As far as I understand, the Use system proxy settings option should be the default setting for Firefox, but only uses a proxy if the system actually specifies one in its network settings. Is this not the case?

Unless Firefox is setting a manual or automatic proxy, then you should be able to rest easy knowing that you're not using a proxy.

P.S. Be sure to submit feedback and/or file bugs when you're beta testing! The developers will be glad you've found some issues and they'll be able to start addressing those problems in future versions of Firefox!

No...I am defintely not worried about using a proxy. FF is setting my network setting to: "Manual Proxy Configuration" which results in no connectivity until I reset setting. If I shutdown and have to restart...I have to edit settings yet again. My problem is that it will not stop changing back to manual proxy configuration when I have to restart.

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved

I have renamd the prefs file so that a new one would be created, I have started in safe mode and disabled all addons, reset to default settings, and restarted....only to be back where I started. Losing hair.

I have also deleted my user file and reset to defaults...all to no avail. I have to be missing something obvious.

Does the proxy setting not stay at no proxy?

Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
• http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
• http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free

See also:

• "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked