A possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program. Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process. See: *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Server+not+found *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firewalls ---- 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