News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

July 19, 2006

internet

Take your Firefox to the Macs

Posted Jul. 19, ’06, 10:27 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Internet

Macced out FirefoxI really want to like Firefox on OS X. Truth is, it’s my primary browser when I’m forced to use Windows, but on the Mac I just keep it around for sites that don’t handle well in Safari (an increasingly small number). But my biggest gripe with Firefox is that it simply doesn’t feel like a Mac application. This mainly has to do with the buttons and “widgets” that one uses to interact with forms on the web. They look rather like they’ve escaped from sort of widget “re-education” camp.

Native OS X-style widgets are due out in Firefox 3.0 (which has recently been released as an alpha), but seeing as how 2.0 is still in beta, that’s a ways off. Until then, you can check out this excellent tutorial about how to make your Firefox look a little bit more like a Mac app, using a combination of Firefox extensions, themes, and good old-fashioned hacks. It’s certainly a step towards letting me run Firefox without continuously cringing.

[via Lifehacker]


1 Comments

Kelmon said:

Big deal. The problem with Firefox on the Mac, at least for me, is not so much its look 'n' feel but rather its non-support for common Mac features. As a mobile user my #1 issue is that I have to set the network connection preferences manually in Firefox rather than having it obtain proxy settings and the like from System Preferences. My #2 issue is the lack of Keychain support, followed by the #3 issue that it doesn't support the Dictionary for "check spelling as you type". Somewhere after these comes the look 'n' feel issues, although there is no denying that, out-of-the-box, Firefox is damned ugly. Personally, I also do not like the Mac themes available and consider browsers like Camino and Flock on the Mac be better looking than any of the themes that I have seen for Firefox.

July 19, 2006 11:26 PM

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