I am currently using Firefox 10.0a2 and have no problem with http://www.bbc.co.uk/ and do not recall problems with Firefox 8.

The problem is possibly with your own machine, do you have problems with other pages when you shut down ?

• when you shutdown Firefox try always to use the menu system
  • Firefox Button -> Exit (on Windows)

Are you getting any error messages, if so what are they ?

See also

• firefox is already running but is not responding
• and firefox hangs
• one common cause of problems are multiple sessionstore files
  • http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs#Multiple_sessionstore.js_files
    (CARE you will loose some info, such as previously open tabs etc, you may wish to make a note of them or bookmark them before trying that)

I have this problem too. It's not cured in Version 9. It's really annoying as when I shut the machine down Firefox stops an orderly shutdown - I have to kill it by hand.

It may not be quite the same problem. I can shut FF down by clicking on the Exit button. But when I tell the machine to shut down it comes up with the message that FF is preventing the shutdown. It seems to be connected to the BBC site (and some others) never seem to stop the download - maybe updating the changing news panel.