Help Make Firefox On Mac Suck Less

bluephone writes "Colin Barrett, one of the new Mac geniuses, and an Adium developer, has posted an entry on his blog offering an open call to all Mac users of Firefox asking them, 'What sucks about Firefox on the Mac?' He says he already knows about and is trying to solve such things as: 'Native Form Widgets (currently scheduled for Firefox 3), Keychain Integration, Firefox should have a Unified toolbar (not completely hopeless, it turns out), Performance...', but he wants to hear what else Mac users want from Firefox. So please, if you're a user of Macs and the interwebs, then RTFA, unclog your tubes, and send him your ideas."

Camino

[daveschroeder (516195)]

Isn't this what Camino [caminobrowser.org] is for? Like, the very reason [caminobrowser.org] for its existence?

I.e., taking the Mozilla/Gecko codebase, and making a lean, fast browser with Mac widgets, tight Mac OS X integration, Keychain support, and so on?

I understand the goal of trying to get more Mac-specific functionality into Firefox, but with a fundamentally cross-platform browser, inasmuch as it goes, it's been harder to integrate platform-specific features and functionality into Firefox proper. That's the reason Camino was born: to be a more agile project that is focused on making such a browser for Mac OS X using Mozilla/Gecko. For folks who don't need specific Firefox functionality or Firefox extensions, Camino is already the answer.

Re:Camino

[kadat (1092425)]

Although I'm not a Mac user myself and can't say anything in the matter of usability on Mac OS, I use Firefox on both Windows and Linux mainly because of its extensions as they provide great functionality. Firefox without the plugins is not Firefox anymore, they're one of its most significant features.

Re:Camino

[GundamFan (848341)]

This is exactly why I love Firefox, no mater what OS I am currently using on a box, I have access to a browser I know how to use. In this way projects like Firefox and OO.org may contribute to the end of desktop OS monopolies.

Re:

[encoderer (1060616)]

Ok... have you ever actually ran into a browser that you DON'T know how to use? Aren't they basically all the same?

Re:

[Phisbut (761268)]

Ok... have you ever actually ran into a browser that you DON'T know how to use? Aren't they basically all the same?

They're all the same, except for what differentiate them. When you're used to keyboard shortcuts and added features that increase your productivity, using a browser that doesn't have them, even though it's still a browser and can still display web pages, will be a much slower and more frustrating experience.

I use Firefox constantly. I love the Ctrl+L shortcut that gives focus to the address

Re:Camino

[fangorious (1024903)]

ctrl+k puts the cursor in the search bar, ctrl+up/ctrl+down cycles between search engines

Re:

[zeath (624023)]

I love the Ctrl+L shortcut that gives focus to the address bar.

I have yet to see a browser for which F6 does not provide the same functionality. Mozilla's Firefox Keyboard Shortcut [mozilla.org] page doesn't even mention it. Granted you won't find the 'gg' or 'wiki' pseudo-commands in, say, IE, but F6 still does its job. As for the search bar, I'm not sure if there is a shortcut to get into there directly, but I do know you can tab into it once you have the focus in the address bar. This assumes, probably, that you do

Re:

[chanrobi (944359)]

I love how I can simply type "slashdot" then hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter to have it turned into "http://www.slashdot.org".

I love how I can simply type "slashdot" then hit Enter to have it turned into "http://www.slashdot.org" in opera.

Re:

[Phisbut (761268)]

I love how I can simply type "slashdot" then hit Enter to have it turned into "http://www.slashdot.org" in opera.

I haven't used Opera in a while. Tell me, is that because www.slashdot.org is in your bookmarks and it automatically adds the right tld for single-word URLs, or is it because Opera appends ".com" every time, and slashdot.com redirects to slashdot.org? If slashdot.com was a different site than slashdot.org, would you still get to the right page every time? Does Opera have some sort of magical I-

Re:

[sconest (188729)]

I love how I can simply type "slashdot" then hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter to have it turned into "http://www.slashdot.org".

I love how I can simply type "slashdot" then hit Enter to have it turned into "http://www.slashdot.org" in opera.

I love how I can simply type "/." then hit Enter to have it turned into "http://www.slashdot.org" in opera. :)

Re:Camino

[Paradise Pete (33184)]

And .gov?

In government there are no shortcuts.

Re:

[vertinox (846076)]

Ok... have you ever actually ran into a browser that you DON'T know how to use? Aren't they basically all the same?

Take Ad block plug for Firefox. It works on OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Off the top of my head I don't know how you would acheive the same thing in IE, Safari, or Camino.

I'm sure it could be done, but I don't want to have to spend anymore time than I have to when I'm working cross platform. If I learn it once on Firefox on any OS then I know exactly where to find the menu on another.

