Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test. *http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-start-windows-in-safe-mode/ It is possible that your firewall or other security software blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program. Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full, unrestricted, access to install for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process. See: *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Server+not+found *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firewalls *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/fix-problems-connecting-websites-after-updating ----- Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer. Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions. Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan. *Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:<br>http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php *AdwCleaner:<br>http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/<br>http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml *SuperAntispyware:<br>http://www.superantispyware.com/ *Microsoft Safety Scanner:<br>http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx *Windows Defender:<br>http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender *Spybot Search & Destroy:<br>http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html *Kasperky Free Security Scan:<br>http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller. *Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:<br>http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446 See also: *"Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked *https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware