Firefox on Mac OS X Annoyances

The show killer for me is Firefox's inability to respond to middle clicking a link to open the link in a new tab. I live by that feature in Safari.

I actually like not having a close tab button on each tab. On Safari, I'm constantly closing tabs by accident. It's especially dangerous because as tabs are opened or closed, those close buttons move around. Sometimes I try to click to change tabs, but by the time the mouse click is recognized the spot where I had clicked (right in the middle of a tab) has become a close button, and I end up closing something I didn't mean to.

Well, instead of using Firefox you could use Camino instead. Still a mozilla variant, but a lot more OS X friendly. (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/camino/)

Try Camino, it feels better than Firefox on OS X to me. Full disclosure, it only missing 2 things that Firefox has:

1. Accesskey support
2. JavaScript Console

I was gonna say that middle scrolling button on the mouse closes tabs, but you don't have one on a mac do ya?

Oddly enough, I posted on this topic on Wednesday, but with slightly different annoyances. (All we had in common was the "close tab" button placement.) I also noted that "load my home page" doesn't have a keyboard command (there's already a bug filed for that) but my biggest annoyance was that clicking links from Mail or NetNewsWire opened new windows, not new tabs. That's a problem because I click a lot of links in Mail and NetNewsWire.

I wound up going to Camino, as several people have suggested; it's the best of both worlds.

Mellissa, option-click (or right-click if you've got a multi-button mouse or trackball) opens a menu on the tab... but the point is to have a one-click or one-keystroke solution. (I've been conditioned to think of splat-W as "close this window and everything in it," and I can't bring myself to think of it as "close this tab, but not the window it's in.")

Yeah, Camino is cool. The key bindings Work Right and it's fast, but Firefox plug-ins don't work with it. And there are many cools ones I'd love to have. I don't see that in the Camino world. :-(

I use three. :) IE for printing.

Good thing the debug toolbar in Safari has the option to "Open Page With..." (IE, Firebox, etc.)

I'm pretty sure the Tabbed Browser Extension allows for a close widget on each tab. Though I believe that the Tabbed Browser Extension doesn't currently work on Mac OS X. You just can't win, eh?

(Long-time reader, first-time commenter.)

1. Cmd-M in Firefox for me opens Mail with a new message - very strange indeed. And definitely something that should be fixed; I tried to change this using the Keyboard Shortcuts panel in the System Preferences, but Cmd-M wasn't an option. (It kept beeping when I typed that.) Personally, I always use Cmd-H instead of minimizing.

2. Don't know much about emacs, myself, so I can't help here.

3. There's an extension available that adds a close button to every tab:
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/tabx

But it doesn't seem to work for Mac. (Why do none of the truly useful tab extensions work for Mac - is the tab UI that much different between Windows and Mac?! I personally want Tabbrowser Preferences to work on mac - TBE was getting way too bloated for my taste.)

@Justin: I've got middle click working to open links in a new tab. I had to go to System Preferences and to my mouse's specific settings (MS Intellimouse Optical) and set the scroll wheel to cmd-click in Firefox. If you need assistance, just send me an email from my website (which should be linked with the comment).

Anyway, to add to your list of annoyances - I would prefer more tab preferences in Firefox without extensions. One thing I love about Omniweb is that it's possible to set it to "single window mode" where all links open in the same window, and new domains open in a new tab. (This is my preferred browsing method since I click interesting links as I read, but generally want to finish what I started first.)

My biggest firefox-OS X annoyance is that you can't use the up or down arrows to jump to the beginning or end of an input field you're currently in.

Bad enough if they followed the Windows model and only supported Home and End for jumping to the beginning of the first line or end of the last, but those don't work either!

Just FYI, I was looking at the Firefox Roadmap (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/roadmap.html) the other day, and I noticed the following "Anticipated further Release Candidates" (after it hits 1.0 on the PC):

1.0PR2 (MacOS X) - Aquafication release. Focus on outstanding UI issues particular to MacOS X, redevelop UI to support cross platform nature, etc.

1.0 (PC) is actually listed as 1.0 alpha 2 for the Mac.

Dunno if this really makes any difference or not, but I would assume that your complaints would fall under UI issues.

One of my favorite extensions on Windows for firefox is "Single Window" - very simple, little configuration. It just makes new windows open in new tabs instead of windows.

For whatever reason, this extension doesn't like the Mac version of firefox. Its a known problem to the author of the extension, but it would be nice to have that some functionality on the Mac.

One of my biggest annoyances is that Firefox seems to partially die on complex/long documents. (Most notably the Zope book on plope.com)

Basically, it loads it, but doesn't display it. You can switch tabs, but the page doesn't actually change. If you close the window altogether, you can repeat the process again.

Oddly enough, Mozilla on the same machine doesn't do it on the same pages. Neither does Safari.

I had the same feeling on the "close tab" button, but now I've actually come to like Firefox's functionality better. I tend to get a lot of tabs open at once and find myself needing to close several at a time. With Safari, I close the tab, relocate the close tab button on the next tab, close it, and so forth. With Firefox, I can just leave the mouse in one place and click until all the windows I want to be closed are closed.

Hi Jeremy,

You might want to try this for emacs bindings: http://todbot.com/blog/2003/11/11/#mozillakeys

I try to keep a record of how I've hacked my machine here:

http://www.sauria.com/blog/articles/mac-tips-and-tricks.html

Ted

Main complaint: it doesn't show menus until I have switched virtual screen back and forth. And unless I do this, I don't get to input any text either. This is true with both CodeTek's Virtual Desktop and the open source Virtual Desktop. Bah! Main browser: Safari. Happy? Not particularly, I like FireFox too much

Yeah, those really are very very very small complaints. And pretty obscure and obtuse too - who but the biggest and ancient computer geek knows emacs key bindings? Apple-M? Why should the world adopt the standards of a platform with less than 5% distribution? Close tab in wrong place? Is it REALLY that difficult to move the mouse over to it? Or double click a tab to close it? OR right click and select "close"? Wow.

Finally, South Park sucks. People over 30 still watch infantile cartoons geared toward adolescents?

What about Firefox's annoying phantom window when you use Expose? That's what got me using Camino...

I have some hope that the two extra Mac OS X releases in the Firefox roadmap will fix UI bugs like these. I'm not holding my breath about getting the close tab button moved, though. Safari's button placement is better, but it doesn't leave room for the favicon, and I do like having the favicon on every tab.

There is an extension that adds a "close tab" button to the right corner of every tab.

But it doesn't work in OS X. For some reason.

CTRL+F4 closes tabs in Windows, try that for a keyboard shortcut.

Two of my biggest annoyances with Firefox on OS X is its lack of styling form elements as nice aqua buttons, and it's non-OS X look and feel.

Firefox's default theme looks okay on Windows and Linux, but comparing it against all of the nice Aqua and brushed metal interfaces of OS X just make Firefox feel out of place.

There's many more little annoyances I could list but let's hope the Mozilla team gets it right before 1.0 - the world is watching.

My biggest annoyance is that Firefox opens sheets instead of dialogs (for preferences and about).

My second biggest annoyance is that it doesn't pick system wide preferences (like proxies) or system wide prefs (like homepage).

Until then it will be relegated to only occasional useage.

Wow, I've never seen such nit-pickers of such tiny trivial pretty insignificant things. Or do people just have a bone to pick because Yahoo has coded their site so that it doesn't work well with Firefox (nor adhere to standards)?

Instead of using the tab extension try modifying your userChrome.css:

/* tabs at left */
#content > tabbox {
-moz-box-orient: horizontal;
}
.tabbrowser-strip {
-moz-box-orient: vertical;
/* note: you can set this to -moz-scrollbars-vertical instead,
but then the scrollbar will *always* be visible. this way
there is never a scrollbar, so it behaves like the tab bar
normally does */
overflow: -moz-scrollbars-none;
}
.tabbrowser-tabs {
-moz-box-orient: horizontal;
min-width: 20ex; /* you may want to increase this value */
-mox-box-pack: start;
-moz-box-align: start;
}
.tabbrowser-tabs > hbox {
-moz-box-orient: vertical;
-moz-box-align: stretch;
-moz-box-pack: start;
}
.tabbrowser-tabs > hbox > tab {
-moz-box-align: start;
-moz-box-orient: horizontal;
}
/* remove the close-tab button. trust me, you need to do this. */
.tabbrowser-tabs > stack {
display: none;
}

Comment out the last lines and chances are you got close-tab buttons.

Since Firefox is open source I imagine all you people so unhappy about trivially minor "features" it's missing will be submitting patches - right? And not be one of those people who is all bitch, no action - right?

i'm in the same boat as Jeremy , although I have Linux desktop - much as I like Firefox, my most used browser is still Konqueror - which is practically the same thing as Safari (a lot of code goes back and forth between the Konqie and Safari teams - thanks Apple - much appreciated!)

i only use Firefox if a website doesnt "work" in Konqie...

I can't figure out how to even GET firefox working on OS X. I have downloaded the gz file for OS X, it 'unpacks' then 'mounts' the drive image, but the data at that point is always referring to a power pc, which I don't think I have (just a regular emac). Clicking the firefox icon brings it up in the dock, it bounces, the disappears, then starts again about 4 seconds later, then disappears, and just keeps doing that, changing it's PID. I have to kill -9 it, but also have to anticipate what the PID will be in my kill statement.

Any ideas? (TIA)

Many emacs key bindings work in all Cocoa-based applications. Being such an application, Safari inherited them.

As you mentioned, Control-A jumps to the start of a line, Control-E jumps to the end. Control-D (unless you have Full Keyboard Access on) acts as forward delete. Control-K deletes to the end of a line. Control-P jumps to the previous line. Control-O seems to insert a line break.

I don't use emacs, but I do find these shortcuts very helpful in MacJournal, my notepad of choice.

michael, just download the file. Your Mac OS X will unpack and mount it for you. Finally drag the icon to your application folder. You can then delete the installation files.

Thanks for the feedback here and from others privately - I was trying to launch firefox directly from the mounted image, and apparently you need to copy it to your hard drive first. That worked. Thanks everyone! :)

Two things that make me crazy with Firefox and why I only use it to make sure things are rendering right in Gecko browsers:
1. The close tab button already mentioned. That's maddening.
2. When I'm on a site and eventually make it to the bottom I get back to the top with command-up Firefox doesn't let me do that.

TabX works great for me on OS X (I'm using Firefox 9.3, TabX 0.2, OS X 10.3.5). I don't think I could handle Firefox without it. My other favorite extension is Mouse Gestures, but I've got a hunch that is coming to Safari for Tiger. My only beef with Firefox is that it seems to crash on Flash content (several bugs logged about that). With all of the attention that it's getting these days, I think we will be seeing better integration in the future.

I didn't read all the comments, bur it DOES use Emacs keybindings, I'm not sure why yours are not working, but you should post on the forums

doesn't the Ctrl-A = beginning of line, etc, have to do wtih the gnu readline library?

Wow! Something i've been wanting to write about for the past few months (well, actually, something i wrote about, but never polished my entry to the end), and now I accidently discover YOU wrote almost that! nice ;)

No, i don't use OSX. I use Linux, some versions of windows and BeOS. And the thing is that Firefox is NEVER abslutely native. I quite hate that. Firefox by itself is a very nice browser, but that nativity thing... :(

* Linux version still lacks some things (i.e., buttons in pages) to look like rest of the GTK. Some time ago even menus didn't look like the rest of the GTK2. Here's a pic how Firefox looked a few months ago: Firefox and a screenie of a trully native GTK browser is here: Nautilus.

* Windows version on XP looks bad with some windows themes. For me, even iTunes looks more native on Windows XP. Look at how IE and how Firefox looked (a few months ago, again): IE and Firefox. Note the oversized tabs bar and favourites bar. That's awfull! Then note the menus. Firefox draws them in pseudo-3d, while most other apps in windows, including IE and even iTunes (iTunes ) uses a nice one-pixel 2-d border for them..

I won't even talk about BeOS, where FireFox looks like as if it were run on a Win98 box... ;/ (quick googling brought me this image: Firefox).

Sad ;/

http://www.mindspring.com/~cthomasian/blog/C307526992/E1314761345/index.html

That pretty much explains my beef. I like the way Mozilla works, I didn't like Safari all that much, but the keyboard shortcuts were good. I always seem to find my way back to Mozilla. 'Apple' + 1 to tab between windows in Mozilla I use all the time wish it was the same in Firefox.

Re: splat-M opens Mail -- I agree, this should do minimize, not Mail. You can at least prevent Mail from coming up by typing "about:config" in the location bar, then setting network.protocol-handler.external.mailto to false.

I am now blessing your keyboard...

Ack...I'm sorry: I meant to put the URL for my blog in the comment above.

To keep things on-topic, I'll mention that the AdBlock extension is one thing that keeps me using Firefox. Safari is nice, but I miss being able to right-click on annoying ads and just have them...disappear.

As the sort of person who leaves at least 30 tabs open at a time, there are a few things i can't live without, but i do anyway:

- Opera's ability to display tabs vertically rather than horizontally (so you can see more of the titles of the tabs when you have many open)
- Firefox's (via a plugin) to retain currently open tabs when run after a crash. I still haven't found a browser that is sufficiently stable to not need this

I still end up using Safari, because of its superior interface (despite the close buttons on each tab, which i hate, especially since closing one by accident is not undoable).

Andrew

Today I tried downloading Firefox 0.9 onto my PowerBook running 10.3. When I launched it, from the Disk Image, it tried to start but got into a start/stop cycle (with jumping and disappearing icon on the Dock) that I could get out of only by resetting the Mac. Anyone else run into this? Anybody know what's wrong? Is there a fix? Someone recommended Firefox and I'd like to try it.

Reply to Dick Lance

I literally just installed it two minutes ago. Stumbled across this page when searching for a way to get middle click to open and close tabs.

Anyway, it'd probably be a better idea to copy the Firefox file to your Applications Directory before running it. Mine popped up in the Dock, then disappeared, and then reappeared*, but the browser didn't launch. It was then that I realised that it had launched an import wizard behind the window I had open: Safari. I told it I didn't want to import anything and clicked next; it disappeared from the Dock, then came back and the browser window came up.

*Without knowing too much about how Firefox interacts with OS-X, I would hazard a guess that the first time it disappears and reappears is when it's creating a user profile somewhere on your HDD... Maybe?

Hope this helps.

I'm using the tabbrowser extensions on firefox for OS X and it works well, there is indeed an option to have a close button on every tab.

There is another extension which enables you to close a tab by double-clicking it, removing the need for close button. I haven't tried it on the mac though, it works well under linux.

Re: emacs bindings, it appears that I just managed to get this to work for OSX Firefox 1.0PR. (I'm very pleased :). The info here:
http://todbot.com/blog/2003/11/11/#mozillakeys
pointed me in the right direction, but copying the entire file did not work for me (it broke some other stuff).

Instead, what did work was copying JUST the section from the Linux platformHTMLBindings.xml file that defines the emacs key bindings. This section is obvious-- it's right at the top of the file. I actually did the copy from the v.0.9.3 version of the linux file, not the latest release, but that is probably not important.

I was looking for a way to make Firefox my default browser on OS-X and came across your Blog.

No one seems to have posted a way to do it but I did manage to find a website that explained it (after a lot of digging)

So I figured I'd share the wealth of knowledge!

To change your default browser to Firefox go into Safari (yes Safari) Click on Safari - Preferences.

On the general tab you'll see a selection for default web browser. You can change it there.

I found this here

http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Setting_Your_Default_Browser

The spacebar doesn't scroll the page down in Firefox like it does in Safari. Any fixes in store for that.

