Safari & mail problems

[paulo1972]

Hi,

I wonder is anyone can help me.

Safari & mail have just stopped working on my Mac (G5 OS X.3.3) when I try to open them nothing happens. but they are showing as open and I have to force quit to shut them down - even though they aren't actually open.

Internet Explorer still works, and I have download Mozilla Thunderbird mail and this works in its place.
i tried to download and install Mozilla Firefox browser but I couldn't install this (not sure if the download is corrupt)

Can anyone recommend a fix for Safari and Mail?

i have run the fix disk permission, but this hasn't changed the situation.

Thanks
Paulo