Firefox 18 launches with support for Retina display Macs
Mozilla Firefox officially gained support for Apple's Retina displays on Tuesday with the release of version 18 of the popular Web browser.
Firefox 18 is now available for download from Mozilla. It is compatible with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later, and requires at least 512 megabytes of RAM and 200 megabytes of hard drive space.
For Macs running OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the latest version of Firefox adds support for the high-resolution Retina displays found in Apple's latest 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros. A beta version of Firefox with support for Retina displays had been in testing since November.
Other new features in Firefox 18 include faster JavaScript performance via the IonMonkey compiler, and preliminary support for WebRTC. The browser also offers better image quality with a new HTML scaling algorithm, while performance related to tab switching has been improved.
The addition of Retina display support in Firefox comes more than five months after Google's Chrome browser gained support for Apple's high-resolution Mac screens.
Apple's first Retina-quality Mac launched in June in the form of the next-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro. The company then followed up in October with a 13-inch variant.
Though Apple has been shipping Retina Macs since June, it's taken time for a number of high-profile OS X applications still to add compatibility with the high-resolution displays. Microsoft added Retina display support to Office 2011 < ahref="http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/19/microsoft_adds_retina_display_support_to_office_for_mac_2011">in September, while Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator received Retina upgrades in December.
Software that is not upgraded with Retina display support can look blurry and poor on the pixel-packing screens, particularly when displaying text. With Firefox now compatible, other remaining holdouts include Spotify and Valve's Steam, both of which continue to have noticeable low-resolution elements.
Firefox 18 is now available for download from Mozilla. It is compatible with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later, and requires at least 512 megabytes of RAM and 200 megabytes of hard drive space.
For Macs running OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the latest version of Firefox adds support for the high-resolution Retina displays found in Apple's latest 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros. A beta version of Firefox with support for Retina displays had been in testing since November.
Other new features in Firefox 18 include faster JavaScript performance via the IonMonkey compiler, and preliminary support for WebRTC. The browser also offers better image quality with a new HTML scaling algorithm, while performance related to tab switching has been improved.
The addition of Retina display support in Firefox comes more than five months after Google's Chrome browser gained support for Apple's high-resolution Mac screens.
Apple's first Retina-quality Mac launched in June in the form of the next-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro. The company then followed up in October with a 13-inch variant.
Though Apple has been shipping Retina Macs since June, it's taken time for a number of high-profile OS X applications still to add compatibility with the high-resolution displays. Microsoft added Retina display support to Office 2011 < ahref="http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/19/microsoft_adds_retina_display_support_to_office_for_mac_2011">in September, while Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator received Retina upgrades in December.
Software that is not upgraded with Retina display support can look blurry and poor on the pixel-packing screens, particularly when displaying text. With Firefox now compatible, other remaining holdouts include Spotify and Valve's Steam, both of which continue to have noticeable low-resolution elements.
Comments
They still need to hook into the smooth pinch to zoom/ unzoom and the double tap to smart zoom that apple uses for Safari. That's one of the main reasons why I quit using firefox after 9 years or so
That took long enough. Also, 18?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
That took long enough. Also, 18?
Yeah they come out with one every month or so now in an effort to compete with chrome
I haven't used Firefox since 2006. It's a vestige from the days when you really didn't want to run IE on a PC. And I think people still don't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610
I haven't used Firefox since 2006. It's a vestige from the days when you really didn't want to run IE on a PC. And I think people still don't.
I still use Firefox on my Windows partition. IE is archaic, Safari is end-of-life (never was great on Windows), and I don't want Google tracking everything I do in Chrome. But it's mostly pointless on Mac OS X now that Safari has become a solid browser.
just tried it out on my rMBP 15" Prefer Safari in terms of the scrolling smoothness.
On a separate note been using the Webkit nightly builds and things have certainly improved.
Like many used Fire Fox in my Windows days instead of IE and for a while instead of Safari in the early days.
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
I still laugh at Google getting Firefox not to adopt H.264 just so Chrome could use that advantage to expand their holding in the browser market. I can't imagine Firefox will ever be more than a niche browser moving forward. Mozilla has even put the 64-bit Windows version on hold to work the 32-bit version of Firefox.
As much a niche as I agree Firefox will be, I am just freaking dumbfounded that Apple has stopped Safari for Windows. I don't get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
As much a niche as I agree Firefox will be, I am just freaking dumbfounded that Apple has stopped Safari for Windows. I don't get it.
Most Windows users I've talked to feel the same way about Safari as they do about Quicktime: it just feels out of place and there are better alternatives. Similar to Microsoft's offerings on Mac OS X.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
As much a niche as I agree Firefox will be, I am just freaking dumbfounded that Apple has stopped Safari for Windows. I don't get it.