I've learned to like the close tab button at the side where I can just repeat click to close tabs, as I usually have a lot open.

Main reason I use Firefox: it has a Google Bar and Safari doesn't. Otherwise Safari's Bookmarks are better and it's just faster (more native) on OS X, without those weird phantom menu sheets hanging around until you press Tab or Esc.

Oh, and one more thing: Al, if you don't like it here, GFY.

Love FireFox, and hate it almost just as much. I keep going back to it everytime I download the latest versions, and run with it for a few days, but then i just get plain annoyed.

Biggest flaw is backspace not working as back in the history, and links from other applications opening new windows instead of new tabs. Can't wait till they get that fixed, because the del.icio.us and web developer plug-ins kicks really major ass.

Jonas: installing the tab browser extensions (don't know if it got updated for latest firefox release) you can set it to open a new tab by default, any window that gets opened will be trnasformed into a tab.

Yup, god forbid you double click before dragging and get the unkillable (from the gui) bouncing icon. yuck.
-- allen

Let me know if you find it. I want it too.

Sometimes a dialog box will get stuck in Firefox. Such as one prompting for a password. No matter how often I click, it doesn't go away. Any hints on how to fix this?

The stuck dialog seems to be fixed in one of the latest nightlies. It was an interesting bug...
See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=81629&highlight=os+x+sheet

goto end of line = End
goto beginning of line = Home
goto top of page = Home
minimize page = Windows-M

oops...gave it away...that's just for PC's :-P

also, right click a tab and select close tab if you're too lazy to click the button on the right. middle-click to open in a link in a new tab. ctrl-T to open a new tab. hehehe

to the poster that said firefox looks ugly on all systems: looks beautiful on my XP. if you want it to look all brushed metal like every single app does on your little os, go to deviantART (or google) and search for "safari firefox" and you'll find 2 skins that solve that problem quite easily.

seriously, maybe you guys should make your complaints somewhere where they can be of help to somebody. or just solve your problems yourself. or contribute to open source. anything but sitting here whining about tiny UI issues that could be solved easily. or is that how everyone in your "community" is?

Does anyone know how to get Tabbrowser extensions to work with FF 1.0pr on mac osx? When i install it, it completely crashes FF and I have to del my FF folder and reinstall??

has anyone noticed that firefox uses more than twice s much memory to run then safari?

My big problems with firefox and safari both come on gmail. Firefox does this incredibly annoying thing where the cursor visually moves faster than the actual place where it is. It is bad enough when the cursor appears to be 1-8 spaces beyond the end of where you are typing, but it is really bad if you click or arrow back to edit something. You have to guess where the cursor really is (the effect grows on each line of text, so at the beginning of the line, the cursor is 0-1 char ahead, and by the end it is 6-8 chars ahead). Anyone else have this problem? Is there a way to fix it?

Safari's problems with gmail are less inexplicable, but just as annoying. The shortcut keys (esp j & k which scroll next/prev in gmail) work only very sporadically. That problem was annoying enough that I switched my default browser to firefox. Now I can't decide which evil is worse.

I'm frustrated that Firefox Mac doesn't have scrolling ability on keyboard Page Up/Down. I don't to use the mouse for scrolling all the time! Can anyone advise? Thanks

I've just downloaded Firefox 1.0 and this makes a huge difference to performance and useability in OSX.

I am kind of used to Safari though and would agree that the close icon on the far right hand side is not as obviously as having it on the tab. But then the tabs get cluttered etc.

The find on page feature is very good, highlighting the areas.

All the text entry boxes change colour to notify of certain situations...e.g. secure areas, no words on page that match...this is very good too!

The only thing I think they need to add is a back and forward short cut key as I've yet to find that. And also a more easy to hit key sequence for tabbing through tabs. CTRL-Tab is a bit of a finger-twister!

My favourite is ctrl-w, rather than deleting the word before the cursor, it closes the window, sweet!

