Firefox For Mac Gets Updated With Retina Support

[Yamcha]

Yeah I haven't used Firefox for a very long time, especially on the Mac. I've always liked Safari, even more since the saved tab's feature was released, as I rely on that often for my Web Design work..

Another reason to use Safari on the mac is scrolling.. There tends to be some scroll lag especially when there is lots of content on the page both on Chrome & Firefox..

[Macrolido]

Originally Posted by gazrang

I want to use Camino.

http://caminobrowser.org/

It seems that the development has stopped. Not any update or further plans on camino blog.

That´s really sad. Camino is the only Browser made specially for Mac OS X.

[iDuel]

Originally Posted by Macrolido

That´s really sad. Camino is the only Browser made specially for Mac OS X.

I'm sure that Safari also was made specifically for OSX, especially with version 6.

[mtbgtr]

Wow all these FF haters sound a lot like Windows Mac haters

[mauvehead]

Has anyone grabbed this new FF release on a Lion machine and had any major hiccups? I'm always bashful about jumping on the first release of anything...

[tech4all]

Originally Posted by Jethryn Freyman

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.

Like? I trust Chrome just as much as I'd trust FireFox.

Originally Posted by batchtaster

Chrome is just Safari for hipsters.

Do you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod?

Originally Posted by mtbgtr

Wow all these FF haters sound a lot like Windows Mac haters

Great isn't it?

[MadDawg2020]

18 major rewrites, about 12 in the last couple years since this whole rapid release nonsense started. Yet not one update had addressed the lagging page load and refresh times, resource hogging, memory issues and bloated code.

Call me when Firefox doesn't suck up 2 Gigs of RAM and run 80% of my system clock to do a Google search.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by batchtaster

Chrome is just Safari for hipsters.

Remotely related: There's this guy at school who downloads Chrome every time he uses the school computers. And the thing is, is that the guest accounts that the students use are temporary, so each time you log out all the stuff you've downloaded gets wiped & reset. But he still downloads Chrome every time he needs to use the computer for ten or fifteen minutes. Coz Safari, Firefox or whatever-else-is-on-there totally won't cope with loading up a few Wikipedia articles

[Watabou]

Originally Posted by Glumpfner

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.

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.

If the latest Firefox that you have used is Firefox 4 or something, that is just BS.

The past 5 Firefox releases use a meager amount of memory compared to Safari and Chrome. Safari is the worst at memory management. Even three tabs and it somehow ends up taking 2GB+ memory. Every browser test that has compared the modern browsers puts Firefox in first place in regards to memory management so I really think you just made the 1.8GB figure up.

I actually have 27 tabs open right now and it's taking a grand total of 620MB. It never lags on me when I switch between tabs too. I have an old 2008 Macbook Pro by the way.

The one thing that you CAN criticize Firefox is how slow they put out new features for the Mac version. For example, it took them this long just to update Firefox with Retina support. I suppose we will have to wait for Firefox 30 to get the Lion/ML scrollbars too.

[JosephAW]

Does version 18 remove the support for the Internet plugin folder or is that 19 that will exclude it.
Will be glad when all that old plugin legacy code is finally gone for good.
Still enjoy using FF 17 on my PPC. FF 19 is right around the corner.

[gullySn0wCat]

Originally Posted by Watabou

The one thing that you CAN criticize Firefox is how slow they put out new features for the Mac version. For example, it took them this long just to update Firefox with Retina support. I suppose we will have to wait for Firefox 30 to get the Lion/ML scrollbars too.

Get on the Aurora or Nightly channels, and you'll get new features much more quickly, as well as helping the development of the browser – just by using it.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/aurora/

http://nightly.mozilla.org/

[PinoyAko]

Originally Posted by Outkast27

why does it stink?

It stink like a fox.

[John.B]

And still no mainstream H.264 support.

[John.B]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Firefox 18 also includes the following updates, changes and fixes:

Holy timewarp, that bug was 12 years old!

[Xenomorph]

Originally Posted by ZacNicholson

people still use firefox on mac?

Why wouldn't we? It's not like there's anything better to use.

[Watabou]

Originally Posted by gullySn0wCat

Get on the Aurora or Nightly channels, and you'll get new features much more quickly, as well as helping the development of the browser – just by using it.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/aurora/

http://nightly.mozilla.org/

Yeah, Nightly is what I use and have used since version 9.

One guy has been working on a lot of the missing features but iirc, he's taking a break...It's been about 5 months now though.

Here's the bug for Lion scrollbars if anyone wants to keep tabs on it: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636564#c87

It was there at one point but they decide to pull it. No worries though. We will probably get it around Firefox 30.

