Safe mode of Firefox? (hold shift key down when opening it. Look in start-program list and try opening from there. Or just download version 8 again and go to Tools-options and reset your preferences. On general- type in site you want to open to - like- google.com/ig if you use igoogle.

Many thanks Jerry, appreciate the reply. I was just going to try this when a friend said to reset my Firewall to default settings, hey presto Firefox connected. Hope this might help someone else.