I figured out the problem - good for other's to know
What happened was that I was checking the options for a parental filter in Firefox - it's called ProCon. If you enable word censuring it turns all the words into asteriks. I think you have to set it up a certain way to make it work proper - I just haven't bothered as yet.
I am having another problem however. I customize my toolbars to show what I want yet everytime I log-out and come on the next day they are gone again. I have to do this everytime I log-on. With the previous Firefox I never had this problem but now it just keeps doing it. I tried asking on Mozilla's help forum - I never got a response. Any suggestions?
Videogirl