Help Make Firefox On Mac Suck Less 375
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Camino (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 (Score:4, Informative)
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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
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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-
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Re:Camino (Score:5, Funny)
In government there are no shortcuts.
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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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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Cocoa Gestures (Score:3, Insightful)
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yes, it is. When I first got my MAC, I didn't like Safari so I *tolerated* Firefox. After much complaining to a group of friends they suggested Camino, and I was instantly sold.
Sure, the releases are slow to hit market, but it's integration and functionality (not to mention it's clean look) out-weighs all else.
Camino lacks foxmarks! (Score:2)
And Camino doesn't support that. It's a deal-breaker for me.
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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.
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Evil? (Score:2)
*waves at Sergey & Larry*
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I use Firefox when using Linux or Windows, and I mainly use Safari on my iBook because it feels faster. I do have Firefox installed though, purely for the Firebug extension.
Re:Camino lacks foxmarks! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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There are probably others, but the lack of extensions had me running back to firefox within 10 minutes of trying Camino. Oh, and because I use Firefox on other platforms and I'd rather it acted similarly on all of them.
Firefox however sucks due to the lack of keychain integration, and because it doesn't read the system proxy settings. Form widgets doens't bother me at all - in fact, I prefer the current setup.
Cheers.
-t
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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
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Yes, but maintaining Firefox for OSX and Camino isn't necessarily ideal. It's probably a little bit of a duplication of effort for developers, and it might confuse users a little regarding which browser they should be using.
One of the major features of Firefox is its extensions. Camino can't use Firefox extensions, but Firefox doesn't quite integrate into the OS. It'd be nice if they could somehow close the gap.
Re:Camino (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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And they aren't illegal, like the GP suggested.
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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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Well... (Score:5, Informative)
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Nice idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well said. I've sat here for a few minutes, and I can't think of much for Firefox, but the Thunderbird list might as well be a mile long. Thunderbird needs Mail.app import and Spotlight integration for starters.
Looks like he's already got (Score:4, Interesting)
Other than that, I prefer FireFox to the built-in Mac browser.
IE tab? (Score:2)
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An IE Tab style add-on that would load the page with WebKit instead of the Firefox renderer would actually be helpful sometimes; I've hit a few websites in the last month that wouldn't work with Firefox 2.* on OS X but would work with Safari.
Yes, the solution is to bitch at the idiots who made the site check for specific browser/OS combos instead of just writing up standard XHTML and CSS, but in the mean time, I need to get things done...
Its kinda funny. (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I find FF on the Mac is also more tolerant of some of the more
So, hey, if they want to make FF better, that's awesome, but to me, it's enhancement, not fixing.
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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
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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
one-button mouse world (Score:2)
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HTH
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Not if you don't want it. (Score:2, Informative)
"Tap trackpad with two fingers for secondary click".
At least on my MB Pro.
Moving two fingers = scroll.
Taping two fingers = right click
I rarely use the trackpad button in fact.
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Of course, if you have a Macbook, you could try clicking with two fingers for a right click. So, unless I'm an insensitive clod and you only have one finger... of course, then a two button mouse wouldn't work anyway.
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Set ui.click_hold_context_menus to "true"
Enjoy!
Out of curiosity (Score:2)
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The speed is g
The old right click stuff (Score:2, Informative)
My Firefox pet peeve - bookmark shortcuts (Score:2)
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That is... impressive. Do you know whether there's a bug filed?
I only have one request (Score:2)
For me, (Score:2)
to be fair to mozilla... (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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Full Screen (Score:2)
respect icc profiles (Score:2)
Sure, I've got one (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, wait...same problem on Linux too! Never mind...
popup menu problem with multiple screens (Score:3, Informative)
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Here's one that drives me crazy (Score:2)
Problem is, if I try to drag one of the windows by its title bar, it will often, as soon as I let go, JUMP to the position of the other window.
It happens if I don't first click before dragging the window. Even though dragging brings it to the top, somehow firefox is confused and screws up.
To reproduce, open two FF wind
Firefoxy (Score:2)
Native form widgets (Score:2, Interesting)
Network Settings (Score:3, Interesting)
PDF integration anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Camino NOT a Firefox replacement (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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Not really useless. It tells you what page you're on/article you're reading if the web dev is competent (ie not myspace devs).
F11 should do what you're looking for.
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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) (Score:5, Insightful)
This bugs the crap out of me, and is the primary reason why Firefox isn't used on my MacBook Pro.
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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
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It's hard to make an app have a native look on multiple different OS's, since they all use different gui toolkits. Therefore, most cross platform apps write a base abstraction layer using the native gui toolkit and have their own toolkit running atop that. It also results in the app looking and behaving the same on all platforms (except that firefox has different default themes for mac)
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Tons of people consider OpenOffice.org to be "Mac compatible," which is like saying a Windows app is "Mac compatible" because you can run it in emulation. X11 is about as far from a mac-like experience as you can get. It's absolutely hideous to look at, and there's no standardization about how interfaces should work.
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Of course, if you find non-native GUI elements so insufferable you could always install Firefox 3 and be happy.
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The little lady gets upset when I close her browser before logging myself into our Mac... of course if I don't, her damn myspace page (that is always up) consumes 70%-100% cpu AT ALL TIMES.
I don't notice any significant slow downs normally associated with a task using excessive CPU... so I suspect that the consumption is low priority (or Mac gives the interactive user/application priority)
Either way, it usually breaks sleeping too. I can force it to sleep, but it never goes to sleep on it's own if sh
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Telling a woman that she can't have her myspace, is like telling her she cannot talk on the phone, get her nails done, wear makeup, or gossip with her friends.
Some women like to be dominated, some just don't know better... but any woman worth having would kick your ass to the couch so quick you wouldn't know what hit you if you tried to tell them they couldn't have their myspace.
I have slowly worked on the issue... and I do occasionally just shut her dam
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I'm trying to let "normal version" slide, but I'll at least laugh at it
The point is I should be able to test firefox on one platform and expect it to work the same on all Firefox's on any OS it supports.
Wow, you're missing the whole point of separating presentation and functionality. What if someone increases font size? Do you handle that? And you don't care
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Native Form Widgets scare me. ... What scares me is the Mac version of Firefox will act different than the normal version, and will cause a lot of problems for my web applications
By "normal version" do you mean the Windows version? Currently for non-Windows systems, Firefox gives hideous Windows 95-ish controls. Under XP it follows your theme. Even third party msstyles. It should be like that on all platforms.
I'm a Linux and OS X user, and having to look at those ugly widgets that are very out of place is very irritating. The only reason I don't switch to Camino on OS X or Konqueor on Linux (I'm a GNOME user, btw) is due to extensions. It's also quite annoying having Firefox
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That sounds more like an iPhoto problem than a Firefox one. I don't use iPhoto, but with iTunes I can drag 'n' drop album artwork from a webpage in Firefox to iTunes and it Just Works(tm).
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Plaese try fixing your own software first. Adium is even more of a resource pig than Firefox.
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I use it for 6 computers, all running different operation systems. I even have it syncing to my work computer. Its great.