Only firefox is taking forever to open for the last few weeks

Question

for the last few weeks, whenever i try to open firefox, it takes at least a minute to open. the process opens within a few seconds of clicking the icon, but not the window. i've watched the process (in the processes tab in task manager), and the memory usage builds very slowly. right now, firefox is open, and the memory usage is up to 115,000k. all other programs, including ie8, still open quickly, but not firefox. i have done numerous virus scans (avg, malware, spybot, hijackthis, and combofix), and they've all turned up clean. i just updated firefox from 3.6.6(?) to 3.6.9, and it didn't fix the problem.

Answer 1

Start Firefox in [[Safe Mode]] to check if one of your add-ons is causing your problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).<br />
See [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]] and [[Troubleshooting plugins]]
Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems<br />
See [[Basic Troubleshooting#Make_a_new_profile|Basic Troubleshooting&#58; 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"
If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile (be careful not to copy corrupted files)
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox