Could you try starting Firefox in Safe Mode. Simply hold the Shift key when double-clicking the Firefox icon. When you get the small dialog, choose Safe Mode (do ''not'' choose Reset). If you can start in Safe Mode, one of your add-ons may be causing the problem. If the problem persists, something might be corrupted. In that case, the Reset might be your best option. This article describes what that does: [[Reset Firefox – easily fix most problems]].

You can also try to reinstall Firefox. Do a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder before reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox. *C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installation_directory Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop. *Firefox 17.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible, to cleanup the Windows registry and settings in security software. *Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions. Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer. *It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling. *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by an uninstall and (re)install, but make sure that "remove personal data" is NOT selected when you uninstall Firefox. If you keep having problems then also create a new profile. ---- *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup *http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall ----- Maybe also do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.<br /> You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.<br /> Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan. *http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware *http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware *http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner *http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page *http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller. *http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684 See also: *"Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked