From your description, it seems that an add-on may me causing your issue. Follow the steps at Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems to test whether your extensions are causing this behavior. Reply back here with the results and with the name(s) of any extensions you have enabled.

Opening Firefox in safe mode indeed eliminates the problem. Here is my list of add-ons:

Adobe DLM (powered by getPlus(R)) 1.5.2.35 false {CF40ACC5-E1BB-4aff-AC72-04C2F616BCA7} Java Console 6.0.13 true {CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0013-ABCDEFFEDCBA} Java Console 6.0.14 true {CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0014-ABCDEFFEDCBA} Java Console 6.0.15 true {CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0015-ABCDEFFEDCBA} Java Console 6.0.17 true {CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0017-ABCDEFFEDCBA} Java Console 6.0.20 true {CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0020-ABCDEFFEDCBA} Java Quick Starter 1.0 true jqs@sun.com McAfee SiteAdvisor 3.2 true {B7082FAA-CB62-4872-9106-E42DD88EDE45} Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.2.1 true {20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b} ShareThis 3.4.2 true {1b8cc170-8c85-11db-b606-0800200c9a66} Page Speed 1.8.3 true {e3f6c2cc-d8db-498c-af6c-499fb211db97} Java Console 6.0.21 true {CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0021-ABCDEFFEDCBA} My.Freeze.com NetAssistant 3.6.4 true {03ED094E-6546-4294-96BD-7714E87DA888}

Here is my list of "Modified Preferences":

ccessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar 0 browser.history_expire_days.mirror 180 browser.places.importBookmarksHTML false browser.places.importDefaults false browser.places.leftPaneFolderId -1 browser.places.migratePostDataAnnotations false browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion 2 browser.places.updateRecentTagsUri false browser.startup.homepage http://www.google.com/ig|http://www.google.com/ig browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone rv:1.9.2.10 extensions.lastAppVersion 3.6.10 font.minimum-size.x-western 14 font.size.fixed.x-western 18 font.size.variable.x-western 18 general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729) keyword.URL http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&p= network.cookie.lifetimePolicy 2 network.cookie.prefsMigrated true places.last_vacuum 1285433477 print.print_printer HP Deskjet 3840 Series print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_bgcolor false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_bgimages false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_command print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_downloadfonts false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_edge_bottom 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_edge_left 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_edge_right 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_edge_top 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_evenpages true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_footercenter print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_footerleft print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_footerright print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_headercenter print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_headerleft print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_headerright print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_in_color true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_margin_bottom 0.5 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_margin_left 0.800000011920929 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_margin_right 0.5 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_margin_top 1.70000004768372 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_oddpages true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_orientation 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_pagedelay 500 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_paper_data 1 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_paper_height 11.00 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_paper_size_type 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_paper_size_unit 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_paper_width 8.50 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_reversed false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_scaling 0.90 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_shrink_to_fit false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_to_file false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_unwriteable_margin_left 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_unwriteable_margin_right 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3840_Series.print_unwriteable_margin_top 0 privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs true privacy.sanitize.sanitizeOnShutdown true security.warn_viewing_mixed

A sceenshot of the offending page(s) is attached

Many Thanks for the Help

Richard Lacroix

Hi,

Thank you for the reply. It appears that the My.Freeze.com Net Assistant is the culprit. Here is how to disable it:

1. On the menu bar, select Tools

2. Add-ons

3. Select the add-on you want to uninstall. In this case it is "My.Freeze"

4. Click Uninstall . Again when prompted

You will need to restart Firefox.

It also looks like keyword.url may have been changed. By default, Firefox will use Google for a Location Bar search. To find out:

1. In the Firefox Location Bar, Where you enter the address of web pages, enter about:config

2. A "This might void your warranty" warning may appear. Click "I'll be careful, I promise!"

3. In the Filter text box, enter keyword.url

4. If keyword.url is bold, right-click it and choose reset

Many thanks. You were right on both counts. I had to disable "MyFreeze.com". The system did not allow an uninstall. I also had to reset the keyword.url. Yahoo is insidious; I do not like that and will henceforth stay well clear of it.

Regards

Richard Lacroix

Richard,

Kaspersky detects Myfreeze.com as suspicious. You may want to do a few malware scans. You can run and update the following free anti-virus software:

1. Malwarebytes (Free version) - http://www.malwarebytes.org

2. Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org

3.Spyware Terminator - http://www.spywareterminator.com

In addition, there are a number of forums you can use to help get rid of your infection. These include:

• Bleeping Computer

• Safer-Networking Forums

• Spyware Warrior Forums

• SpywareInfo Forums

According to the value of keyword.URL I would suspect McAfee to have modified that pref.
You may need to check http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved

Your above posted system details show multiple Java Console extensions.

You can uninstall (remove) the Java Console extensions and disable the Java Quick Starter extension as you do not need them to run Java applets.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Java#Multiple_Java_Console_extensions

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/quickstarter.xml - What is Java Quick Starter (JQS)? What is the benefit of running JQS? - 6.0

Disable the Java Quick Starter extension: Tools -> Addons -> Extensions

Control Panel -> Java -> Advanced tab -> Miscellaneous -> Java Quick Starter (disable)

You can uninstall My.Freeze by going into your control panel, uninstall a program, etc. After I uninstalled My.Freeze from there, the tab problem went away.