[MW Forums]

A little more than a year after releasing Firefox, The Mozilla Foundation released the next major revision to the open-source Web browser, Firefox 1.5. Rob Griffiths dives into this new release and tells you what to expect. more

[tracyvalleau]

1) Safari will fill in complete web forms for me; I can't seem to get FF to do this.
2) most annoying: downloads ask me what to do -every time- regardless of whether or not I've set the preference for the file type. I just want files to simply download to my in-box, and although I've got the prefs set correctly (I think) I'm continually asked what I want to do with the download.
FWIW, I've downloaded one of the G5 specific builds from a third party, and it's noticibly faster...
But until I can get these two issues fixed, I'm sticking with Safari......

[Edgejr]

Yes, but does it use the Keychain? One of my big complaints about Firefox and Opera, and why I like Safari and especially Omniweb is that they make extensive use of the Keychain. I don't want to have my passwords all stored in different places and I have no idea how secure Firefox's password storage actually is. So, if you can tell me they now use the Keychain for stored passwords, then it's time to swtich!

[Adwiz]

Despite the improvements, Firefox still doesn't support Services.
This is unacceptable in my opinion for an OS X product. While it is still my preferred browser, I'm annoyed that any time I need to use Services (such as grabbing a page to StickyBrain or BBEdit) I have to launch Safari and re-navigate to that page to do so.

[chasesequence]

I use both Safari and Firefox 1.0.7, and while my impression is that Safari is faster, and on the whole, I prefer Safari's look and feel, but Firefox seems to display pages more correctly. My website statistics program (TraceWatch) actually crashes in Safari and doesn't display the Flash graphs at all. In Firefox, it works flawlessly. Since I obsessively check my site stats every day, all day, that alone has brought me over to Firefox almost full-time. Definitely need to try out 1.5.

[marke]

I hear where you're coming from, but I still contend that even in it's 1.5 release, Firefox is one of the worst browsers for the Mac. And that's a good thing. Here is why:
http://www.design.th...t-browser-ever/

[IndyJeff]

It's a great browser on all platforms. Extensions like Flashblock and Adblock are great, and the ability to use keywords in the URL such as dict (for dictionary look-up) and imdb (for Internet Movie Database) are real time-savers.
Anyone notice that MacWorld's articles have a lot of cosmetic glitches with Firefox 1.5? The left panel doesn't draw correctly, and text frequently extends off to the right into the surrounding ads and text in the last panel. This site is the only one I've seen a problem with Firefox 1.5.

[griffman]

Regarding forms, yea, that's one area where I usually switch to Safari. However, there are two extensions that I use on Firefox that mkae it much simpler to manage forms. The Google Toolbar includes a set of basic autofill fields you can complete and then fill with a button click. Second, I use one called InFormEnter that lets you store additional info in a pop-up menu--which you then access with a click next to a form field. It's not autofill, but when I just need a quick online account form, for instance, I'll use a combo -- Google Toolbar fills in the basics, and I have some more esoteric stuff hidden in InFormEnter.
Relative to downloads, this has been fixed in 1.5, at least in my testing. I just had to go specify an actual save location, and then it stopped asking me (once for each type, that's all).
And yea, I have the G5 build, too, but didn't want to go into that in the first look.
-rob.

[griffman]

Clearly, if you need the Mac UI in your browser, Firefox isn't the way to go /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. But given that I spend almost no time in anything other than web pages, it really doesn't bug me much.
One minor correction for you: the customize toolbar window is resizable, so you don't need to scroll if you don't want to...
-rob.

[Scrutiny]

And another serious bug in firefox....
http://businesslogs....ology/crippling[/u]firefoxbugonmacos_x.php
Just try using google maps effectively if your CPU usage goes upto 100% when you hold the mouse button down.

[tracyvalleau]

Thank you. I've managed to dl inFormEnter, and a couple of others, but the only Google I can find is "Google Advanced Information Toolbar" ... and the jar file is corrupted and won't load. Is this the extension to which you refer?
Perhaps I need to trash my prefs, re: forever asking about downloads...
Thanks again!

[griffman]

Here's the Google Toolbar for Firefox:
http://toolbar.googl...efox/index.html
And regarding the CPU @ 100% bug: this bug's existed for quite a while, and to be honest, I've never noticed it -- and I use Google Maps a lot on a G4 PowerBook. If you press-and-hold the mouse for several seconds, you will indeed see CPU usage go to 100% and stay until you release the button. But, at least in my use of any browser, that's not something I normally do.
Even with Google Maps, the pattern is click-and-drag for maybe a second at the most, then release and move the mouse (since you can't scroll over a window edge). As soon as you release the button, CPU usage drops again. In actual practice, I've never noticed any fan noise, an unresponsive computer, or any other side effect of this glitch. On my big machine, a Dual G5, the CPU usage hits about 50% on both, so its even less noticeable.
With that said, it's definitely one they need to squash.
-rob.

[macsackbut]

FYI, you could set multiple tabs as your homepage in 1.07. It was one of the things I find most useful about FF. I still use Safari mainly, but Firefox comes in handy for the pages that refuse to display properly in Safari.

[jimwick]

Firefox has to be the most over-rated clumsy Mac browser there is.
-> As noted, it does not support Services
-> As noted, it asks for a download decision each time, though its all been set in Preferences
-> The Page Up/Page Down keys dont work
-> Open source apps download as .exe files
-> Its Form Fill is laughable
Surely its an improvement over IE for Windoze juserrs -- but this is the Mac world
and Firefox is a sorry addition.
<Firefox 1.5, OS X 10.4.3>