setting Flash to Click-to-Play ("Ask to Activate"). This will delay Flash from starting on a page until you approve it.

To set "Ask to Activate", open the Add-ons page using either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and change "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

With this setting, when you visit a site that wants to use Flash, you should see a notification icon in the address bar and usually (but not always) one of the following: a link in a dark gray rectangle in the page or an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page.

The plugin notification icon in the address bar typically looks like a small, dark gray Lego block. (If it's red, Flash needs updating.)

The delay in activating Flash can help distinguish between problems caused on initial page load, styling, and script activation vs. loading/running Flash.

If you see a good reason to use Flash, and the site looks trustworthy, you can go ahead and click the notification icon in the address bar to allow Flash. You can trust the site for the time being or permanently.

But some pages use Flash only for tracking or playing ads, so if you don't see an immediate need for Flash, feel free to ignore the notification! It will just sit there in case you want to use it later.

(2) A common cause of unresponsive script errors on Windows Vista and higher is the protected mode feature of the Flash player plugin. That feature has security benefits, but seems to have serious compatibility issues on some systems. You can disable it using the Add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. On the right side, find "Shockwave Flash" and click the More link. Then uncheck the box for "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode" and try that for a day to see whether it helps.