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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,456
30,667



firefox-150x150.png
Mozilla today released version 18 of Firefox, adding Retina support for Apple's line of Retina MacBook Pros.

Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome implemented Retina months ago, leaving Firefox as the last of the major browsers to receive a Retina update. Without Retina support, both website text and images on Firefox appeared fuzzy and hard to read.

Firefox 18 also includes the following updates, changes and fixes:
-Faster JavaScript performance via IonMonkey compiler

-Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up

-Preliminary support for WebRTC

-Experience better image quality with our new HTML scaling algorithm

-Performance improvements around tab switching

-Support for new DOM property window.devicePixelRatio

-Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates

-Support for W3C touch events implemented, taking the place of MozTouch events

-Disable insecure content loading on HTTPS pages

-Improved responsiveness for users on proxies
Firefox 18 can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

Article Link: Firefox For Mac Gets Updated With Retina Support
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,555
6,053
I use Safari with the Click to Plugin extension.

I have Firefox 3 on my computer... I knew it was dated, but geez, they're all the way on 18 now!?
 

Risco

macrumors 68000
Jul 22, 2010
1,946
262
United Kingdom
They don't care about multi-touch gestures, therefore I no longer care about Firefox. Pretty sad considering I have been a loyal user since 0.6 Phoenix.
 

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,661
1,242
The Cool Part of CA, USA
people still use firefox on mac?
Surprisingly enough, a few do, though it's getting increasingly hard to see why. I was surprised when setting up my brother's Retina MBP because he does, and FF was hideously ugly due to the no Retina support.

It usually is pretty good about auto-updating these days, but I'll have to make sure his has so he's not staring at a blurry mess anymore.

And actually, I use FF too, albeit just as my secondary browser for "sketchy" sites so that if it locks up or crashes (or I run with Javascript turned off) it doesn't mess with Safari.
 

Jethryn Freyman

macrumors 68020
Aug 9, 2007
2,329
2
Australia
Why all the hate towards Firefox?

Chrome is fast but I don't trust it one bit, Safari is nice but lacks any real kind of tweakability and security isn't exactly as robust as Firefox.
 

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
i hate firefox on mac so much but i have to keep it because my university site only works properly on firefox ... and IE :eek:
 

ZacNicholson

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2011
882
1,158
Austin
i hate firefox on mac so much but i have to keep it because my university site only works properly on firefox ... and IE :eek:

can you turn on developer mode and make the user agent firefox ?
 

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RMo

macrumors 65816
Aug 7, 2007
1,253
280
Iowa, USA
people still use firefox on mac?

Yes. The Awesome Bar has almost enabled me to live without bookmarks, plus it's the only browser with an extension available (Xmarks) that can sync bookmarks and other data across the browser on different platforms in addition to other browsers themselves (mainly IE), handy when you have several different computers on various OSes in different locations. (EDIT: This probably wasn't the best stated point. It began as FoxMarks for Firefox but has expanded since; even still, it's always worked best with Firefox for me and I've given up syncing most other browsers. Mozilla and other vendors also have built-in support for something similar, but they don't work with other browsers, and I still prefer Xmarks. Plus, Firefox extensions are very easy to take with you to other computers--the corresponding IE and Safari versions, for example, require installing an EXE or PKG from a DMG, respectively.)

The wider availability and flexibility of extensions is also a reason I stay with Firefox. Plus I philosophically support the Gecko engine more than most others, and I've been using it since the Mozilla Milestone (pre-NS 6) days, so I'm kind of attached. :)

I did use Safari on my G5 once Firefox quit official supporting updates and TenFourFox was a bit too much for the amount of RAM it had, but I keep coming back to Firefox on both Windows and Mac.
 
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xizdun

macrumors 6502
Nov 13, 2011
272
478
Two features in Firefox that I require not offered by Chrome:
  1. Master Password
  2. Proxy (independent of the OS)
 

rmwebs

macrumors 68040
Apr 6, 2007
3,140
0
Why all the hate towards Firefox?

Chrome is fast but I don't trust it one bit, Safari is nice but lacks any real kind of tweakability and security isn't exactly as robust as Firefox.

Why don't you trust it? Don't tell me it's the Google privacy nonsense - do you honestly think nobody would notice data being pushed to googles servers? For one thing it would show up in little snitch.

In any case, it's opensource...you can compile chromium yourself if you're that paranoid..it still beats Firefox by a longshot.
 

Glumpfner

macrumors regular
Dec 15, 2009
121
1
Why all the hate towards Firefox?

Chrome is fast but I don't trust it one bit, Safari is nice but lacks any real kind of tweakability and security isn't exactly as robust as Firefox.

I am working for over 10 years as a web developer now. Back while I used windows as my developing platform, I loved Mozilla and Firefox. But ever since I switched to using Mac, I hated Firefox!
Don't get me wrong, I love the Mozilla foundation, I love their ways of pushing the web technologies, the support for open source and their way of trying to create new useful web standards, BUT when it comes to Firefox on the Mac... Ouch!
As a web developer I have Chrome, Firefox and Safari open, each with 10-15 tabs at any given time. Chrome is super fast, always responsive, never lags when switching between tabs, Safari the same has a good speed, can't complain. And then comes Firefox. When having 10 or 15 tabs open and switching between Tabs, Firefox always needs 1-2 seconds to load until I'm able to click or scroll on the website.
And when switching between apps like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, FTP clients and then head back into Firefox, it again takes about 2 seconds until the window becomes active and I can navigate.
Then you check how much memory each browser uses... Chrome 300MB, Safari 400MB, Firefox 1,8GB!
Firefox has a memory issue, always had and it seems always will have. No matter how many tabs you close, it won't go down. You have to restart Firefox... and that very often results in "application not responding" after working 5 hours with 15 tabs open.


All my co workers experience the same issue several times through our the day with their Macs. I have it on my work station and on my private MacBook as well as on my old MacBook from 4 years ago, so it's not an isolated issue.

Simply put, Firefox on Mac is painfully slow if you use it for several hours with multiple tabs open and need to switch between apps a lot.

Chrome is my favourite in terms of speed. Yet I still love the Mozilla foundation and thank them for all the work for the web community.
 

soloer

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2004
879
197
Omaha
it's the only browser with an extension available (Xmarks) that can sync bookmarks and other data across the browser on different platforms in addition to other browsers themselves (mainly IE)

I'm not sure I'm understanding this. Xmarks is available for Chrome as an extension and there is an Xmarks for Safari app.
 
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