14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla's Firefox is one of the most popular browsers out there; however, Mac users don't love it nearly as much as they could. One of the main reasons why this happens is the lack of an OS X look and feel for the application. Fortunately, it looks like the developers have listened to the users and this long standing issue is finally being addressed.
A preview build of Firefox has been released by the Mozilla developer Josh Aas. This new experimental build is equipped with native Mac OS X form controls, that should help in making it look and feel more like an OS X program. Currently, the build is only available for the latest Intel-based Macs, though a PowerPC version has been promised. At the very latest, PowerPC users will see this update when Firefox is released as version 3.0 which will undoubtedly be a universal binary.
The lack of the native Aqua widgets for webpage form controls in the OS X edition of Firefox should be a thing of the past soon, as the developers want to enable the native form controls in the trunk builds of Firefox within the next few weeks, meaning that they should make it into Firefox 3. The experimental build is for preview purposes only, and testers have been asked not to file bug reports for any issues they might discover.
While Safari is definitely the most popular browser for OS X users, it is by no means the only one out there. Firefox may not enjoy as much popularity as it does in the Windows world, but it is still quite popular. With some of the most common complaints about it soon to be put to rest, the Mozilla browser could stand to see some gains in terms of market share on OS X.