Who doesn’t love Firefox? I’ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Since version 1.5, the Firefox development team has been paying more attention to the Mac version of the browser, slowly increasing its speed. The upcoming Firefox 2.0 continues those tweaks, finally making Firefox fast enough to be considered usable. That leaves just one problem with Firefox for Mac, the appearance. Luckily thanks to some third-party developers, Firefox can easily be tweaked to fit in with the operating system.
The Theme
One of the first problems you’ll notice with the appearance of Firefox is it’s quite ugly compared to the rest of the operating system. The toolbar buttons look like crap, the tabs suck, and everything feels bulky. This is the first thing we’ll want to improve, and is probably the easiest. To improve the look of Firefox, just download the GrApple theme. The theme has several options to choose from; everything from Brushed Metal to a version compatible with the popular UI enhancer, UNO. If you’re using the Firefox 2.0 Beta, there is even a version for you (look at the sidebar).
The Buttons
The next visual issue you’ll run into with the Mac version of Firefox is the buttons. The buttons and other form elements aren’t very Mac like. They’re basically Windows-style buttons trapped inside a Mac world. Thankfully, Philippe Wittenberg wasn’t happy with the Firefox “widgets” and created a set of his own. While they certainly aren’t up to the high standards of Safari and Camino, they’ll easily be able to tide you over until Firefox gets its own Cocoa widgets in version 3.0.
Firefox 2.0 Beta Users: Only use Firefoxy to install the pretty widgets. Any other method seems to total the Firefox installation.
Easier Tab Closing
It seems that every Mac browser likes to place the tab close button on the actual tabs instead of off to the side. If you want to follow that path, completely mastering the Mac look, you’ll want to install Tab X. Tab X is a Firefox extension which will remove the close button on the end of the tab bar and add individual close buttons to each tab.
Now if you’re using Firefox 2.0 Beta, you’ll see that you won’t need this extension. The next version of Firefox places the tab close button on every tab, following suit with the rest of the Mac’s browsers.
Optimized Builds
If you’ve done all of the previous visual improvements, you should now have a browser which blends in with the Mac interface. If for some reason you still aren’t satisfied with Firefox for Mac, you’ll want to download an optimized build. While this will do nothing to improve the look, it will certainly speed up the browser, giving Firefox that extra edge.
Play the Waiting Game
If the optimized builds still aren’t selling you on Firefox, you can always wait a little. Firefox version 3.0 will be written in Cocoa, Apple’s programming toolkit of choice. This will greatly enhance the speed of Firefox, and will bring improved visuals to the Mac version, such as the widgets I mentioned earlier.
While you wait, you might want to check out Camino. While Camino lacks severely when it comes to extendability, it does have the Cocoa visual appearance and speed. Combine that with the Gecko rendering engine, and you have Firefox for Mac minus some features and extensions. That should tide you over for a while.
Update: Ammonkc has made me aware of two great extension which will continue to bring that Mac/Safari experience to Firefox. Fission makes the address bar a progress indicator, and Stop-or-Reload Button combines the Stop and Refresh buttons into one.
Also, there is an alpha version of Firefox 3.0 with Cocoa widgets out now. It only supports Intel Macs and is probably very buggy, but it’s there if someone wants to play with it.
43 Comments
Technically the language is Objective-C. Cocoa is the toolkit or GUI framework. But I’d love to see a Camino theme for Firefox sometime soon. FF 2 isnt even out yet and they got the plans for 3 already? That’s awesome even MS doesnt do that much planning!
Regarding Firefox 3, it’s not that they’re already planning Firefox 3, they’re already coding it! Well parts of it. What they’re working on now is the way the program is translated from OS to OS. The Mac OS translation is getting a complete overhaul. At the moment they’re planning to have it working by Firefox 3, but technically if it’s function before then they could easily run Firefox 2′s code through it and have a Cocoa version of Firefox 2.
Nice post. Firefox 2 Beta 1 is the first usable version for us Mac users. It definitely seems faster and a few minor cosmetic changes (like close buttons on tabs) make it more usable.
