Halve the amount of my 2 Firefox search bars.

I only see one search bar? What are you wanting rid of?

It looks like you've got a menu bar (that you can probably hide) and some kind of apple search bar too (that you can probably hide)...

Although that screen looks really low resolution, so that's not helping matters...

For reference my firefox on windows at 1440p looks like this:

It's a photo not a screenshot...I don't know how to do that.

I don't care which one I hide , just to have more screen.

zippykona
Full Member
It’s a photo not a screenshot…I don’t know how to do that.

I don’t care which one I hide , just to have more screen.

I think he just means that everything looks a bit zoomed, meaning the resolution looks low. A little like running a PC desk on a 1080p display act actually.

I've not used Firefox in years since switching to chrome but it should be very customisable in settings to turn off one search bar etc. There isn't much you can't change.

Might be worth installing Chrome and just letting it import all the bookmarks and passwords etc from Firefox and see how you get on with it. You can always just uninstall it and go straight back to Firefox.

Anyway, good luck with getting it sorted, it does look a little tortuous.

Can't have chrome as my mac is no longer being updated .

Sorry zippy, no doubt you've already tried all this and it assumes a third party toolbar is likely installed. It's directly cribbed off the 'net but just in case you haven't tried it.

There are a few ways to remove one of the search bars in Firefox on a MacBook:

1. Remove a Toolbar:

If a third-party toolbar has been installed, it might be causing an extra search bar.
Open Firefox and click the menu button (three horizontal lines).
Go to "Add-ons and Themes" and select "Extensions".
Find the toolbar you want to remove and click "Remove".
Restart Firefox.
2. Customize the Toolbar:

Right-click on an empty space in the toolbar.
Select "Customize".
Drag the search bar you want to remove off the toolbar.
Click "Done".

Tried both of those and failed. I shall get used to it instead!

If you autohide your dock that would give more useable screen real estate. Or move the dock to the left of the screen.

Doesn't clicking the green button change the browser window to full screen as well?

What happens if you hit "view"? What options are in there? You should be able to remove the bookmarks toolbar somewhere which should free up some room. Your tabs look huge as well.

But also, yeah, that looks mega low resolution macs are normally good at going to max so your monitor is likely ancient, what is it?

It’s a 2012 . We had an ssd(?) fitted when it started going slow.

If I hit full screen I still get the lower search bar.

On a PC (I don't know equivalent Mac shortcuts) the menu bar can also been shown/hidden by pressing the alt key. You can auto hide the bookmarks bar (menu->view->toolbars->bookmarks_toolbar) so that it only appears when you create a new tab (ctrl-t).

There’s only one search bar! The problem seems to be that the UI elements are massive for some reason. The tab bar and search bar are 50% ish chunkier than they need to be. I imagine there’s a setting for that.

I’m sure you can hide the bookmarks bar as above for more screen real estate.

I have exactly the same screen with Firefox, but I think lower search bar is part of the STW page, rather than anything to do with the browser.  At the top of the page there's only the tab, and one search/address bar.

Further to the above, to hide the tab and search bars, go to Full Screen as normal (this hides the top menu bar), then  Ctrl-click the 'hamburger menu' (the three lines at top right) and select Hide Toolbars. To exit just hit escape. Hope this helps.

Ahh sorry for my post above... I'm not used to looking at Mac OS!

I think all you can realy do is hide the top menu bar (where it says file, view etc) and fully screen Firefox or auto hide the Taskbar /dock whatever it's called on apple, if that's possible.

I think your biggest problem is your screen looks very low resolution.. It looks like 720 or something, not even 1080 full HD...

If your machine supports resolutions over 1080, then 1440 would be a huge improvement.. For example something like this would be a game changer for you...

https://www.cclonline.com/g2745qsu-b1-iiyama-g-master-g2745qsu-gaming-monitor-27-inch-2560-x-1440-qhd-ips-panel-amd-freesync-446157/

Or if you have space for a 32"..

https://www.cclonline.com/va3209-2k-mhd-viewsonic-va3209-2k-mhd-monitor-32-inch-2560-x-1440-qhd-ips-panel-black/

Or if your on a tight budget... This is only 24" though and only HD/1080..

https://www.cclonline.com/24e1n1100a-00-philips-24e1n1100a-monitor-24-inch-1920-x-1080-full-hd-ips-panel-amd-freesync-462134/

You could maybe look at a 27" ips panel at 1080 too.. But you're better off with 1440 at that size IMO

I'm clearly blind as I can't see a search bar other than the one at the top of the forum. I can see the tabs for any windows open and then your address bar...I'm pretty sure you can hide one or both of those (although I'm never sure how I manage to get the hide toolbar options as it seems to matter where I click on the screen!).