Emacs keybindings:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Emacs_Keybindings_%28Firefox%29

Another frustration is in the new FF (1.0) you can't select multiple history URLs to delete them. It LOADS each URL as it is clicked, press of the shift key not withstanding.

Re: Backwords and forwards keyboard shortcut in Firefox.

You can use cmd-[ and cmd-] to move backwards and forwards. I still miss using the delete key to go backwards, but this does work

A couple of problems... The rendering engine is really superb, just UI-related problems.

I compare it to Safari, Camino and Firefox 1.0 under Windows.

1) Middle-click on a tab in Camino and Firefox Windows closes the TAB - Why do I need to install funny mouse drivers just for firefox when Camino works?

2) Related to 1) above (since it seems middle button is just dead). Middle-click on a link opens in another window/tab. I Don't like Splat-Click or right-click-menu.

3) Why, oh, why does it not use my stored keychain passwords and centrelized proxy settings? This is a step back into windows-land where every app has all it's own settings. -sigh-

Some solutions I have found that may help other people: Setting the default apps, look for an app called: RCDefaultApp

I don't see why you people would use camino. Not that I've tried it from what I hear it's relly limited. As for mac I know of alot users who's very stisfied with opera. Maybe give it a try?

I have used Firefox for a few months, and yes it sucks ass big time and i have to use two browsers all the time because pages won't load, forms sucks etc etc
now i went to install a new version becuz they say to becuz if they worked out bugs it will be in the new install..now i can not get the god damn thing to launch..
(maz os x)...i tried removing every last vestige to uninstall and downloaded 4 times and tried to install again and all i get is the god damn double bounch and browser will not launch???

i can't believe these jackasses want to compete with microsoft...they need to get off their asses and fix these annoying bugs...

Well try the Adblock extension in Firefox. And you won't get back to Safari. I tried Safari with PithHelmet, but PithHelmet slows Safari down too much at his stage. And there are many more reasons (read extensions) too use Firefox. Also the speed with which it eats itself trough pages with complex tables is unbeatable.
I admit, if it would be a real OS X app, there would be more advantages like services, but then you would have to do without the crossplatform extensions.

Jan

I like how safari has the 'Empty Cache' option in the file menu. Most serious Web surfers need to clear the cache often, so I'm surprised you're forced to go though 3 clicks to clear cache in Firefox...

Have you checked the extensions page on FireFox you'll find an extension for clearing cache there!

I've been asked by many people many how to make FireFox the default browser so I posted an article on my website/blog/news site http://www.vitalized.co.uk which some people may find useful?!!

The problems with tabs, and the way to close them, etc etc etc can be fixed easily with tabbrowser extensions. It has ALL the functions to efficiently manage tabs and window behaviour, and even to restore previous sessions, as Opera does. Very, but very nice.
We are facing problems with javascript pages, but I think is mac java related, as safari and opera also hang randomly opening some pages. Anyone found a fix for these problems?

u *can* make firefox your default browser - by selecting it from preferences within safari~! unintuitive yes, but it works... and ive switched... in part because of this high-speed upgrade...

Here's a great go-faster tip for Firefox, the free, rock-solid, secure browser from the Mozilla Foundation:
1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

from http://forevergeek.com/open_source/make_firefox_faster.php

I've been using FireFox 1.0 on OSX 10.3.7. Strange and recurring problem...on certain webpages when I start to scroll before the page loads completely, the browser freezes-up. I get the rainbow colored pinwheel that just turns and turns. I eventually have to do a force quit and open up FF again. Any suggestions or solutions. Or should I just go back to Safari or Camino?

Mac OS 10.3, FireFox Mouse Wheel issues (using a Logitech MX 700 with Logitech Control Center.)

For some reason the mouse wheel button does nothing. It should open up a new tab. I can't find this in the perferences, like I used to be able on the Win32 builds. I have to use the Command click to open up a new tab.

Is there a way to enlarge or shrink the text with the mouse wheel? Shift-Mouse wheel goes forward / backward. I thought I saw this as well in the Win32 builds, but I can't seem to find it in the Preferences.