There is only one nasty bug that really gets me. Often times I will minimize or close the Firefox window (while keeping the app running) and when I bring the window back up, I can no longer type in any text boxes.
The only way around it is to restart Firefox. A real pain if you have several tabs open.
Other then that, Firefox is really good now. I cannot wait for the change to Cocoa widgets…that will allow Mac users to seriously consider it.
I think overall should be overhaul?
Anyway, I was anxious to get Firefox on my mac. But the new Camino build, with added tab features, quelled my desire.
What is the point of having two Mac Mozilla projects? Camino and Firefox are both lightweight Gecko based browsers. So what is the point of having both? Is there even a Mozilla Suite for Mac?
Well, Camino was spawned because there was no lightweight browser for Mac. Camino predates Firefox (under a different name, Chimera), and was needed originally since Safari didn’t exist, IE sucked, and the other browsers were crap.
While Camino’s need certainly decreased after Firefox, I think they keep it around mainly because Firefox still lacks on the Mac. Once Firefox has the Cocoa interface, Camino will probably cease development.
And yes, the Mozilla suite is available for Mac.
THANKS! CM. FF looks SO much better. TabX … YES!
Or you can just cut to the chase and get Flock (www.flock.com)
I still use 1.5…
I can’t seem to get the bookmarks button on the bookmarks bar. its still up by the address bar. all of the GrApple screenshots and ones here show it on the bookmark bar. what did I do wrong?
I don’t know. Using Firefox 2.0 Beta I was able to just drag it to the Bookmarks Toolbar.
Nice post. Though Firefox 2.0 is already in Beta 2, there are still a lot of extensions which have not been ported to this version yet. So, I guess I’ll keep at 1.5 fot the time being.
Another extension that should probly be mentioned is the “fission” extention. I don’t remember the url but it puts the progress bar in the address bar like safari.
Also the stop-or-reload button extension. it combines the stop and reload button like safari.
mac only =(
=> oleg
fission & stop-reload button perfectly work on windows
Hey, I didn’t know CamiTools shut down! Darn it! It was so awesome. It had bookmarks syncing support, browser spoofing and whole load of other stuff like changing Camino to a metal theme. I just don’t like Firefox. Especially because many good extensions that I used on Windows just don’t work on the Mac version of it. ColorZilla is the one I miss the most. I’ve recently started using Safari again because of the dotMac support and I really like it, especially on my widescreen with the SafariStand on the right. The page previews are just so useful. Nice article, sadly I couldn’t digg it any sooner.
It would be nice to have unread RSS feeds in the bookmark bar like Safari. That’s one of the main things keeping me in Safari more than firefox. Maybe there’s something out there? But please ‘live bookmarks” does anyone use that?
Has anyone else noticed the colour space difference? Look at some images in Safari/Camino and then Firefox. Firefox is less saturated and warmer or perhaps more yellow.
What really stops me from using Firefox or flock is that when I type “digg/view/videos” in the url window they both take me to “http://www.digg.com” and not “http://www.digg.com/view/videos”. When you’re used to this shortcut in Safari, this is almost a deal breaker.
If there’s a plugin or preference to fix that, I’d love to be told what an idiot I am, but I sure haven’t found it.
cool provided that FF looks like camino and such ill switch as well, thats one of the reasons why i dont like ff on mac–even in linux it feels like an awkward port from windoze.
It’s much easier to use firefoxy to install the prettier widgets:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16118
I used the latest firefoxy with 2.0beta and it worked fine, haven’t had any problems with it…
i use live bookmarks all the time. for one thing, i get the rss feed from a few of my delicious tags and live bookmark them, so they behave just like regular bookmarks. and i also subscribe to a few major news rss feeds with live bookmarks, so i am one click from seeing an entire list of recent news. live bookmarks are pretty handy. in fact, live bookmarks are the main reason i won’t go back to opera. with those and sage in my firefox, i’m pretty happy.
fyi, tabmix plus also puts those close buttons on the tabs, and it has a lot more features that make it more useful than tabx.
