After reading about the problem currently with ie6 and a friend has been infected,
I have inatalled firefox and Thunderbird.

While I am happy with thunderbird I have major troubles with firefox.

After shut down and restart, I cannot access the net via firefox even though it says it is running, I have right clicked and disabled it as default and have re-inabled ie6 as default.
but,
I cannot access any sites via desktop shortcut items or the favourites accessed through the start-favourites yet they work from the favourites accessed from within ie6.

I wanted to give firefox a fair chance but looks like I will have to go back to a previous restore point.

unless you know better...

I use firefox for like 1 and a half years now, and never head any problems like these.

i suggest you just uninstall windows and try if it helps

seriously, it sometimes happens that a firefox profile or session are not really clean and screw things up. Try creating a clean profile, it often helped me. you just have to copy the old bookmarks file and it's ok

Uninstall windows?

Do you mean internet explorer?

I have tried a system restore and that has failed on last 4 points, so I guess there is no going back

Tools -> Options -> General -> Connections (its at the bottom)
Make sure things are correct there.

There are other browsers for Windows that don't use an overlay on IE you know......

yes I found that, now Ill need to sort out some settings,
localhost,127.0.0.1 is greyed out, and when selected nothing still happens, so Ill have to try and find correct settings later when I get home.

Just wondered why it worked first time, unless IE was set to check if it was default and altered the settings?

I cannot even get that far,

I cannot even get it to open or even right click to access settings, Its like everything is controlled by IE.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled.

It is so frustrating.

I cannot find any useful help on google searches, I cannot possibly be the only person with this problem.
I have disabled all firewall and spy blockers in case. Still no luck.

Im just going to have to format and start again.

It seems to me that you're having problems with you connection in general, not with Firefox specifically.

Open a command prompt & see if you can reach sites from there (tracert www.techspot.com for example).

I am able to access all the sites via the favourites drop down list once I have opened internet explorer, and am able to access all my email via thunderbird,

The wiers thing is that any links shown up in the e-mail when clicked will not link to the site and any short cut in the sesktop and the favourites in the start menu when clicked give the error that windows could not find....... please re type etc etc.

yet if I now shrink this window and click on the desktop shorcut link it takes me to the site.

Its like Internet explorer is not quite the first thing that the shortcuts access.

Im sure its a setting that firefox has changed.

Also when I went to delete firefox it was reported as running, so its there somewhere but does not show up on ctrl alt del

ptitterington...just curious. Does you ISP require you to connect through a proxy server?

I think so, as we had trouble with internet messenger a while ago and that rings a bell

The thing is, I was able to right click on forefox and view the settings, I cannot do that now.

If so make sure you fill in the proxy address in the "connections" tab sngx has pointed out. Otherwise, you can't surf the internet.

I just am unable to access firefox at all even a bit, and I have deleted and reinstalled.

I am in the process of backing up work so I can format and reinstall. This time when all is working 100% ill make a ghost image

I'm having the same problem...i think the uninstall doesn't restore the proper reg entries for htm, and html, and url file associations. i WILL solve it, but damn, the time investment to try non MS solutions...i dunno guys... AND firefox should be all over this instead of hiding their head in the sand!

Well I formatted and reinstalled, and have not gone back to firefox, its a pity as the glimpse I had was good. I know a few people who are using it and are happy.

Bug fixes are made daily to Firefox. If you report a bug, it is very likely it will be fixed right away as long as you can reproduce it.

Never seen anything quite like what you are experiencing though. But I'm not sure I understand the problem fully.

I get this error message when I click a URL shortcut to a site such as techspot.com from the desktop or from the Favorites menu at Start > Favorites with Firefox set as the default browser.

I load up techspot.com like normally but I get this dumb error message. Is this what you are talking about ptitterington?

This is a strange bug. Favorites run fine from within Firefox. Maybe it is a bug with Firefox interacting with Windows. Windows is expecting IE but gets Firefox instead.

A bit like that but soon after when I reinstalled it I just could not access the internet unless with Internet explorer. I was unable to access the settings for firefox at all even though it was running.

As opposed to reinstalling, as Rick points out they update files nightly. When you delete and reinstall, redownload the installer with the most recent checkpoint, instead of using an installer that laready gave you a corrupt install.

My first experience with Firefox was a nightmare. Deinstalled, redownloaded, it's been great. Have reinstalled several times with the most recent just to test things (haven't had many actual non-windows bugs), and those have been good too.

The biggest gripe I have is the startup time of Firefox, and that is a function of my hardware, I think... We'll see after my ram gets quadrupled later today after the delivery man arrives.

What do you think about this,

Now that my machine is pretty clear of all the old rubbish that may have interferred.

If I set up another account on the same machine, and download and run firefox, if it is now fine, install it on my account and then delete the test account?

Is it that easy?

That probably would be worth a try, although I'm not sure the account difference will help much...