One more piece of evidence. I ran "firefox --help" and noticed the --display command, so from the SAME terminal session as before, I ran: firefox --display=ripley:0.0 and it ran correctly. It even downloaded a file to the correct box. I also checked to see which box it was running on (can't believe I didn't before, but I never suspected this would happen). Running: firefox - run the program on the local box firefox --display=ripley:0.0 - runs the program on the remote box From the SAME terminal session and same login. Somehow it runs its program on the same box it displays to. I guess I now have a workaround, but I would like to know what's happening here. I'm also wondering if there are any security concerns here. Thanks, Jim