gfretwell wrote:

Safe mode certainly makes it better. I am thinking about just using
safe mode all the time.

Safe mode uses some default settings but mostly disables all extensions
which make my wonder if you really had all extensions disabled before.

You can have Firefox go into safe mode only by using a -safe-mode
command-line switch. That will work if you always load Firefox using a
command line, like for a shortcut. When you click on a hyperlink, you
won't have the -safe-mode switch to load Firefox in its safe mode. For
example, when you click on a hyperlink in an e-mail, Firefox will load
in its normal (non-safe) mode which is when you have problems.

Since safe mode worked, and to eliminate having to somehow get Firefox
always loaded in safe mode, instead create a new Firefox profile. That
won't have any extensions installed, no changes by any extensions (since
none installed yet), and get rid of any tweaks on about:config that you
might've made that perhaps cause the problem. A new profile gives you
the equivalent of a clean install of Firefox.