That has nothing to do with FF. Sounds like your computer has hardware issues. FF doesn't cause clicking noise. Trying to blame hardware issue on FF is a cheap shot. Hardware failure noise is from failing hardware.

Is the 'noise' there only when Firefox is running?

In most cases, a clicking noise can be the hard drive.

What a peculiar response from WestEnd. I asked a simple, genuine question about an issue that was troubling me. Yet you accuse me of taking "a cheap shot"? Weird. Should you be replying to questions?

Thank you, FredMcD, for you considerate reply. The soft clicking noise, which continued for about 6-7 minutes, commenced as soon as the Firefox update was completed, hence my concern that it may have affected my laptop in a negative way. I was very worried that some "bug" may have been introduced. (I have no knowledge of I.T. technical issues.) Here in New Zealand, households are frequently cold-called by Third World call centres, claiming to be "Microsoft Technical Support" or suchlike, telling us that we need to click on a link to fix a problem they have identified. Hence our constant vigilance — and anxiety.

So the noise is only when Firefox is running? Check out using a disk optimizer program.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link} by holding down the <Shift> (Mac=Options) key, and then starting Firefox.

A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?

Just in case you have the NoScript extension installed :

There's a "notifications" tab - when you click on it, you should see an "audio feedback when scripts are blocked" option about halfway down the page that's turned on by default. When you uncheck the box the annoying sound should go away.