When Firefox starts using Cocoa will it support Mac Services? This is the one thing keeping me from switching to Firefox. Though I jealously watch Firefox users exploit extensions and greasemonkey scripts, I stay with Safari because the Services menu provides me integration of key tools I use constantly for work (BibDesk, Equation Service, VoodooPad, etc..
I’ll have to check those out. Thanks for mentioning them.
If you’re looking for a Mac theme for Windows, iFox works great.
That’s the whole reason why I went back to Firefox. I did give Safari a second chance, but I was having too many issues with Javascript so I just decided to use Firefox.
I did use Firefoxy to attempt to install on my Firefox 2.0 beta version. However, I have an Intel Mac and looking at the program specs it lists as PPC. Maybe Rosetta can’t handle Firefoxy. Anyway, I’m going to give it another go to see if I can get it to install.
I don’t know. That would certainly be nice.
Bookmark both URLs, but when you go to “manage bookmarks” use the PROPERTIES button to designate a keyword for the digg video URL. Now when you type in the location box the keyword, you’ll go straight there.
It’s interesting how they’re moving towards Aqua-style buttons in FireFox, but away from that in Safari. Download the latest Webkit (webkit.org) and you should see properly styled buttons where appropriate. I actually prefer it that way.
Can’t windows users make their firefox look like that too?
Windows users can check out iFox.
I’m still using Firefox 1.0.6 because when I installed a newer version of Firefox the whole UI melted down. Are any of these improvements available for Panther OS? I only use X.3.8.
(Tried X.3.9 with a new hard disk and it was so unstable I went back to X.3.8.)
“ColorZilla is the one I miss the most.”
It works fine on Firefox 1.5, I use it all the time. I’m on Tiger 10.4.7.
Great article. But… almost all Firefox extensions (the main draw of Firefox, after all) work in Flock, which is Firefox for Web 2.0 — god, I hate that phrase — and looks great.
It may still be in beta, but go to flock.com, to get one of the most stable, most beautiful, and most feature-packed browsers around. And (small plus, I suppose) it’s built for Windows, too.
One thing Camino will always have that Firefox won’t is integration with the Keychain.
pity.
I’ve been building Mac optimized builds of Firefox for a while (G4, G5, and Intel), and mine include aqua form widgets. You can download ‘em from here:
http://www.beatnikpad.com/firefox/
really, Firefox doesn’t even fit my Windows theme…..or rather, lack thereof….I have the windows Themes service off, and using the NT/9x look/feel, and yea, the menus don’t resemble Windows at all; neither do the menu drop down response time(s)….Firefox needs some more work, but it is my browser of choice (using Portable Firefox).
Great post…this was really needed. I hate the standard theme for FF…now im am satisfied much much more.
ifox is cute but i prefer to have these icons
http://pimpmycamino.com/parts/amsterdam-blue
Thanks.. this aqua l&f looks great!
Re: Scott’s comment:
> One thing Camino will always have that Firefox won’t
> is integration with the Keychain. pity.
I really like the OS X keychain too and got tired of not being able to use it in Firefox. I heard FF will eventually add support for it, but I also heard that they never would. This is a real pain for syncing passwords machines & browsers, and backups.
I wrote the 1Passwd Password Manager to solve these problems. 1Passwd stores all its data in the keychain and provides an extension for Firefox, and even brings Safari’s AutoFill goodness.
Touched up Firefox icon for Mac OS X, if anyone is interested:
http://www.artofadambetts.com/weblog/?p=124
It fits in with OS X little better.
Thank you for this article! I was just looking for something like that and I fully agree with your starting words (about: Everybody loves FF, but the visual apearence and the performance holds some Mac Users back).
Added this excellent article to howtohut ( http://www.howtohut.com/how_to_make_firefox_for_mac_more_mac_like )
My biggest gripe about firefox right now on the mac… begining and end of line fucntions in the address bar. Safari is smart and knows when you hit shift up/down, you want to select the address bar.. not go into the damn drop down list.
Hey, loved the article. It IS an effort if one really loves Firefox for it’s features (one that I miss is type-to-search). But I think I’ll stick with Safari, as it just fits in better, or is more Mac-like from the start.
Check back at my new Blog, interested in keeping contact with such as yours.
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[...] read more | digg story [...]
