Is there a pattern to when this occurs? For example:

• If this occurs at startup and when you launch a new window and when you click the Home button, it could have been added to your home page(s) setting. You can investigate on the Options page: Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings.

• If it occurs on a regular schedule, an open page or an add-on or external application or Windows scheduled task might be making a periodic request. Do you use any Gmail monitoring add-ons or programs?

• If it occurs only when a particular site is open, then I would suspect something about that site.

Hijscher2000 and thank you for the suggestions.

I have been all the way through the Options, including clearing cookies, etc., and the home page is set to simply www.google.co.uk

It does occur on a regular basis, sometime when I am navigating around a site, it will open another tab, but more concerning is that this happens on a regular basis with no activity. I have just been out for an hour, for instance, during which time I left my PC in sleep mode. When I came back, six new tabs had opened, each with this wretched Google login page. In the time it took me to write this rely, another on opened.

I do not think this is happening one particular site.

Many thanks for your help, David

P.S. I should add that this has only occurred since I received an email from a friend asking me to download a document and, like an idiot, I clicked on the link. Pasting the link into Notepad gives me: http://x5.to/6G8

Since then, I have scanned my PC with various malware programs but they do not find anything suspicious, which made me think that it is a Firefox thing, add-on or cookie or something.

There is also a document link in the email and that leads to a warning message that I have attached.

Regards, David

Well, I'm not going to ignore the phishing warning to see what might be on the other side...

Could you open Firefox's Add-ons page using either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
• in the Windows "Run" dialog, type or paste
  firefox.exe "about:addons"

In the left column, click Plugins. Set nonessential and unrecognized plugins to "Never Activate".

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, if in doubt, disable (or Remove, if possible) unrecognized and unwanted extensions. All extensions are optional; none come with Firefox.

Often a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Any improvement?

If you notice that pages will open in Firefox even after you exit it, then that would be indicative of an external driver. Another diagnostic approach is to change your default browser so that externally launched URLs open there instead.

No, that didn't work. I've just come back from a funeral and after 2 or 3 hours with the PC in sleep mode, I had nine tabs open ( see screenshot).

I'll try changing the default browser next.

Regards, David

Do have something called CalendarSync+ installed?

Yes, I do. It is a programme that syncs my Outlook with Google Calendar and that then syncs with my phone and tablet. It has been working quietly in the background for a long while and I had forgotten about it.

I clicked on the Calendar sync button and up popped the permission tab for Google, so I clicked on Allow and that has cured that problem.

As for the original problem, that has gone away since I disabled the Add-ons and extensions, so I will monitor that and enable the add-ons and extensions again one at a time.

Many thanks for your help. I hope this has cured it.

Regards, DAvid

Now I have another problem! All of a sudden, Firefox crashes - continually! It doesn't matter whether I am in safe mode or not. It just keeps crashing. I have refreshed it and disabled all add-ons and extensionsd but it doesn't make nay difference.

I am getting to close to giving up on Firefox and working in Chrome.

Regards, David

Hi David, which crash dialog are you getting?

If you are getting the Mozilla Crash Reporter form:

Your Firefox may have logged some data that would help track down the cause of the problem. You can submit that data to Mozilla and share it with forum volunteers to see whether it points to the solution. Please check the support article "Firefox crashes - asking for support" for steps to get those crash report IDs from the about:crashes page, and then post some of the recent ones here.

If you are getting the Windows crash dialog:

Unfortunately, Firefox may not have any relevant information. Windows may have information in a form that I personally find difficult to understand...

Could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? That temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features of Firefox that might make it more prone to crashing on some systems.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox.

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any less crashy?

I am receiving Firefox crash error messages and have a list of crash reports as long as your arm, so I have taken your advice and submitted the latest report by following the process.

Here it is: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-ef5af577-ba40-4db1-9c6a-ab8d92160313

Here is the one before: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-6b03eb97-d2ad-4bb6-960a-3ddbe2160313

And teh one before that: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-9f7c8a96-b36e-480a-bf81-b57932160313

Let's see what happens now.

Many thanks, David

Your three crash reports point to an incompatibility with your current version of Trusteer Rapport, which is recommended or required by some financial institutions. Can you check for updates? If you are browsing generally and not doing any banking today, you also could try disabling it for the time being.

Thank you for that. I looked at the Trusteer list of incompatible software and discovered that Kaspersky Safe Money is incompatible, so I switched that off and it seems to have done the trick. Firefox has been running since last night and has not crashed!

I loaded Kaspersky a week ago in an attempt to rid myself of malware and it is has been OK until now.

Many thanks for your help, David