How to get rid of Firefox 0.8

[Beartooth]

I wanted to upgrade to 0.9 ; various parts of the FAQ warned me to first
remove all or part of 0.8 ; neither rm nor rmdir seems to work any more,
nor rmdir -r nor -f, much less -rf.

So I tried to upgrade as best I could, installing extensions I had had and
used on the machine the present one replaces. I got something, somehow,
fouled up so royally that now I can't use Firefox at all.

So I *have* to get rid of it. But FC1 seems to have dumped any deletion
command I can find, and replaced with something I can't. 

-- 
Beartooth Implacable, curmudgeonly codger learning linux
Remember I know precious little of what I'm asking about!