[...] So I hate to admit it, I have been using Safari instead of Firefox, one of the reasons being I couldn’t get used to the look of it. Now with this magical theme, it transforms the look of firefox and makes it look more like a macintosh, with full brushed steel effects. Become a Firefox convert like myself! Leave a Reply [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like · cavemonkey50.com July 19th, 2006 | Category: Firefox | [...]
[...] My friends, I am but a user of Kubuntu Linux. But I am also of the know that many of you use Mac OS X, and when you are browsers of the web you use Firefox. It was of today that I saw this article that is of the topic of making Firefox look more like other Mac OS X applications. [...]
[...] Navegando por Digg he encontrado este enlace donde te dicen cómo convertir tu Firefox para Mac en un navegador con una apariencia más al estilo Mac OS X, o incluso podrÃÂa decirse que más cercano al estilo Safari. [...]
[...] Who doesn �t love Firefox? I�ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Luckily thanks to some third-party developers, Firefox can easily be tweaked to fit in with the operating system.read more | digg story [...]
Make Firefox more Mac-like…
If you’re a Mac owner who’s never been happy with the way that Firefox looks on your pretty little desktop, the CaveMonkey50 weblog has a tutorial for how you can make Firefox fit in better with you other OS X……
[...] Ronald Heft, Jr gives an indepth look at just how to bring Firefox up to par with other Mac apps. [...]
[...] Update: Amazingly, Lifehacker just posted an article about customizing Firefox to feel more OS Xish. [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like – Pretty much exactly how I set up Firefox on my Mac. In fact, I just did the copy on the DarthBook a couple of days ago. [...]
שיפור ×â€Ã—ž×¨×?׆ו×â€Ã—ª×—וש׆של Firefox במק…
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[...] I’ve spent a few minutes here and there downloading various themes and plugins for Firefox to make it more Mac-like. This article puts together a good summary on how to do this: How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like · cavemonkey50.com [...]
[...] Si quieres que Firefox luzca con un aire más Mac, este tutorial te guÃÂa para conseguirlo. Instalar el tema GrApple, unos widgets para modificar los botones… VÃÂa Lifehacker [...]
[...] If you’re a Mac user and complain that Firefox doesn’t really “fit” Mac OS X, it’s default theme isn’t very “Mac-ish,” the default form widgets are fugly, and so on, u have some choice ahead of you. Some Mac users live with it, others use Camino (the Firefox-based Mac-native browser), and some of them just stick with Safari. There are a few things a Firefox-on-Mac user can do to feel more at home, though, and Ronald Heft, Jr. has collected them and written a short tutorial on his blog. Though it’s a partial solution at best, Heft does point out that Firefox 3.0 for Mac will be a native Cocoa app and much of this will be but a hazy memory. [...]
[...] Link [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like You do klnow that Firefox doesn’t really take advantage of Mac OSX right? Unlike Safari, there’s no built-in spell check and some traditional Apple keystrokes don’t work. This article is a fixer for that, but it’s best to wait for Firefox 3.0 which is sai Keywords: apple, browser, design, firefox [...]
[...] A complaint about FIrefox I hear often from Mac users is that it doesn’t really “fit” Mac OS X. Its default theme isn’t very “Mac-ish,” the default form widgets are fugly, and so on. Some Mac users live with it, others use Camino, the Firefox-based Mac-native browser, and some of them just stick with Safari. There are a few things a Firefox-on-Mac user can do to feel more at home, though, and Ronald Heft, Jr. has collected them and written a short tutorial on his blog. Though it’s a partial solution at best, Heft does point out that Firefox 3.0 for Mac will be a native Cocoa app and much of this will be but a hazy memory. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like · cavemonkey50.com Who doesn’t love Firefox? I’ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Since version 1.5, the Firefox development team has been paying more attention to the Mac version of the browser, slowly increasing its speed. The upcoming Firefox 2.0 continues those tweaks, finally making Firefox fast enough to be considered usable. That leaves just one problem with Firefox for Mac, the appearance. Luckily thanks to some third-party developers, Firefox can easily be tweaked to fit in with the operating system. [...]
