Firefox links question

[ItsMeDave]

Hi Everyone,

How do I make clicked links appear a different colour? Clicked and unclicked links look the same.

cheers

 

[giulio]

Hi Dave,

The web developer has the option of making visited links look exactly like non visited links.

You however, have the option to overrider this:
Preferences > Content > Colors
Turn OFF "Allow pages to choose..."

 

[ItsMeDave]

Thanks giulio.

 

[ItsMeDave]

I gave your suggestion a try giulio but it really doesn't do what I expect. Developers should be allowed to set colours, but an unclicked link should clearly be different from a clicked link. If I disable that option, pages render looking pretty poorly. I don't have a windows machine at hand, but Firefox on that platform looks and runs way better than on a Mac. If I had to endure this behavior on WinXP I would have turfed it long ago.
What's the general consensus of firefox on Mac? As a recent switcher, I'll miss it.
Firefox kicks on Windows.

 

[giulio]

I don't agree with you. To make a nice GUI, I sometimes prefer to make all links look exactly the same. And that is the beauty of preferences: make it how you want it.

But it looks like ff is letting you down in that dept.
Well... you might find finer-grained controls by typing this in as a URL:
about:config
Then type "color" or "link" in the filter box.
Experiment at your own risk in there =)

Are you running the latest version firefox?

 

[ItsMeDave]

Fair enough giullo, but this is the first time I've ever experienced a browser that, out-of-the-box, didn't display clicked and unclicked links differently. To me, that is one behavior that is a default in a browser.

cheers

 

[giulio]

But it's not default behaviour for a browser, unless the web designer left out some style rules in the web page. for instance...

a:link, a:hover, a:visited, active {
color: black;
text-decoration:none;
}

... would make all links (links, when mouse is over, a visited link, a link you have the mouse clicked on) look like regular text. Black, no underlines.

The only way to override that is with browser settings.

 

[ItsMeDave]

So then how do I get Foxfire to work like I expect it? I get the same behavior on *every* webpage I visit. The links never change.

 

[remain]

Huh???

Firefox handles links the same way on Windows and Mac OS X.

(Firefox on OS X and on Windows are practically identical, except a few very subtle differences,
such as clicking on the address in the Location Bar does not select the whole address.
And actually, even this can be configured.)


As giulio said, whether visited links are a different color than unvisited links
is determined by the coding of the page, not by the browser.

For instance, go to http://www.google.com/
Click on Images, then go Back. The "Images" link is still blue, not purple.
(This is the SAME in Internet Explorer on Windows too, by the way.)

Now, go to a Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X
Click on any link, say "Apple Inc." and go Back.
The link is now in purple.
(Once again, it's the same in IE.)


Edit:
I just tried it out; I get the same behavior in Firefox (OS X), Firefox (Windows), and Internet Explorer.

 

[dtravis7]

remain, You are totally correct. I just tried it in Firefox here under Mac OSX 10.4.9 and it's like you said and like it should be. My firefox is out of the Box, nothing changed either.