I ran into this a few weeks back, usually having done nothing but check messages. I started opening Gmail in a new tab, just closing the tab when I'm finished--haven't had a recurrence of the issue...

The only purpose of using Safe Mode is to help diagnose whether something native to Firefox seems to be what's causing a problem or whether some extension is the culprit, which more often than not it...

That's one reason why I always use NoScript--to keep potentially troublesome scripts from doing things of no use to me (not just for "security"). In your case it might be a good diagnostic--find out...

I stopped enabling Flash years ago. I'd take the time to remove it entirely, but there's no real need--I don't use it at all, not for a long time. I've had no particular problems yet with 44.

I...

Given how notoriously easy it is to backup Firefox--the profile folder more than anything else, this is something that should be done before any update. (True for any application actually.)...

Best: Win7
but... favorite: Win2K