[...] Just what I needed. Firefox looks really cool now. [Link] Filed under: Internet, Apple, Software Posted by Mark on 07.20.06 | Related Entries [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like (tags: firefox mac) [...]
[...] Great advice from cavemonkey50.com on how to make your Firefox more Mac-like: Who doesn’t love Firefox? I’ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Since version 1.5, the Firefox development team has been paying more attention to the Mac version of the browser, slowly increasing its speed. The upcoming Firefox 2.0 continues those tweaks, finally making Firefox fast enough to be considered usable. That leaves just one problem with Firefox for Mac, the appearance. Luckily thanks to some third-party developers, Firefox can easily be tweaked to fit in with the operating system. [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like · cavemonkey50.com (tags: firefox osx) [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like · cavemonkey50.com [...]
[...] Just what I needed. Firefox looks really cool now. [Link] [...]
How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like…
Who doesn’t love Firefox? I’ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Since version 1.5, the …
[...] I came upon an entry on lifehacker directing to a cavemonkey50 article on How to make Firefox for Mac more Mac like. It was recently published so there shouldn’t be any problems unless you are the type to never update programs. I haven’t really used Firefox casually only for testing reasons, and I have to say that the GUI does make me not want to use it as much. So now that It looks like Safari I can type out this entry just a little bit slower. I don’t understand why it is slower than Safari. I didn’t want to download DeerPark because I have heard some problems with it on the Mac. [...]
[...] A dica vem do cavemonkey50.com, que mostra como, em alguns passos, tornar o seu Firefox a cara do Safari. Ao contrário do Camino, browser especialmente desenhado para o Mac OS X, o Firefox ainda não é programado em Cocoa, a linguagem nativa do Mac OS X, por isso sua interface tem uma série de diferenças em relação ao Camino — que é muito mais agradável. [...]
[...] Who doesn’t love Firefox? I’ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Luckily thanks to some third-party developers, Firefox can easily be tweaked to fit in with the operating system.read more | digg story [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like [...]
[...] http://cavemonkey50.com/2006/07/how-to-make-firefox-for-mac-more-mac-like/ [...]
[...] Ein schöner Blogeintrag der ein paar Tricks verrät, wie man Firefox so schick macht, daß auch Mac-User damit zufrieden sind. Ich glaube aber so schnell wie Safari wird er niemals werden. Irgrendwie ist der Firefox for MAC nämlich unglaublich langsam. Also im Gegensatz zu ‘nem Windows PC mit Firefox. Selbst als ich die PowerPC angepassten Builts verwandte (via) Dieser Eintrag wurde verbrochen am Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 08:42 und ist abgelegt unter Netzwelt, by Myself, Apple/Mac. Du kannst den Antworten zum Eintrag durch den RSS 2.0 feed folgen. Du kannst einen Kommentar hinterlassen, oder einen trackback von Deiner Seite senden. « Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. [...]
[...] All you Firefox for Mac users out there will have noticed that the default theme is, well, ugly, and just doesn’t fit with the essential prettiness of Macs. I thought I had it fixed with the ‘brushed’ theme, then I read this article and found the ‘GrApple’ theme. So much better! [...]
[...] How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-likeI ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on … That leaves just one problem with Firefox for Mac, the appearance. … The next visual issue you ll run into with the Mac version of Firefox is the buttons. … [...]
[...] Just what I needed. Firefox looks really cool now. [Link] [...]
[...] Who doesn â??t love Firefox? Iâ??ll tell you who, Mac users. While Firefox has always been great on Windows and Linux, it seems that the Mac version of the browser has always lagged behind in terms of performance and visual appeal. Luckily thanks to some third-party developers, Firefox can easily be tweaked to fit in with the operating system.read more | digg story [...]
[...] While the newer versions of Firefox for Mac OS X have gotten a lot better with speed and stability, the way it looks is still subpar. So I found this great little tutorial on how to make your Firefox more ‘Mac-like.’ [...]
[...] read the original article here [...]
[...] Here’s the link: http://cavemonkey50.com/2006/07/how-to-make-firefox-for-mac-more-mac-like/ [...]
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