Tried googling, but no luck. Anyone have any tips , ideas, or links?

Thx

This might be me just not understanding Mac's, as I bought my first one when I went to college this year, but is there anyway to print a selection in Firefox? It really annoys the **** out of me. Thanks
Rick

I downloaded firefox to my desktop. The file appeared as download.mozilla.org. I double clicked this and it opened as a simple text document containing gibberish. I closed without saving but and transferred to hard drive. It still presents as a simple text document. What should I have done? What can I do?

You can set the default web browser in OSX by opening the preference panel in Safari. Hope that helps

The todbot entry is no longer there.. here is the wayback copy:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040101183332/http://todbot.com/blog/2003/11/11/

Whats wrong with Safari, FireFox does not sync to .Mac, I have heard not so many bad things about it, FireFox for Windows and Safari for Mac, Life is so simple, when you want it to be.

can anyone help...i try to download firefox on to my imac (10.3.9, lots of space) and get this 8.7M file on Excel -- what's going on?! i'm not exactly a brainiac on these things but i'm used to getting around, can't figure this one out--help?

darren

Darren,
Wish I could answer your question. I just put Firefox on my G5-Tiger and it works, the 8.7mB file doubleclicks to a "HardDrive-Looking" Icon which has the firefox icon inside. I'm new to OS-X, but I'd guess this is very unlike most installations. What's weird is that it didn't seem to install it into my Applications folder (i'm not sure where it's located)

About the Excel bit, I'm currently trying to bring over Internet Explorer files from mac OS 8.6 (these files are websites I've visited and saved) and the G5 converts them to Excel files. I downloaded Firefox hoping this browser could properly open these files, but no luck so far. (safari didn't either).

sorry i don't know jeremy's first name?

i have a firefox problem too... in ichat and msn, when people send me links, it opens up some weird app and then closes and doesn't open the link. if i have IE installed, it will open that. but i am tired of dealing with two, and want to run firefox as default for everything.

please someone tell me this is possible...
thanks

Apple-M on firefox works fine for me

The thing that bugs me about Firefox is that I can't tab to buttons and other CGI components. I like to keep my hands on the keyboard as much as possible. This isn't a problem with Camino, which I use most of the time.

I had the middle-button problem until I figured out how to configure it in the Logitech Control Center. I had to tell configure the middle button so that it sends a Cmd-click.

One annoyance for me is that when I first use firefox at beginning of day copy & paste works fine but after a few hours it just stops working this is the same for cmd L which lets you type in a web page without having to highlight at top. Why is this?

Firefox totally sucks. I installed it on my iMAC G5 because some websites wouldn't work with Safari. Well, the damn thing messed up my entire computer. I had to reinstall everything before my computer would work again. Since then, I've dowloaded Camino instead, and I haven't had any problems...

You want Camino.

It's possible to hack Firefox on OS X to support Emacs keybindings by installing a hacked platformHTMLbindings.xml file, but even with every hack under the sun applied to make Firefox more Mac-like, it still has a way to go to be indistinguishable from a real Mac app.

Camino only partially addresses the keybinding problem (in the URL and search bars) but still uses the same widgets as Firefox and Mozilla Suite in web pages. To make matters worse the hack that works with Firefox is incompatible with Camino.

The only web browser that allows you to use emacs keybindings in web pages "out of the box" is Safari.

Has no one experienced the "wheel of death" freeze that occurs on firefox pull down screens? Talk about frustrating...I killed my dog!

Ron, I'm not sure if what I experience is the same as what you write about, but I'm really really tired of Firefox simply wedging. It isn't strictly repeatable, but always happens while at least one tab is pinwheeling as it laboriously loads some bloated page. The chances increase if I try to change tabs or use the scrollbar. This has persisted over the last several Firefox updates and OSX microversions. This is also distinct from the absurd core leaks that have always plagued Firefox/Netscape (there's no excuse for a 1.5 GIGAFREAKINGBYTE vsize): it happens even when the app is newly loaded, but when it does happen I can fire up a new window from the menu, which behaves normally.

