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I'd support it if it felt like a first-class citizen on macOS. It's ironic that everyone decries Electron for not being native, then says you should use Firefox

I'd support it if it felt like a first-class citizen on macOS. It's ironic that everyone decries Electron for not being native, then says you should use Firefox when it violates so much about the platform that it's not even funny. A bug about overflow scrolling (the default bouncing when you scroll over in macOS) has been open for years. It doesn't fit in.

rangibaby 8y ago
There used to be a proper Mac fork of FF (Camino), maybe it’s time to revive that
- Klonoar 8y ago
  Camino was fantastic, used it back in the day. :) I'm not sure what Mozilla's deal is these days, to be honest, but Firefox really just doesn't feel like it fits in on Mac. It's frustrating, because I want to support it... but I just end up back in Safari because it feels far more smooth and integrated.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    I got into using macOS later on but after 10 years of Firefox I had no issue with it on the Mac. I guess I possibly did not even notice the bugs mentioned. Ironically I couldnt use Chrome after beta cause I was too used to how Firefox works.
    - qmarchi 8y ago
      I was originally using chrome for pretty much everything, but I started getting annoyed with the performance hiccups and I wasn't switching over to Safari because of the failure of the extension ecosystem ($99 to publish an extension?). Firefox being the best choice out there has been positive to the point where I don't have Chrome installed on anything other than my phone.
- baldfat 8y ago
  I really would like to say that I find it ridiculous that mac users consistently bash Firefox due to feeling it doesn't belong while they use Google Chrome. How is Google Chrome more AppleOS then Firefox? Granted I can't stand AppleOS and find the UI to be totally frustrating still in 2018 and how old it feels. How is Firefox any different then Google Chrome?
- classichasclass 8y ago
  The reason was Mozilla killed embedding. Making everything an XULRunner app was supposed to be the future solution, but precluded native apps like Camino and K-Meleon from doing their thing, and while Mozilla had "reasons" I thought and continue to think it was incredibly shortsighted. Look at all the Chromium and WebKit shells. You just can't do that with Gecko on desktop (this may be changing on Android, though).
kiwijamo 8y ago
My main machines (both personal and work) runs macOS and I find Firefox to fit in fine. Certaintly does what I expect 99.9% of the time. Scrolling for instance seems to work as expected (and on par with Safari which I occassionally use). Can you share more examples?
- masklinn 8y ago
  > Can you share more examples? Keychain does not work, FF57 killed KSE.
  - arendtio 8y ago
    Sadly, that problem is not specific to MacOS :-/ On Linux with KDE that web-extension change killed the kwallet integration too. But you are right when you are saying that it degrades the user experience of MacOS users :-(
vvillena 8y ago
Does Apple provide a correct specification for implementing overflow scrolling on custom window controls? Or is a default behavior that only Apple-blessed graphic components have? Failing to follow the Apple guidelines would be bad for Firefox. If the issue is not having a spec, we'd be talking about Apple actively sabotaging apps like Firefox. I'm a Firefox user on macOS and I don't remember issues with scrolling. I don't use a trackpad, maybe that's the issue?
isostatic 8y ago
It's odd that firefox doesn't use the osx certificate store
- vetinari 8y ago
  Firefox doesn't use certificate store on any OS. Only the ESR for Windows has an option, off by default, for respecting the cert store.
- alex_duf 8y ago
  It's a matter of opinion at this stage. I trust Mozilla more than say... Lenovo or Dell that both shipped rogue certificates
- sametmax 8y ago
  It's sad, but necessary. The OS certificate stores have been a circus for so long now that nowbody take it seriously anymore.
lightwords 8y ago
Pinch to zoom is also non-existent so Firefox becomes useless for a many adults/elderly with poor eye-sight or even just many other users who like to browse and zoom on text/pictures etc. It's so frustrating that this feature is not available in Firefox when you are promoting it. The absence of this feature in my small survey is the main reason people quit using Firefox.
- Vindicis 8y ago
  I'm honestly a bit confused. This is the second comment I've seen regarding the lack of this feature. It's not one I ever use purposefully, so maybe I just don't understand what's missing. But, with Firefox on my Samsung Galaxy, I can zoom in and out of text and photos by pinching, with no issues at all. Was it a long time ago when you last tried it perhaps?
  - NoGravitas 8y ago
    I think they mean desktop Firefox on a touchscreen laptop, rather than mobile Firefox. Personally, I can't imagine trying to pinch-zoom on a desktop, but maybe I'm just old.
    - ghostly_s 8y ago
      They're talking about a gesture that's specific to the Macbook trackpad; namely, the implementation you see in Safari, which is not the typical browser 'zoom' function that increases the size of elements and reflows the page, but rather zooms in to show you a subset of the DOM canvas as rendered, like mobile browsers do. It is definitely a handy feature but to characterize it as a missing 'standard' functionality I don't think is fair. No desktop browser had this functionality until Safari ported it over from the mobile version a few releases back as I recall, though Chrome has since copied it.
    - ShinTakuya 8y ago
      On Microsoft Surface in tablet mode I often want to pinch zoom. It works but it's limited to the discrete zoom levels that you see with Ctrl+ and Ctrl- so you don't get the smooth zoom you get on Chrome. I still prefer FF for a variety of other reasons so to me it's just a nitpick.