There's also a theme refresh called "Australis" coming soon. I believe the windows version of Nightly/UX has already got it. Meanwhile, I'm not even sure if there are people working on the Mac version.

[RMo]

Originally Posted by SumoHamster

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

You're right. I didn't state that very clearly. I also have a tendency to forget that what was once FoxMarks and worked best as a "Firefox is your main borwser"-type deal now works equally well as now-Xmarks with lots of browsers. I'm assuming the Chrome extension is all in-browser and easy to install (like Firefox), but IE and Safari's are programs that require installation.

But I'll stand by my other reasons. Quite importantly, Mozilla is the most open organization between Google (who I really don't want to give yet more of my data) and Apple (who, while maybe better now, has historically had a rocky relationship with KDE who, of course, developed what WebKit forked from). But I think this is reflected in the extensibility of the browser itself, as well.

[RMo]

Originally Posted by gazrang

I want to use Camino.

http://caminobrowser.org/

It seems that the development has stopped. Not any update or further plans on camino blog.

It's only been since the fall, so I'm not that sure it's stopped, but it does seem hard to find recent activity. (At one point, I think they had plans for a WebKit-based Camino 3, which would make the project far less appealing to me. Not sure if that was ever really planned or just a crazy idea.)

In any case, I like the idea behind Camino, but I find that in my normal usage, the Firefox toolbars, tabs, and whatnot feel more Mac-like, and in general everything else is close enough. I'm not a fan of Camino's UI, and of course you miss out on extensions and many other things that make Firefox useful for some people (me included, or I wouldn't care as much!). However, the integration with Keychain and other OS X features is very nice. I wish Firefox could to something like this.

In any case, I've found it a nice project and, while I never used it primarily, it was nice to use on occasion. I hope development hasn't stalled.

[DamonBowser]

I use Stainless more then camio. Its great for very quick i just want to open up the brower and check a forum or twitter thing especially because your main browser is normally dedicated to stuff. And I like there bookmark shelf.

http://www.stainlessapp.com

And yes it was designed for the mac only

[a0me]

Originally Posted by Xenomorph

Why wouldn't we? It's not like there's anything better to use.

Yes, Chrome.
- It's multiplatform; you can sync your tabs between your Mac, your iOS devices or even a Windows PC (Firefox doesn't support iOS)
- Its UI is cleaner and simpler
- Its UI is actually snappier (Safari and Firefox were almost unusable on my old iMac because of that)
- Multi-process separation
- Flash built-in
- Auto updates by default

[gullySn0wCat]

Originally Posted by Watabou

There's also a theme refresh called "Australis" coming soon. I believe the windows version of Nightly/UX has already got it. Meanwhile, I'm not even sure if there are people working on the Mac version.

They at least have a design document for it: https://people.mozilla.com/~shorland...ainWindow.html

[rmwebs]

Originally Posted by RMo

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.)

You've clearly never seen Chrome syncing. It's years ahead of Xmarks.

Originally Posted by RMo

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.

Firefox extensions are ancient and need a massive makeover. It's the only browser that still makes you restart after installing many of the extensions. In comparison you dont have to restart at all on Safari or Chrome.

Development of extensions is also way easier on chrome and safari (at least in my own experience).

On another note, look at it this way:

The fact that Chrome, a much newer browser has overtaken Firefox in terms of user share, in a much shorter timeframe says a lot.

Also the fact that Firefox moved from a 'long' release cycle to a more regular release cycle (the same as Chrome) just makes it more evident that Chrome took them by surprise.

[Lancer]

On my G5 I use both FireFox and Safari, for different sites. Being PPC I'm stuck with older versions of both and can't wait for my new iMac.

[flottenheimer]

Personally I love and prefer Chrome. But recently I've been forced to switch back to Safari. And pretty soon, Chrome wont have a single Mac user left in Denmark (OK, exaggerating. But only a little.)

Why? In Denmark we have a unified secure login system called NemID. We all use it. And we have to. It is used by ALL our banks (home banking), something called eBoks (a system used by half the danish population) and for whenever you need access to online systems run by the state.
NemID requires the latest version of Java. It's 64-bit. Unfortunately Chrome is not a 64-bit browser - and Google does not have any plans for 64-bit Chrome.
Hello Safari. You're 64-bit. — I'm back. Together with the rest of the entire Mac-owning Danish population.

Google / Team Chrome - did you fall asleep at the steering wheel? Wake up, please! We miss you.

—

I wish there was an easy way to get in contact with Google / Chrome. A place where someone important enough would actually listen and could take action.

[NutsNGum]

Originally Posted by batchtaster

Chrome is just Safari for hipsters.

Or those that value the best developer tools available on any browser, ever. Safari Webkit nightlies not withstanding.