Re:Camino

[Oktober Sunset (838224)]

It's not so much being able to use a browser, it's more to do with using a browser without being consumed by an all encompassing rage, which causes you to scream curses upon the soul of whoever designed the interface.

Re:

[mike2R (721965)]

Yeah, I use Camino on the Mac because Firefox is just too clunky, but I do miss the extensions - and have to keep Firefox for occasional use of those extensions I can't live without (Webdeveloper toolbar principly).

Cocoa Gestures

[mike2R (721965)]

Just to add that the one thing that lets me function in Camino (or Safari) at all, is Cocoa Gestures [versiontracker.com], although if anyone can tell how to tie this into "top of page" and "bottom of page" actions I'd be a happy man.

Re:Camino

[constantnormal (512494)]

mod the parent posting up!

Mr Schroeder is EXACTLY correct -- Camino uses the same Gecko core as Firefox, but eschews the Firefox plugin madness in favor of OS X integration, supporting the OS X Services menu, Keychain, and all the other things that tie an OS X application into the body of OS X.

If a person wants to use the same browser across Windows, OS X, and Linux -- or has the desire to customize the hell out of it via plugins, then Firefox is the way to go. If a person wants a lean browser that takes advantage of the feature-rich environment of OS X, then Camino is the right answer.

But if a person wants a lean, fully-integrated-with-OSX browser that looks and behaves like Firefox and supports a zoo of customizing plugins, they're in a world of hurt, as they are looking for the same thing as those seeking a rich, sugary, calorie-laden diet that they can lose weight with.

The whole notion of Firefox is to make the best cross-platform browser possible. By definition, this means not tying it to the feature set of any particular platform. However, to permit users to tailor their own favorite features into Firefox, they have an excellent plugin system of extensions.

The idea of Camino is to take the excellent Gecko core from Firefox, and tie it into a particular feature-rich environment (i.e., OS X), making it as fast and powerful as possible. You don't do that by allowing the user to load it down with a bunch of plugins.

The problem posed by the topic has already been solved. If the Firefox developers want to make it better for OS X users, they should ask the Camino developers (metaphorically across the aisle) what they would like to see changed in Firefox to make Camino development better. Camino IS the end result of optimizing Firefox for OS X.

Re:Camino

[Clock Nova (549733)]

Why don't the just add in the plugin architecture to Camino and let the users decide whether or not they want to "load it down" with extensions. Seriously. There's no logic in their decision at all.

Re:

[Buran (150348)]

Check out ShapeShifter and Candybar. They change the theme and icon theme, respectively.

And they aren't illegal, like the GP suggested.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

I just want FF to not crash so much in OS X. I'm multiplatform, keeping functionality and extensions is important. Camino seems to be most relevant if you never want to move your profile between platforms. I can do that in a few minutes, and have done that several times. The extension compatibility is important because there are very few good extensions for Mac-only browsers, the genetic "depth" of the available extensions is very shallow, I've come across too many circumstances where FF has a few alter

Re:

[Blakey Rat (99501)]

Isn't this post off-topic?

The topic is how to improve Firefox on OS X, not "hey let's talk about Camino, which is not Firefox!" Not that moderators ever mod anything off-topic around here...

In any case, the biggest problem with Firefox is that the spell-checker doesn't integrate with the OS X spell-checker. I'm sick of every damned application using its own spell-checker on an OS with one built-in. Use the built-in one! Duh! I can't count the number of dictionaries I've had to add my last name to, on the sa

Re:Camino

[daveschroeder (516195)]

Uh, Camino is not ghetto. Many people who work on it are the same people who also work on Firefox [wikipedia.org]. The lead Camino developers already work for the Mozilla Foundation. And since its purpose is to take the preexisting Mozilla/Gecko codebase and simply add the Mac OS X-specific functionality, I can't see any logic in your answer: most of what makes up Camino is what you're already using in Firefox.

And since when do we denigrate open source software as "ghetto" if everyone on the project isn't paid (which is frankly the same as a lot of the work product that goes into Firefox)? How did this even get modded up? Have you ever even used Camino?

Re:

[anagama (611277)]

Many people who work on it are the same people who also work on Firefox.

Perhaps then they can work on what drove me away from Camino -- the way it stores login data. If one site has two different logins (eg, gallery and blog), Camino barfs and remembers only one. Firefox can remember both. Or at least this was true some months ago when I finally got fed up with Camino, trashed it, and went back to Firefox.

Re:

[Timesprout (579035)]

It's funny how round here choice is a good thing until it comes to Firefox. Then it's a case of 'but its the bestest browser in the multiverse, why would you want to use anything else?'. Firefox is not the be all and end all of browsers. Some people like to have alternatives.

Re:

[daveschroeder (516195)]

Probably why I said:

For folks who don't need specific Firefox functionality or Firefox extensions, Camino is already the answer.

