Slowness may be related more to the spec of an old machine maybe also a full hard disk drive rather than it being OS X 10.6.

Most of what I just posted in another thread is probably relevant here too

{/questions/1115622}I am not a Mac user, but that obviously should not happen. Does it help if you give Firefox longer to closedown, at least 10 minutes before trying to kill it or power off. Longer if you clearly see disk activity associated with Firefox after you commence the tying to exit Firefox. If Firefox has issues trying to close down it should time out, and then start to try to generate and file a crash report. It would be worth looking in about:crashes to see if you have any recent submitted crash reports

• Firefox crashes - asking for support <-- but post the crash IDs beginning with bp- as a reply to this post

If you have problems closingdown Firefox it is normal for the next restart to take longer than usual, sometimes a lot longer. This is because Firefox may need to do additional tasks at start up after a closedown ended unexpectedly. It would be worth doing a clean reinstall of Firefox. That involves deleting the program files, NOT the profile files.

• Firefox keeps crashing at startup_try-a-clean-install

Just a longshot: Have you set Firefox to forget History when it closes ? If so try a couple of consecutive closedown and restart cycles with Firefox set to the default remember History

• Does that help ?
• See Settings for privacy, browsing history and do-not-track_remember-history

Also note use of Trusteer Rapport software may sometimes be connected with this sort of symptom. If so disable or remove such software until it is updated to work with Firefox.

Try to start Firefox in Safe Mode to see if that works.

• Windows: hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox
• Mac: hold down the Options key while starting Firefox

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database (bookmarks and history) in the Firefox profile folder.

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file

Note the Firefox 46.0 is not a Release as it is currently on the Beta channel as the current build is 46.0b4.

Also while not certain, there has been talk of dropping support for Mac OSX 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 as early as the Firefox 46.0 Release. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/gXZj0rQWEfI

If this happens then you can use the Firefox 45.0 ESR Releases (separate from Fx 45 Release) as it will get security/stability fixes for a while.

John99 said

Also note use of Trusteer Rapport software may sometimes be connected with this sort of symptom. If so disable or remove such software until it is updated to work with Firefox.

What is Trusteer Rapport software? I've never heard of it

cor-el said

Try to start Firefox in Safe Mode to see if that works.

• Windows: hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox
• Mac: hold down the Options key while starting Firefox

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database (bookmarks and history) in the Firefox profile folder.

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file

I ran the places.sqlite and there were no obvious problems.

I don't understand what losing bookmarks (which has not happened to me) has to do with my problem

deleted response

I don't have Trusteer Reporter installed

Sorry we do not know what your problem is. We do know that for most of us Firefox has no problems.

Without knowing what the problem actually is about the best we can try to do is suggest you check for the existence of known common problems

There are some known, and probably unknown problems with Firefox's shutdown and startup in recent versions plus Many potential common issues as for example listed in:

• Quick fixes if your Firefox slows down
• Firefox takes a long time to start up
• Firefox hangs or is not responding - How to fix

Create a new profile to test if your current profile is causing the problem.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox