What version of firefox is installed?

Your system info aside suggests it is firefox 3.5, if that is correct it is an unsupported and insecure version and should be updated.

Your UserID string is odd and possibly indicates you have some odd software installed, possibly a search related toolbar. That could be part of your problem, I suggest you try to identify and disable or uninstall any such software/plugin.

Do you have any other crash ids if so please paste a few into your next message.

• Report for Crash ID 3bde612f-3548-436c-84e2-f15ce2120117
• Signature: JSObject::getGlobal()
• related bug 701130

Some versions of firefox were crashing on start-up, but that should be solved in the latest version, and firebug has been associated with this crash signature recently, presumably you have not been using that.

Sorry I am being rather vague but advice is

1. try in safe mode, only default themes,and all plugins disabled, does that help
2. have you already read firefox crashes, and followed that advice?
3. update all software including firefox itself (may need to download Firefox with another browser or on another machine if you crash frequently or quickly, use getfirefox.com )
4. try to identify all the software you have installed, and look for the searchbar or whatever that renames firefox's User ID
5. please report what version of firefox is installed (Use: Help -> about Firefox)

User Agent

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 GTB7.1 SearchToolbar

I had been running firefox 8.0. I tried to follow the instructions on the firefox web-site, but found them to NOT be helpful. Plus using IE, I was only able to see the pages for about 3 seconds before the page would go blank. Hitting the "compatibility" button would refresh the page for another 3 seconds before going blank again. So I was using my desktop to find a solution to my laptop problem. Links to the solutions and discussions mostly did not work. I was trying to save my bookmarks and add-ons and finally uninstalled version 8.0 and installed version 9.0. It all worked out and my bookmarks remained intact.

The strangest thing was that I had used firefox 8.0 at about 7 AM and had no trouble. At 8:30 AM it was completely crashed and I had not made any changes to my computer except shutting it off and then turned it back on.

Thanks for posting back,
glad you sorted out the problem with an upgrade to Firefox 9.

Sorry the linked solutions were not helpful, I think we try to keep the Knowledge Base self contained and as simple as possible but users in a situation where firefox crashes or has to be in safe mode are often in fairly deep trouble already, often with a none functioning browser.

I personally prefer not to use Windows 7 & and IE, but I do have them available, and as far as I know there should be no problem with accessing Knowledge Base articles with IE . You say:

 using IE, I was only able to see the pages for about 3 seconds before the page would go blank. Hitting the "compatibility" button would refresh the page for another 3 seconds before going blank again. 

I imagine any problem will be with your computer IE setup, but if you (or anyone else) finds problems that seem to be with the web pages rather than your computer I am sure the powers that be will want to know. I will try the last three links I posted above on a Windows 7 machine with IE, if I notice any problems with the pages going blank I will post back in this thread.

(No Problems
I did try the KB links from above in Windows 7 IE8 32 and 64 bit browsers no noticeable problem, pages were not going blank after a couple of minutes)

{Is it something like a screensaver or power management that could be blanking your screens ? )

Note to self
seems firefox has shelved the proposed factory reset options of a clean re-instal