She denied permission to install helper at first, but that caused firefox to be dysfunctional. Retrying the install and giving permission to install the helper did not correct the problem. Her laptop is pretty much down for the count on this problem - firefox does not come up. Endless spinning beachball. Is a work-around available? It seems there is some conflict between the firefox helper and her VPN, private internet access (PIA) adding the login background task. She's. been using PIA for years. I would try removing and re-installing firefox as a work-around but that would destroy the her bookmarks she relies on. Thanks, Jerry