I understand that for many, the lack of Firefox extensions is a killer. But, for other groups of people, it's not.

Re:Camino lacks foxmarks!

[Blakey Rat (99501)]

Speaking of integration with OS X...

Being able to sync with bookmarks stored on DotMac would be a nice feature that Firefox currently lacks but Safari has. That, and the Safari using the OS-standard spelling dictionary are the reason I prefer it right now.

Re:

[jZnat (793348)]

If it makes you feel any better, Firefox doesn't integrate with anything on any of its platforms. On Windows, it does its own thing usually (although it follows the UI guidelines for Windows pretty well). On Mac OS X, it doesn't integrate at all with the dozens of services that would be very useful for a web browser. On Linux/BSD/etc., it hardly integrates with GNOME (similar to how it "integrates" with Windows, just using the graphical toolkit and UI guidelines doesn't count as integration), and when it

Re:

[ncc74656 (45571)]

On Linux/BSD/etc., it hardly integrates with GNOME (similar to how it "integrates" with Windows, just using the graphical toolkit and UI guidelines doesn't count as integration), and when it comes to KDE, you might as well use Konqueror because Firefox is Peter Griffin in the Million Man March.

There is a way to get Firefox to use its own file dialogs [ubuntuforums.org] instead of the sucky GNOME dialogs. It's still not KDE, but at least it's more usable than GNOME.

(The necessary files may be in a slightly different loca

Well...

[Megane (129182)]

I can think of one tiny thing that sucks on Mozilla on Mac... when ever I copy a bunch of text from a window, it puts bleeping CR line breaks in instead of LF line breaks. Unless I fix it first, it makes text editing act a bit wonky.

Re:

[DurendalMac (736637)]

In addition to that, less beachballing, please. Firefox hangs more often than Safari, which is one of the reasons that I don't use it very often.

Re:

[Snover (469130)]

Macs haven't used CR as the line delimiter since OS 9. OS X uses LF, like every other BSD and *nix.

Nice idea...

[Rufty (37223)]

Any chance of something like this for Thunderbird?

Looks like he's already got

[wiredog (43288)]

all the suggestions I would make. Primarily, fix the borken bookmarks. It'd be nice to be able to order them by hand rather than having the app decide for me which order they should be in.

Other than that, I prefer FireFox to the built-in Mac browser.

Its kinda funny.

[jellomizer (103300)]

I usually use Safari but I don't know why. I have firefox in my dock right next to it. I also tend to get slightly better compatibility with Fire Fox. But... I still use Safari. I think the main reason is probably the bookmarks work better in safari. But I don't really use bookmarks that much. I guess the only feature that I really prefer over Safari that I use over Firefox is RSS I just like Safari RSS Support better then Firefox. If I bookmark an RSS Feed it automatically subscribes me. And there is a search bar right there for me to find info in it. It is not that firefox is bad and there isn't a work around it is not that hard to do a cmd-F (though having the search on the bottom of the window is annoying) It is usually easy to make an app that looks and works good for both Linux and Windows. But for Mac there is a slightly different set of standards. Firefox isn't horrible but if still feels out of place.

Huh?

[wandazulu (265281)]

I use FF exclusively on both the Mac and Windows, and I think the Mac version works *better* than on Windows...the Mac version doesn't get sluggish after opening and closing a lot of tabs, doesn't gobble up half a gig of ram, and I have never had it just up and quit on me like it does on Windows.

I find FF on the Mac is also more tolerant of some of the more ... baroque addons; I admit to being an addon junkie and addons that claim to be fully cross-platform crash on Windows while I've never had an addon crash FF on the Mac.

So, hey, if they want to make FF better, that's awesome, but to me, it's enhancement, not fixing.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

I see Firefox crash on my Mac a lot. Sometimes it just stalls and won't do any thing for a minute. For a long time, toggling FlashBlock on a site would crash the Mac. Firefox on the Mac doesn't allow me to rearrange bookmarks in folders on the bookmarks bar like the Windows version. I have to go to "manage bookmarks", which is a clumsy little program.

I like using Firefox and Thunderbird simply because I can just transfer my profile to another platform and back. I just did that last week when I moved my

Re:

[mike2R (721965)]

My dislike of FF on the Mac (I use it exclusively on Windows - I spend my time about 50/50 Mac/Windows) comes down more to look and feel than functionality.

It feels odd not to have normal Mac widgets - I'm not usually fussed by things like that, but for some reason it bothers me in FF.

The more important thing is that it just feels clunky - I'm using an old eMac G4 700 which may not be helping - but, compared to Safari or Camino, Firefox feels slow. Little things, like I can't select a bookmark from while

to be fair to mozilla...

[owlnation (858981)]

They have significantly improved Firefox on the Mac as time goes on.

