Note to Firefox Nerds: Firefox Sucks on Mac
Hi,
I’m a big fan of the Firefox browser; it’s fast, nimble and has a great plug-in architecture, that has made Firefox into a true tool for web designers. That said, Firefox has one big failing – it sucks on the Mac.
Yes, for reasons beyond the comprehension of this humble nerd, Firefox crashes like crazy on the typically ultra stable Mac OSX.
… It’s so bad in fact, that sometimes it feels like I’m using crash-crazy Mac OS 9!
What is the source of the Firefox problem?
I haven’t done any thorough testing, but it seems to me that the constant crashing has to do with the Firefox Javascript engine – it only seems to crash when I’m on a page that uses Javascript.
So if any of your Firefox developers happen to come across this post, please take a closer look at this glaring problem. Believe me, I am not the only one who has seen this.
PS: The Flash player also doesn’t work properly in Firefox on Mac.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
September 29th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I have a MacBook Pro and have never had a problem with Firefox at all.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I have the same problem. I work on a PC and live on a Mac (MBP). FF on the PC is so much more stable and responsive. As the title says, “Firefox Sucks on Mac.”
Here’s a VERY good way to demonstrate the problem. Install the “Pencil Sketching” extension in FF for both a Mac and a PC. On the PC, this is an amazing little app. It literally flies along. On the Mac, it’s an absolute dog. It takes forever to drag objects around. Saving the project takes forever.
Please fix. I use Safari for all day to day browsing now. I only fire up FF when I’m doing web development and need Firebug and the developer toolbar.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I switched to a Mac in January of this year. I have an iMac, MacBook, and my new job provided me with a 2nd MacBook. On all three I exclusively use FF and have yet to run into any problems.
Cheers.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I’ve found firefox to be strangely erratic when it comes to flaws and bugs. Whenever I use it, (admittedly on a PC) it consumes vast amounts of memory, and closing all tabs doesn’t release this memory.
Other than that, it’s good though!
October 13th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Solarise i have noticed the memory leak in Firefox as well it some times hogs a lot of my system resources. I used a mac at school and i did not notice a a major difference from firfox on pc (my home use.)
October 13th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I have a MacBook Pro, *never* had a problem.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Sadly I have the same experience of FF sucking on Mac. It’s the best thing that happened to the PC world but it crashes like crazy for me when I use it on my Macbook. I even tried that troubleshooting thing on the FF website to fix frequent Mac crashes but it didn’t work at all. And not only that, seems the download manager has stopped working for some odd reason. I click on a link to start a download and even choose where to save the file but nothing ever starts. I never have these problems with FF on my PC. So sad because I really loved the Fox. I guess I’ll have to go back to using Opera browser on my Mac and save myself the headaches.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Hi Anaya,
I found Safari to be a pretty good browser, you may want to give it a try.
Stefan
October 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Have to say I agree. I use firefox on my PC exclusively, but it is AWFUL on my macs (2 G4s, and an intel). All of them. It takes forever to load up when I launch the app. Even when firefox is already up, opening a new window… forever. Longer than Safari takes to load up the same page with the app not running—by a lot.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Glad I’m not alone with this problem! I finally had to completely ditch Firefox on my macbook. It takes forever to open up initially, won’t accept text as fast as I can type it, and crashes a handful of times each day. Even my gmail inbox will take around 20 seconds to load vs opening instantly on Camino or Safari. It’s upsetting because I still can’t find a decent browser for os x that includes a drop down address bar.
November 12th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Firefox totally sucks on my MacBook Pro. I just tried to save a page as a PDF file and Firefox choked and died. The page I was trying to save was a receipt that I’ll need to pick up some personalized license plates. The receipt is gone thanks to Firefox. Good work guys. Oh, and Firefox ALWAYS crashes when I try to quit. Great feature!
November 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Doesn’t Mozilla have a Mac alternative? I want to say it’s called Camino but I’m not sure. I don’t use a Mac so I don’t have this problem, but I still assumed Firefox was for PC and Camino is for Mac.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:53 am
I used to have this problem when browsing JavaScript heavy sites such as Gmail. It seemed to start when Firefox 3 was first released. However, about a month later the problems seemed to dwindle. I’m running OS 10.5 and haven’t had a problem since.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:29 pm
FaceBook sucks on FireFox for Mac, to the point where it’s pretty much un-viewable.
Same with G-mail, it constantly has loading errors and reloads numerous times every time I try to click on something.
I’ve actually had to switch to Safari cause it beats the hell out of FF…..!
PC-wise, FireFox is still a badass.
But on a mac, is just embarrassing.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I just bought my first Mac last winter–a macbook pro. And I have had nothing but problems with Firefox. Sometimes is just stops loading any pages, and when I go to quit Firefox, it won’t. So I have to re-boot. I started using Safari instead, and have had no problems with it. But all my friends tell me to use Firefox, that it’s the best. I just can’t agree with that.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I use Firefox extensively on Mac, PC and my home Mac Mini.
Can’t say I have any problems. Facebook runs fine, G-mail is a breeze.
Why doesn’t anyone include system and versions in these complaints?
Work: iMac Intel 2.16 Core 2 duo, Firefox v. 2.0.0.18
Home: Mac Mini Intel 1.6 Core duo, Firefox v. 3.0.4
November 27th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Yep/.it sux alright
just gets unresponsive
fire on leper.
Safari is a shitter
What else?
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Fast and nimble? Are you joking? And if I see ‘That said’ one more time, I’m going to scream! Stay off the internet if you can’t communicate properly.
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Yes, Firefox on the PC is fast and nimble compared to IE.
“And if I see ‘That said’ one more time, I’m going to scream! ”
You’d better get your tea and honey ready, because ‘that said’ is often used in the English language.
“Stay off the internet if you can’t communicate properly.”
I’ve communicated to literally millions over the years. THAT SAID, I do admit that my writing ain’t perfect.
Stefan
May 26th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Ive noticed it crashes a lot, also when I’m updating flash to my sites there can be a delay in the flash actually updating. But these are occasional problems, and generally I find Firefox pretty darn good, especially with all its awesome SEO and web design plugins.