When I was looking over my settings just now, I saw that I have 'Share Drivers With Other Programs' checked in
Audio->Playback and Recording preferences.
 
I think I set this so I could capture audio and video while running Sonar.
 

I've not found any problem with X3 and Firefox.

The UA101 is the only audio interface on the PC and I regularly use Firefox both to read the on- line help and for more general browsing while X3 is running. I can record sound off the web in X3 using the interface's internal loopback without a problem as well.

I have the "share drivers with other programs" checked, in case that makes a difference.

tlw...I have the "share drivers with other programs" checked, in case that makes a difference.

Thanks for the reply - I have the "share drivers" option checked, since before my Firefox problem, it was the only way to have online stuff play through my interface.  Well, that's actually still the case - It's just that ASIO gets usurped and Sonar can't re-connect to it.
 
It's interesting that some people on this thread use both their interface and computer card.  I always thought the standard advice was to avoid conflicts, and have only one card/interface activated on a computer.  But there are other people on this thread using single audio sources.
 
I am surprised by the responses though - I thought this was going to be an issue for other people.  When I've searched for info online, I've run into many people with the exact same problem, but have never found a solution.
 
I tried a few things yesterday with no change - I dunno!  I'll tinker more when I can, maybe something will fix me up.
 
Thanks to all for their input.
 
Randy B.

Well, the whole idea behind my using both my audio interface and the on-board sound is PRECISELY to avoid any conflicts.
 
Windows never tries to access the audio interface on my system, because it has the default audio device set to the on-board sound.  So, any application, such as Chrome, or Windows Media Player, simply use the Windows default audio device, which as the on-board sound works just fine.
 
And for my music applications, such as Sonar, or if I want to run a stand-alone version of Dim Pro for some reason, I have them all routed to use the audio interface, and its ASIO drivers.  None of these applications point to the on-board sound, so again there is no conflict (as long as I don't run Sonar and stand-alone Dim Pro at the same time).
 
Lots of folks run as above, and lots of folks run with everything sharing their audio interface.  When they run like that, many of those folks disable things like Windows sounds, so that opening a document doesn't play a Windows sound that would attempt to hijack the ASIO drivers.
 
I just prefer to avoid all of that by keeping things completely separate, between apps I want to have accessing the audio interface, and apps that I just choose to route through the standard on-board sound.
 
I hope that helps, 
 
Bob Bone

On my  current Win7 machine, I have run with the internal sound chip handling non-DAW sound and with the DAW interface handling all application sounds. In my case the only difference is which set of speakers are making sound. I do disable Windows sounds regardless. Maybe some interfaces and drivers handle audio from various sources better than others, I do not know.

you will probably find your pc's onboard soundcard isn't default for playback.. when you switch between apps the sample rate etc are different.. remember FF only wants a left / right channel and is probably just using what it's given by windows.
 
if you use an onboard, just get a small set of speakers..  and set ya windows default to the onboard.. use the asio solely for audio apps..
 
or use WDM you might find is another solution "if you must"