"I'd love to know what else I haven't yet discovered."

J-, looks like you haven't seen IE7 as yet. All the features you crave and more. I don't know if any other browser does this, but one feature I really enjoy in IE7 is the default "printer friendly" printouts. You like the page? Click the print button...perfect every time.

Firefox? I can't even find a print button....

Right-click the FF toolbar, and choose customize. Then drag the printer button onto the toolbar.

Oh, and for you switchers out there, like me, you can get FF to tab to all the places you're used to on Windows. System Preferences-Keyboard/Mouse-Keyboard Shortcuts-All controls [at the bottom]. I just did this running Tiger, and it worked.

Although I am going to take some of your advice and try Camino, I am particularly puzzled by a new security alert from Firefox telling me that it cannot load security settings, perhaps because of some of my read/write settings on the files (not) or my HD is full (not by half).
Have you come across this? It is particulary irritating because many of the sites I visit and use now only work with Firefox.
I am driving a G4 iBook (1.42 ghz with 1 gig of memory and OS X.4.7).

Regarding the comment:
"I'm frustrated that Firefox Mac doesn't have scrolling ability on keyboard Page Up/Down. I don't to use the mouse for scrolling all the time! Can anyone advise? Thanks"

I found that, at least in FireFox 1.5, it works. However, the hidden gotcha is a preference referred to either as "Allow text to be selected with the keyboard" or if in about:config, it is "accessibility.browsewithcaret". If that is true/checked, then you lose the normal scroll feature of spacebar and pgup pgdn. You can also toggle it via the F7 key (*boggle*).

I just lost 2 hours of my life trying to figure out why Firefox wasn't scrolling. Given that this page ranks pretty high on Google for my search terms, I hope the next sucker reads my post before spending hours trying to fix keyboard scrolling.

Has anyone seen the issue where FF just freezes entirely and doesn't let you click on form fields, or the google search bar... and will open new tabs--though these suffer from the same issue. The only thing that fixes it is opening a new window entirely.

I can't find a fix or specific description for this anywhere, so I'm hoping to figure it out soon before abandoning FF for Safari.

Any ideas?

I have that problem too, and although it's only recent for me, I notice that it was posted above, back in 2004.

"One of my biggest annoyances is that Firefox seems to partially die on complex/long documents. (Most notably the Zope book on plope.com)

Basically, it loads it, but doesn't display it. You can switch tabs, but the page doesn't actually change. If you close the window altogether, you can repeat the process again."

This is what I get - I can click on each tab and the page title will change in the browser, but the screen is frozen. And it happens more and more - at least 10 times a day.

One thing that started to happen to my Firefox installation on OS X (10.4.7/Tiger) is that whenever I click on a download, it creates a randomly named .EXE file on my desktop. For example: nuywoie.exe

I've disabled all plug-ins, rebooted, and tried re-installing and it keeps happening no matter which site I download from.

I don't remember this happening at first. It strikes me as odd because I can't understand why Firefox would create a .exe in an OSX environment, and I don't remember it doing so before.

Could it be some type of spyware attempt that just fails under OS X?

"My biggest annoyance is that Firefox opens sheets instead of dialogs (for preferences and about)."

My biggest annoyance with OS X right now is those bloody sheets.

If anyone out there knows how to convince OS X to as damn near universally as possible change those damn things into some kind of floating panel, pane, drawer, or window so I can ove it and see what's in the obscured window (so as, for example, to remind me of the name I want to save a file in) ... email me (the first hit on my name in google isn't me... though he seems like an interesting fellow... but the next few are).

dude. firefox for mac or win sucks ass. not that IE is any better. FF eats more memory than a dirty whore (that doesn't even make sense). Safari is almost perfect but has its flaws too. i'm puking sick of FF tho. constantly using 400 MB of memory? wtf

*this comment is not constructive in any way.

Firefox takes so long to open up on my Mac I just hate it. Why can firefox just not be a native application.