Firefox Community Forum

I've used Firefox for 20 years through the various iterations of Windows, and have been using it trouble free on Windows 11 since November 2024. Two days ago, however, When I tried to open the Guardian site (www.theguardian.com) it would open very slowly and not load and of the pictures. This gradually got worse, the site taking for ever to open at all, and always with the little dot in the tab at the top left going from side to side showing it was still loading. I have tried everything I can think of. Opened in troubleshoot mode, changed DNS settings, uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox twice (one time to see if it would work normally if I didn't actually sign in to my account). All to no avail. In fact now things are worse, in that the GOV.Uk website is now giving me similar problems - and a few other sites have become slightly slow and reluctant to open as well. My internet connection seems fine, and all these sites open without any trouble on Microsoft Edge. I am NOT very good at tech, and I am now tearing my heair out as to what I can try next.

Any help wopuld be gratefully received!

Jim Luetchford

When I try and connect to a site with firefox I get a message saying "Check that Firefox hass permission to access the web (you might be connected but behind a firewall) How can I get check to see if I am behind the firewall and if so how can I get out to connect to that specific site.

With the latest firefox update all my bookmarks do not appear on my windows11 desktop. But the synchronized booksmarks on my win10 note book and on my iphone still exist. So nothing is lost, the bookmarks simply do not show up on the win11 desktop. With this firefox update I also received a desktop message that bookmarks might not appear because of an interference with the internet security program (f-secure) Unfortunately I did not give enough attention to this explaination there and the steps how to solve the problem.

Can somebody send me the link to this explaination or tell me how to fix the bookmark interference with f-secure?

many thanks thomas

Error message: the bookmarks and history system will no be functional because one of Firefox's files is in use by another application. Some security software can cause this problem.

I tried following the directions in "learn more" but to no avail. Please help this senior citizen get his bookmarks back! Thank you.

My virus software [ESET] continues to throw a warning for this site: https://smartadblock.net/febc/check.php, whether in FireFox or not.

The full message is this:

03/05/2026 12:34:31 PM;HTTP filter;file;https://smartadblock.net/febc/check.php?smarterBlockeruser=5a95aca1-0bc7-44aa-8530-b24c4663d295&smarterBlockerch=75779&smarterBlockerclck=KYYhsXKkLAiq86nMniI_QBbvIGZ_3n5L;JS/Redirector.SWD trojan;connection terminated;TRANZFORMATION\wally;Event occurred during an attempt to access the web by the application: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe (83D3842D579E5B6E2E5B055CCA4FB90933489C28).;08C31D6E8BB70C29570A45FB6BCACD9881E3C0DF;;S-1-5-21-500642325-2770745265-1048253706-1001;

This just started yesterday 3/4/2026

Can someone advise me on this?

In Windows 11 taskbar items are as wide as the text label. I want them all shorter (narrower). See how steam and whatsapp are not as wide as firefox? Is there any way to remove or change the website site text description labels in Firefox?

Why the focus on the search bar on the homepage and new tab automatically shifts to URL bar? I hate this. I cannot find any option to change this. Vivaldi gives us an option to decide what we want unlike Firefox.

Chrome focuses on the search bar on the new tab regardless, duckduckgo browser does same, edge does same, opera does same, Brave does same and Vivaldi does same but gives us option in the settings as in the image below. But Firefox automatically forces it. Why? Looks so cheap.

How to change this? I dont want this. I cannot see what I am typing when it shifts to smaller bar on the URL bar from the search bar.

And most importantly, I cannot change the new tab or homepage with any other search engine, like Duckduckgo or Ecosia or Brave Search, if I had any search engine addon from addon store. Chrome has no such BS show. If I am using Google, then new tab and homepage is of Google. But if I use any search, I have to suffer with underdeveloped same old FF new tab and homepage. Is this intentional or forced?

Edge is opening randomly, might be going back until this is user controlled.

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/why-the-focus-on-the-search-bar-on-the-homepage-and-new-tab/m-p/81117#M31052

Hello

I was reading this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ai-chatbot

In the section: "Select text to see suggested prompts" there is a screenshot which shows pre-written prompts and a textbox from the shortcut for AI prompts menu. Is it possible to have custom promts which are added to this menu?

Thanks

Best

Noah

i AM RECEIVING EMAILS ALL DAY LONG FROM SECUREDJOINTNETWORK TELLING MY SYSTEM IS INFECTED.. MY SECURITY PREVENTS THAT i WANT THESE NOTICES STOPPED, BUT DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

I am getting notices that I need to update my FireFox. I went to update and saw this message "updates disabled by your system administrator". What do I need to do to be able to do the update. Email:[edited from community support forum]