It sounds like you have a third party program that has taken over your search engine, home page, and/or the default new tab page. Fortunately, this can be remedied easily:

1. Click the menu button and choose Add-ons.
2. In the Add-ons Manager tab, select the Extensions panel.
3. Select the toolbar you wish to remove.
4. Click the Remove button.
5. Click "Restart now" if it pops up. Your tabs will be saved and restored after the restart.

After Firefox restarts, install the Search Reset Tool. This will remove the rest of the traces of this program from your Firefox.

For further information, please read Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page.

Did this fix the problem? Please let us know!

You are running some ancient software, and if you don't update it you are just going to have more viruses and issues. Let's do the following:

• Update Windows. Make sure you install all updates and Service packs. http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ you may have to visit this site multiple times.
• Update Firefox. Update Firefox to the latest release you will have to do this at least twice
• Update your plugins https://www.mozilla.org/plugincheck/

All these steps are critical, you need Windows updates to keep your computer running smooth and secure. You need Firefox updates to stay modern and secure, and plugin updates are a major security hole that needs to be fixed.

After doing all this, try the answer above to get rid of speeddial.

Hello Tyler, thanks for the suggestions. But.... try as I might it doesn't seem possible to download SP2 and get it to work. Have had more success with mozilla although speedial remains. There is no menue button, I have tried all the other buttons and the closest is one that offers to restart with all add-ons disabled. I dont seem able to find out what add-ons exist, so I am reluctant to try this at the moment.

Well, it's critical that you get the most recent service packs, so why don't you try http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875364. After you get SP2 installed, update to SP3 and then update Firefox and let's try again.

Hello again Tyler, I have tried the site suggested and as far as I know, successfully downloaded quite a sizeable file. However when I try to run it (several times) I am met with "product key invalid", "incompatability problem" or simply "operation aborted". Attempts to download SP2 from other sources are producing similar results, the odd thing is non of the downloads are the same size.... odd! On the side, I hve risked removing firefox, and have re-installed an earlier version, and lo and behold I am back with all my history and bookmarks. Of course there is a snag, I shut down the computer one evening but on startup the following day.... you have guessed it ... back to square one. This "thing" resides in the registry, any ideas about how to remove it? Evidently all the data I require is on the hard drive somewhere, do you know where and how to get at it? Perhaps save it on a portable device and re-install xp (do still have the original disks). Sorry if I am taking up your time but any help is valuable to me. Many thanks for the help so far. Kind regards Alex

It sounds like your computer is severely messed up :(

You've got two options, go to a local, reputable computer repair shop, ask them to update Windows, remove viruses and update Firefox for you,

OR

Go to http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/f/56/windows-xp-home-and-professional/ which is a trusted community that may be able to help you do it yourself.