i agree firefox just doesn't run well at all for me on the mac
That's too bad. I won't use anything else when running OS X (I'm stuck for a while on a jellybean iMac running OS 9).
Firefox's extensions make it superior, IMO, to all other browsers (I run about 20 extensions), and it's problem-free.
Camino and Safari are stop-watch faster, but Firefox's ease of use and endless customizations — Adblock, Mouse Gestures, SmoothWheel, FoxyTunes, to name only a fraction of the add-ons available — negate that almost immediately, much like the Mac's usability blows Windows boxes' doors off, even if the latter are faster.
Firefox has a strong legacy, and some of its extensions run in the ancient Mozilla suite I use in OS 9, along with many of the modifications that can be made in the users.js file.
It really is a terrific Mac browser.