What is with Firefox on Linux? Interface wise?

Question

From what I understand, Firefox uses the Mozilla Application Framework, which basically is meant to ensure a consistent interface across all platforms. On Windows, 3.5 looks beautiful. I don't know for Mac. On Linux, it looks acceptable under KDE, quite nicer under xfce, and quite horribly pixilated under fluxbox, my preferred WM.

What is the reason for this, and is there any way this can be patched or repaired?

Answer 1

Firefox on Linux uses GTK as GUI library. You need to use one gtk theme.

Simplest solution is creating .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory, following is an example:

include "/usr/share/themes/Dust/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
gtk-icon-theme-name = "Tango"
style "user-font"
{
font_name = "Sans 12"
}
widget_class "*" style "user-font"
gtk-font-name = "Sans 12"

The file is self descriptive. The first line uses "include" to use the gtk theme "Dust".

Answer 2

Yes!

Change your "style" on your desktop. In most Gnome based distros this can be achieved with the "appearance" menu.

My personal favorite is "clearlooks", but make up your own mind.

p.s. QT's oxygen is beautiful, but looks like trash with the qt-gtk engine enabled, it just never renders websites correctly for me.

Answer 3

My point was that Firefox should be independent of the desktop style due to using the MAF

Also, I wanted this on SO because I wanted to know about the programming aspect, not the user perspective. Can it please be migrated back?

Answer 4

See also http://superuser.com/questions/13441/firefox-aliased-jagged-fonts-in-xfce

Answer 5

The Mozilla Application Framework is dead, XULRunner is what you should use now. Firefox is basically a XULRunner app, in fact many Linux distributions package it as one.

Mozilla decided platform integration was a better idea than looking the same everywhere, and you can read more about the Firefox 3 theme design process, including the uproar that occured when they forgot to mention Linux. In short, Linux users wanted Firefox to use their GTK+ theme rather than use its own icons. Hence you need to configure a GTK+ theme when running a WM/DE that doesn't set it, like fluxbox.