I cannot use the search function on google or yahoo. i press the search button, and nothing comes of it. the message in the mozilla window just says, 'waiting for google' and it just continually does that....for hours. same thing happens with yahoo. what could be causing this?

i can use clusty. and it works fine. i can visit just about any website i normally do by name, but google and yahoo searching are a no go.

Try working through this:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Error_loading_websites


Also check for malware:

http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Overview