Which security software (firewall, anti-virus) do you have?

Does it add extensions or toolbars to Firefox?

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

• Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#w_8-make-a-new-profile

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See:

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

cor-el, Thank you for your prompt reply. In response to your question, I am using the free version of avast. Sadly, the solutions you suggested did not resolve the issue. Thank you for your efforts, Bridgid.

So a new profile still has this problem?

You can also check your security software (firewall,anti-virus).

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 internet 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

cor-el. I had tried the firewall approach, no luck, then it occurred to me that the problem began when homepage began displaying Olympic Torch animation. Sure enough, when i switch view to no page browser operates at normal speeds. The problem only seems to occur with the Torch page. Can I get my regular page back? Thank you, Bridgid.

See how to disable olympic flame:

• [/questions/933177]

Thanks for the tip cor-el. I think my best course of action is to use a different browser until the Olympics are over. I am grateful for your help. Bridgid.

You can do these steps to remove the animation.

1. set the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref to an empty string
2. reset the browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone pref to the default via the right-click context menu.
3. close Firefox
4. delete the chromeappsstore.sqlite file in the Firefox Profile Folder
5. restart Firefox

• Type about:config in the location (address) bar to open the about:config page and press the "Enter" key, just like you type the URL of a website to open a website.
• If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access the about:config page.
• Use the Search bar at the top of the about:config page to locate preferences more easily

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder

• bug 777784 - Olympics logo in about:home get my CPU overloaded because of animated (moving) css (image)
• how to disable olympic flame: [/questions/933177]

Why not just use a different homepage?

Like maybe - http://www.google.com/ ?

I'm not seeing that snippet currently, <strike>so it may have been removed already.</strike>

• https://snippets.mozilla.com/2/Firefox/14.0.1/20120713134347/WINNT_x86-msvc/en-US/release/Windows_NT%205.1/default/default/

Oops, I forgot to check the page source and it still shows there.

<strike>So omitting step one and not resetting the browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl pref, but only to reset mstone pref and the chromeappsstore.sqlite file may be sufficient to get rid of that widget. </strike>