Here are a few tips to make FF4 look like the previous version.

• Right click a blank part of the tab bar and click "Tabs on top" to remove the checkmark. Tabs will subsequently reappear below the search bar.
  
  
• Repeat the same steps, but click the top one called "Menu bar". This will reinstate the text links at the top.
  
  
• To rearrange the layout, repeat the same steps again and choose "Customize". A panel will open and while that remains onscreen, you can move elements like toolbars, buttons etc around and place them anywhere you wish. You can also drag anything you don't like into that panel and add anything you want by dragging it out of there.
  
  
• To replace the status bar at the foot of the page, install this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/
  
  

As regards the crashes, please download the free version of Malwarebytes from http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free and run a full system scan to eliminate malware as the culprit as is often the case.

Reset the page zoom on pages that cause problems: View > Zoom > Reset (Ctrl+0 (zero); Cmd+0 on Mac)
See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Zoom_text_of_web_pages

If you have increased the minimum font size then try the default setting 'none' as a high value can cause issues like you described.

• Tools > Options > Content : Fonts & Colors > Advanced > Minimum Font Size (none)
• Tools > Options > Content : Fonts & Colors > Advanced > [X] "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above"

See also:

• Websites look wrong or appear differently than they should

i have malwarebytes installed already, ran it, didnt change anything. still crashes on certain websites like google translate, facebook, ff help.

also opening this page crashed it too.

any other ideas?

Please do the following.

1. In the location bar at the top where you normally type a URL, type: about:crashes and hit Enter.
   
   
2. Right click a couple of the links which look like random characters and choose "Copy Link Location".
   
   
3. Come back to your thread again, right click and choose "Paste" from the menu,

"also opening this page crashed it too". can not do, using diff comp. to access this page

also opening this page crashed it too. can not do. using different computer to access this page

Try creating a new Profile. See Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data and Managing Profiles

nope, cant access help, crashes when i try. tried uninstalling then reinstalling firefox, didnt help ether removed everything at that time

If you have submitted Breakpad crash reports then post the IDs of one or more Breakpad crash reports (bp-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).
You can find the IDs of the submitted crash reports on the about:crashes page.
You can open the about:crashes page via the location bar, like you open a website.

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Breakpad (Mozilla Crash Reporter)
• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Mozilla+Crash+Reporter

Could please clarify what you meant when you said "layout/ why are words covered"? Which 'words' are you talking about?

Can you take a screenshot of it, or if you can't do that, take a picture of it with a digital camera and then upload it here. You'll need to reduce it in size first though. There's a free app called Faststone Photo Resizer which you can use for that purpose, download from: http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm

ive got the words covered issue fixed by use of view,zoom, reset. still having problems with crashes tho.

OK, so you can start Firefox now.

Next, in the location bar, type: about:crashes and hit Enter. You'll see a set of links comprised of random characters. Please copy a couple of them by right clicking them, then choose "Copy Link Location" from the menu.

Then come back to your thread, right click and choose Paste. You might find it easier to copy them to Notepad first.