I found I had to be very dedicated to use Firefox 1.5 - that release just plain sucked, especially with regard to stability, favicon use, bookmarks, and I found the search bar crashed the app more often than not.

However, since v2.0 things have got better, it seems to be overall more stable and they have addressed the favicon issue up to a point. Bookmark control still leaves a lot to be desired. (Though that has room for improvement in the Windows version too - and I know that's being addressed for v3.0).

I seem to remember reading that for v2.0 they had a deliberate policy of a "Firefox look" across platforms, thus moved away from an OS X looking application. I'm not sure if that is the right decision. Firefox does look odd on a Mac. (And for the inevitable reply that says "but you can use a theme to make it look like OS X" - I'd rather not even try, themes can be very unstable and hog resources.)

It's a tough market - Safari is a great browser, the only real reason to use Firefox is the extensions (which is a great reason, and the one that keeps me loyal to the Fox. You'll only prise Flashblock and Adblock from my cold dead mouse hand)

Sure, I've got one

[pongo000 (97357)]

Fix the damn file associations dialog so that you can not only add file associations and actions from the GUI (rather than digging down into an .rdf file), but that files of the same type open consistently without constantly having to deal with the "open with" dialog.

Oh, wait...same problem on Linux too! Never mind...

popup menu problem with multiple screens

[cyfer2000 (548592)]

I have two screen attached to my mac, and if I put a firefox window in the second screen and type things in address bar or search bar, the popup menu appears in the first screen. Safari doesn't have this problem.

Network Settings

[donutello (88309)]

Firefox completely ignores all system network and proxy settings. Instead, you have to go in and configure your own for Firefox. The most annoying part of this is that Firefox's settings do not have the option to ignore simple hostnames. This makes it virtually useless for browsing intranet sites since you have to manually add each intranet site you want to visit to the exceptions list.

PDF integration anyone?

[cbc1920 (730236)]

I can't believe this hasn't been harped on before. Why can't I open a PDF in my browser window? I'm on a Intel Mac and as far as I know there is no way to do this. Macs have so much built in that already uses the pdf format- why is this so difficult?

Re:

[200_success (623160)]

Hear, hear! Integration with PDF Kit [apple.com] would be awesome. Viewing PDFs in Safari is so quick and easy, since it's natively supported, with no need to launch any plugins or external applications. Not only do PDFs render in the browser window, File -> Save and File -> Print work too! Firefox should have the same native support for PDFs on Macs.

Camino NOT a Firefox replacement

[HomerJ (11142)]

There's a ton of people complaining "Yeah, all this is already done, It's Camino!"

Listen, Camino isn't a Firefox replacement. The reason I, and probably the majority of others, use Firefox is the large amount of great extensions. Ad Black, Flashblock, Cookiesafe, etc. Camino by rule will never support these. That's why Camino will never be a replacement for Firefox.

I'm not saying Camino SHOULD change to support them. They have a project going, and what they are setting out to do, they do well. But it's never going to replace Firefox on OSX.

UNO makes Firefox look a lot prettier on OS X

[spam38 (680467)]

The way Firefox looked in OS X always kinda bugged me, and in my search for a more OSXish theme, I've found UNO. I'd try to explain what it is, but you'd be better off checking the website: http://gui.interacto.net/ [interacto.net]. There's also a Firefox theme that pretty much completes the package at http://www.takebacktheweb.org/ [takebacktheweb.org]. Its called "GrApple (UNO)".

Re:

[Paulrothrock (685079)]

If you want to cycle windows in an app, use Command+~. I'd really appreciate it if Windows behaved this way. Not every window is the same.

Re:Here's a few (more)

[MachineShedFred (621896)]

Recognize when someone changes the network location, and adjust proxy settings accordingly.

This bugs the crap out of me, and is the primary reason why Firefox isn't used on my MacBook Pro.

Re:

[MalleusEBHC (597600)]

Have maximize remove useless title bar.
Make alt-tab cycle distinct windows.
Recognize ctrl-based shortcuts.
Have a close button on the preferences window.

Otherwise it's the best software available for the Mac, after Boot Camp.

This pretty much sums up the problem with Firefox on the Mac. You have too many people who use it on Linux and Windows who want it to behave exactly as it does on those platforms. On the other hand, you have a lot of Mac users who don't like it because it doesn't behave and feel like a M

Re:

[jeremyp (130771)]

making my MacBook want to hoover.

Yes, that really sucks.

Re:

[wnknisely (51017)]

Goto "about:config"

Set ui.click_hold_context_menus to "true"

Enjoy!

Re:

[Gadjet (957490)]

Google for 'Google browser sync firefox extension' this does exactly what you've described

I use it for 6 computers, all running different operation systems. I even have it syncing to my work computer. Its great.