Same here. I have to use IE for work applications, but while I'm goofing off (like at this moment) I prefer to use another browser. Safari for Windows would be my first option but it isn't available.
Originally Posted by auxio
Most Windows users I've talked to feel the same way about Safari as they do about Quicktime: it just feels out of place and there are better alternatives.
Better?! What?
That seems ambiguous. The 'what' is asking for betters, not confusion at what you're saying.
Don't say Chrome.
Agreed! - and i really hate there numbering of versions! - i mean firefox 18? when will support for mobile-retina-igzo-oled support come in version 109? /s
but yeah - firefox...
About time, Firefox. I'm amazed you couldn't do this before Adobe, one of the legendarily final holdouts of Cocoa-ifying; they were somehow able to jam retina into their eons of legacy code and non-standard interface elements.
Not that I was holding my breath. Firefox never did seem quite as native to OS X, especially with that download dialog box.
I would assume that maintaining Safari for Windows required disproportionate effort, similar to the work required to make modern sites render properly on IE8 and below. WinSafari can't take advantage of any OS X APIs, like Core Animation, Core Text, or the multithreaded kernel (Windows is more optimized for multiple processes). But WinChrome uses webkit, so it's all good in the hood.
Safari's smart zoom debuted on iOS, so it is most certainly patented.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Better?! What?
That seems ambiguous. The 'what' is asking for betters, not confusion at what you're saying.
Don't say Chrome.
If you don't care about Google tracking you (which, again, most Windows users I've spoken with really don't care about), then yeah, Chrome. Or Firefox if you do care (even though it's a bit slower, it's still a good browser on Windows).
As much as we all love Apple for the full experience top-to-bottom, sorry, but their Windows software just doesn't feel right. Mainly because they are trying to shoehorn the Mac look and feel onto Windows (and the experience will never be as good as it is on Mac OS X).
Originally Posted by auxio
If you don't care about Google tracking you (which, again, most Windows users I've spoken with really don't care about), then yeah, Chrome.
It's the same engine, only older and worse. And you sell your soul to get it. So better?
As much as we all love Apple for the full experience top-to-bottom, sorry, but their Windows software just doesn't feel right. Mainly because they are trying to shoehorn the Mac look and feel onto Windows (and the experience will never be as good as it is on Mac OS X).
"Giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Better?! What?
That seems ambiguous. The 'what' is asking for betters, not confusion at what you're saying.
Don't say Chrome.
I don't know what your problems is, but Safari for windows was always a POS. Chrome and Firefox are much faster at everything and the UI felt familiar to windows (even if it was bad, it felt like it belonged there).
Obviously safari for mac provides the best browsing experience one can get on a desktop, and only someone stupid (or someone that is "trapped" on Google's ecosystem (someone stupid is enough, right?)) would use another browser RIGHT NOW. 6 is the fastest, has better features (gestures without lag, share options, etc.) and just looks better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
It's the same engine, only older and worse. And you sell your soul to get it. So better?
"Giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell."
On Windows, the Apple experience is mostly just a "skin". And one which native Windows users don't seem to care for (likely because they aren't accustomed to it). You need top-to-bottom integration to get the real Apple experience.
So in that way, Chrome is better because it tries to fit into the Windows experience. It also feels faster -- likely because it doesn't have to emulate all of the Mac GUI stuff like Safari does (I've seen CoreFoundation.dll, Foundation.dll, etc -- it's a port of Mac stuff to Windows).
Sure, Mac users don't want that experience, but Windows users do (no matter what Steve Jobs believed).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
As much a niche as I agree Firefox will be, I am just freaking dumbfounded that Apple has stopped Safari for Windows. I don't get it.
I agree. Admittedly, Safari wasn't great on Windows, but why didn't Apple invest to make it great? The interface on Windows needed some tweaking to make it feel more at home there. On the Mac, Safari is wonderful. I wish I could elected to put the tabs on top, but other than that it has evolved to be a very nice tool. With that said, if I couldn't use Safari, I would go with Firefox as it has come a long way and does somethings better than Safari (e.g. password management). Chrome is sleek and feels about as fast as Safari, but it calls home like every five minutes. Safari and Firefox call home maybe once a week to check for an update.
When they launched it there was no WebKit presence in Windows. I think web developers needed something that could show how webkit would look if you are doung Windows devolopment.
They were also moving the iTunes Store in iTunes to be WebKit based instead of Java based, if I remember correctly.
Now that Chrome is available and every mobile device that wants to compete has adopted Apple's web engine there really is no reason for the effort.
Forgive my lack of understanding but what and how exactly does google track your browsing behaviour? I have turned off search history and use ghostery which often blocks google analytics on a page. How much further down the rabbit hole does this insanity go?