I had a really bad experience installing Firefox on my Mac so I decided to pen down the detailed instructions along with my experience installing it as a first time Mac user.
Installing Firefox on Mac OS X
Goto Firefox.com, click on the download link and the file should download to your Downloads folder
Open the Downloads folder using Finder and locate the Firefox.2.x.x.x file, double click on it ad you should see this screen
Click accept and in a few moments, the image will be mounted and you will see this window
Now open the Applications folder in another Finder window and drag the Firefox icon from the above screen into the Applications folder
You will see a progress screen for a few moments and you are done installing Firefox
Right click on the Firefox disc image icon on your desktop and Eject
To launch Firefox, double click on the Firefox icon in the Applications folder
For future use, you could drag the Firefox icon from the Applications window onto the dock to create a shortcut
My experience
Installing applications is supposedly a trivial task on a Mac but when I tried to install Firefox (my first non-Apple application) I was clue less about how to install it.
It was my Day 1 with the Mac and I already got the hang of Safari so I decided to try the mighty Firefox for a few reasons -
- First its a damn good browser
- Second I was used to it as a windows user
- Third and most important, Firefox maintains a consistent UI across all platforms
Just like everyone else I downloaded the DMG, double clicked on the DMG and it showed me this screen.
What the heck??? What am I supposed to do with this little window?? What does it mean? I was really frustrated, why can’t they include instructions to install the app? I initially thought it was actually a splash screen. Then after playing with the window for a while, I discovered that the Firefox logo is an icon and by the signs I thought I should drag this icon into the white Applications icon in the window. Didn’t work. Tried some googling with no luck then realized that I could drag the icon into a new Applications finder window. And finally there I had it, Firefox on my Mac.
This was in the past and when I was a Mac noob. Now that I know how to install applications (apps), when I think about my first install experience I feel embarrassed. And I wish Firefox developers designed it in such a way that the Firefox icon could be dragged into the Applications icon in the same disk image window rather than the user opening a new Applications window and then dragging the icon into it.
It was actually my mistake, they had install instructions on the download page which I did not notice and closed.
7 comments ↓
To me it’s an open-end question if
“Firefox maintains a consistent UI across all platforms”
or if
“Firefox breaks consistent UIs across all platforms”
I just prefer application UIs following the OS default…
Many thanks!! This was very helpful.
I also didn’t read the install instructions.
And I tried various items, and also wound up
with the little drive icon, or that plus an item in the dock, and I couldn’t get eject the drive icon because
“another application is using it”, etc etc.
Finally, Applecare just said it wasn’t their problem,
it was Mozilla’s problem. Sigh. Pretty poor.
I am also a noob. And I second various of your comments.
Again,thanks a bunch!
(I had just spent a few hours on another mac problem,
this one with Parallels desktop and lousy documentation,
on something called MacFUSE)
PS — I wonder how Camino is — “Mozilla Power, Mac Style”
(at caminobrowser.org )
im really happy that it helped someone like me which was exactly why i wrote the article
tried camino it wasn’t much different in look except for a bit of mac styling, but the fact that its not Firefox itself made me ditch it very soon
and also i think they may scrap Camino project soon as Firefox 3 is exactly that - Mozilla Power, Mac Style
I brand new on Mac, my family bought me this MacBook to help me listen to Oprah’s free course on line - a web cast she is doing with an author of one of her book club books. I am having so much trouble and I see that I need help at the level of a child who has never used a computer before. One of the things I tried was to download on of the programs from oprah’s site it a free download - the instructions said if you want to use this download on Apple TV or your computer choose the larger of the two choices - well I looked at the two number and didnt know which one was the larger file. That was the final straw. I realize that I don’t know how to communicate with this computer and it doesn’t seem to have anything elemental enough for me to understand.
Also, one night trying to access my Hotmail account I couldn’t get up there - I remembered that a friend of mine had a google free e-mail account so I sign in and got a google e-mail address - while doing this I was asked to download firefox - and I did - but I didn’t know what it was until I called the people from whom this computer was purchased CDW I called them because I was having terrible trouble with my wireless connection - it kept kicking me off every few minutes - and I didn’t know how to get back on - while talking to the technician at CDW I asked what was this firefox and he told me and explained what that meant - he said that it was better than Safari and that I should use it which I have been doing and havent’had that problem again. But now I’ve lost Word and can’t find it nor can I open the files I’ve stored in it. The message says that the files may have been moved etc etc. well as I’m typing this I noticed that there is something in my trash and I haven’t put anthing there I open the trash and there is an folder I open it and it is Word Work File S_1 - I don’t even know how it got there but in trying to open it I get the same message one of the instructions is to re-install word to see if its been installed correctly - Ive looked and looked and can’t find how to do that. Well, this is taking a lot of time - can you understand the pickle I’m in? Can you help me? One of the things I’ve always heard about Apple computers is that they are easier to work than the IBM type computer. When I ask can you help me I don’t presume that you will teach me what I need to know - I just hope maybe you can direct me to where I can find what I need. If you’ve taken the time to read al of this, thanks. I am disabled so getting out to go to lessons at an apple store will pose a problem for me - but I am looking into that too. thank you again, Lorraine
hi Lorraine, I have sent you an email at the address in your comment. Feel free to send me any additional queries either by email or here on the blog. I will be ready to help you get used to your computer
This is useful, but, I need to download Firefox onto My MacBook and then move it to my Mom’s Mac. She has internet access but Safari has blocked her from all Web sites. My niece suggested that I try downloading firefox and moving it from my mac to my mom’s mac to see if that will fix the problem.. I’m having trouble moving the download without accepting the license. Once I accept the license on the machine I downloaded it to, there’s no place to accept the license on the new machine..
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