firefox runs on your own machine, so no-one else will be having a problem with it just because you are. hence, it's working great for me.
have you recently installed a new extension or something that may have changed the status bar, and caused it to load slowly?
click on the start button and goto the programs->mozilla firefox. click the "mozilla firefox (safe mode)" icon. it should work nice and fast but with none of your personal settings. if so, the problem's with your firefox profile.