rangibaby 8y ago

There used to be a proper Mac fork of FF (Camino), maybe it’s time to revive that

Klonoar 8y ago
Camino was fantastic, used it back in the day. :) I'm not sure what Mozilla's deal is these days, to be honest, but Firefox really just doesn't feel like it fits in on Mac. It's frustrating, because I want to support it... but I just end up back in Safari because it feels far more smooth and integrated.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  I got into using macOS later on but after 10 years of Firefox I had no issue with it on the Mac. I guess I possibly did not even notice the bugs mentioned. Ironically I couldnt use Chrome after beta cause I was too used to how Firefox works.
  - qmarchi 8y ago
    I was originally using chrome for pretty much everything, but I started getting annoyed with the performance hiccups and I wasn't switching over to Safari because of the failure of the extension ecosystem ($99 to publish an extension?). Firefox being the best choice out there has been positive to the point where I don't have Chrome installed on anything other than my phone.
baldfat 8y ago
I really would like to say that I find it ridiculous that mac users consistently bash Firefox due to feeling it doesn't belong while they use Google Chrome. How is Google Chrome more AppleOS then Firefox? Granted I can't stand AppleOS and find the UI to be totally frustrating still in 2018 and how old it feels. How is Firefox any different then Google Chrome?
classichasclass 8y ago
The reason was Mozilla killed embedding. Making everything an XULRunner app was supposed to be the future solution, but precluded native apps like Camino and K-Meleon from doing their thing, and while Mozilla had "reasons" I thought and continue to think it was incredibly shortsighted. Look at all the Chromium and WebKit shells. You just can't do that with Gecko on desktop (this may be changing on Android, though).

kiwijamo 8y ago

My main machines (both personal and work) runs macOS and I find Firefox to fit in fine. Certaintly does what I expect 99.9% of the time. Scrolling for instance seems to work as expected (and on par with Safari which I occassionally use). Can you share more examples?

masklinn 8y ago
> Can you share more examples? Keychain does not work, FF57 killed KSE.
- arendtio 8y ago
  Sadly, that problem is not specific to MacOS :-/ On Linux with KDE that web-extension change killed the kwallet integration too. But you are right when you are saying that it degrades the user experience of MacOS users :-(

vvillena 8y ago

Does Apple provide a correct specification for implementing overflow scrolling on custom window controls? Or is a default behavior that only Apple-blessed graphic components have? Failing to follow the Apple guidelines would be bad for Firefox. If the issue is not having a spec, we'd be talking about Apple actively sabotaging apps like Firefox. I'm a Firefox user on macOS and I don't remember issues with scrolling. I don't use a trackpad, maybe that's the issue?

isostatic 8y ago

It's odd that firefox doesn't use the osx certificate store

vetinari 8y ago
Firefox doesn't use certificate store on any OS. Only the ESR for Windows has an option, off by default, for respecting the cert store.
alex_duf 8y ago
It's a matter of opinion at this stage. I trust Mozilla more than say... Lenovo or Dell that both shipped rogue certificates
sametmax 8y ago
It's sad, but necessary. The OS certificate stores have been a circus for so long now that nowbody take it seriously anymore.

lightwords 8y ago

Pinch to zoom is also non-existent so Firefox becomes useless for a many adults/elderly with poor eye-sight or even just many other users who like to browse and zoom on text/pictures etc. It's so frustrating that this feature is not available in Firefox when you are promoting it. The absence of this feature in my small survey is the main reason people quit using Firefox.

Vindicis 8y ago
I'm honestly a bit confused. This is the second comment I've seen regarding the lack of this feature. It's not one I ever use purposefully, so maybe I just don't understand what's missing. But, with Firefox on my Samsung Galaxy, I can zoom in and out of text and photos by pinching, with no issues at all. Was it a long time ago when you last tried it perhaps?
- NoGravitas 8y ago
  I think they mean desktop Firefox on a touchscreen laptop, rather than mobile Firefox. Personally, I can't imagine trying to pinch-zoom on a desktop, but maybe I'm just old.
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    They're talking about a gesture that's specific to the Macbook trackpad; namely, the implementation you see in Safari, which is not the typical browser 'zoom' function that increases the size of elements and reflows the page, but rather zooms in to show you a subset of the DOM canvas as rendered, like mobile browsers do. It is definitely a handy feature but to characterize it as a missing 'standard' functionality I don't think is fair. No desktop browser had this functionality until Safari ported it over from the mobile version a few releases back as I recall, though Chrome has since copied it.
  - ShinTakuya 8y ago
    On Microsoft Surface in tablet mode I often want to pinch zoom. It works but it's limited to the discrete zoom levels that you see with Ctrl+ and Ctrl- so you don't get the smooth zoom you get on Chrome. I still prefer FF for a variety of other reasons so to me it's just a nitpick.