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.
10 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
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..
Thanks for this – the DMG file looking like a drive and the totally uncomprehensible little window with pictograms trying to replace and simplyfy was driving me nuts. How about writing “Open a new Applications window and drag this icon over there. Then remove the DMG file”. Sheesh. I further complicated it for myelf as I had created a shortcut to the dmg file in the Dock, not to the application, so even though I solved the problem I apparently reinstalled the program every time…
props on putting together a nice step by step guide on how to install firefox on the mac! i just wish i had read your guide before i started.
i’m a mac n00b too and unfortunately – rather than just use the mac – i need to write applications for the mac too :/
Thanks for this also . . . I’m a life time mac person and pretty web savvy, but I also had the same problem as you (author of the article). Yes, there’s times we feel embarrassed at missing the simplicity, but I don’t think we should feel it’s “our fault” when industries bother to provide a window to teach us what to do, but remove all signs of the launguage that we speak and write in. (I’m in agreement with #8 Jon above…so simple.) Yes, we could read the instructions at the beginning, but we tend not to because previous downloads have shown us how easy it is to click download, then double-click to open & install in the right spot based upon a few simple lines of instruction. When you change stuff on folks and dumb-down everything for the lowest common denominator (idiots? illiterate? non-English speaking?) by just placing graphics, it doesn’t help people but confuse them! (I actually closed the little window thinking it was a ‘splash page too’ then dragged the DMG w/ FF logo on it into my App folder then tried to CMD-L for an alias to drag to dock…frustrating!)
I’m a graphic designer, but language has developed for a reason . . . so, to all product creators, if you create a space that can hold a simple graphic instruction AS WELL as a couple lines of text, DO IT!
I am really glad this guide has helped you all
@Andrea that was very thoughtful
Hi there.
Thank you for a great post. It was very helpfull.
Anyone reading this post should bookmark this guys contents.
I have a new PC and needed some installation help so i went over to http://www.InstallSoftware.com but they did not provide me with the in depth
info this guy did. he kicks all the bigger sites’ butts.
Thanks Again
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