I'm lost as well as I only see one search bar.  There is a search which is part of the page, do you mean that? Just scroll down, it disapears.

Can you hit F11 and get full screen on a Mac?

This is how it looks with Safari , I’d like it to look like this again.

Is this a game of spot the difference? I'm afraid I'm struggling to see what the difference is. They only thing I can see is the tabs on Firefox. Is it you''re after verticle tabs on Firefox, which I think is a bit hard work but possible with an extension?

There are the same number of search bars in both those photos to my eyes though.

OP, do you want to minimize this bit in red?

[img] [/img]

As pointed out a bazillion times, you don't have two search bars. You have one search bar and one tab bar which shows the tabs you have open. In Safari you don't have a tab bar as you only have one tab open (tab bar will only show when you have multiple tabs). In Firebox you also only have one tab open but it is showing the tab bar. What you need to do is see if there is a setting in Firebox to only show the tab bar when you have multiple tabs open.

OP, do you want to minimize this bit in red?

He needs a new/better monitor, sorry to sound cruel, but that monitor is just e-waste....donate it to charity or something and buy a better one.

Edge has vertical tabs natively now. Whether it's Mac-friendly, I don't know.

Can you hit F11 and get full screen on a Mac?

This.

He needs a new/better monitor

It's a laptop. Can't be 100% sure without knowing the model, but would be very surprised if the amount shown on screen couldn't be increased by altering the settings in the "Displays" system preferences. As someone else said, reducing the height of the dock, or getting it to auto show/hide, would increase screen real estate.

Can you hit F11 and get full screen on a Mac?

Click the green one of the top left traffic light dots.

This is the offending bit. I obviously want to keep the 3 dots.

As an aside ,as its stopped being updated is my Mac book as secure as it was for banking?

As an aside ,as its stopped being updated is my Mac book as secure as it was for banking?

I wouldn't worry, your bank and the police will be keeping a close eye on it for you.

?

The tabs bar can be hidden if only 1 tab is open - I did this a while back using CSS.. will have a look..

Think you have to edit UserChrome and the CSS code is along the lines of

#tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab:only-of-type,
tab[first-visible-tab=true][last-visible-tab=true],
tab[first-visible-tab=true][last-visible-tab=true] + #tabbrowser-arrowscrollbox-periphery { 
  visibility: collapse !important; }
#tabbrowser-tabs, 
#tabbrowser-arrowscrollbox {
  min-height: 0 !important; }

in safari (on macos) if you only have one tab open it removes the tab bar as per your pic, but if you open one or more other tabs the 'offending' bar will appear - try it,

on firefox (macos) it doesn't remove the tab bar when there's only one tab so as afaik you're stuck with it and can't get rid,

what you can get rid of in firefox is if you right click on the 'bookmarks toolbar' bit and select bookmarks toolbar -> you'll get an option to 'always show', 'only show on new tab' (i have it like this) or 'never show' so perhaps try one of these?

Have you actually tried following the instructions I gave above? It works on my 2012 Mac Pro running Firefox on OS10.15. (I don't know why people are going on about your screen resolution when you've already said it's a photo. If you want to take a screenshot, there's an app in Utilities called Screenshot!)

Dafydd I have done what you said. It works but has also got rid of the one I wanted!

Can I get the screenshot button onto the bit where the battery level is?

I think what you seem to want can't be done. If you remove that bar, where are your dots going? If you leave the dots and just remove the tab handle, you'll have a big empty space where it used to be. You'd be better off hiding the bookmark bar. Can you not set the system menu bar across the bottom to auto-hide and pop up when you mouse near it?

For all the talk of CSS and browser extensions, the fundamental issue is that you don't like Firefox either. Bin it and use something that looks more like what you want. I know nothing about Macs, but there's dozens of choices on PC. I'm quite liking Brave at the moment.

Googling "minimalist browser mac" suggests https://minbrowser.org/

Also,

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102646

What's with the red/orange/green traffic light buttons at the top left? is that an apple mac thing?

It matters not, you need a better monitor, OP...there's nothing else to say.

Oh carp, I'm really sorry.. is it one of those macs where the computer is sellotaped to the back of the screen? I didn't see it until now...

In which case, you are fubared...buy a new computer, and set fire to that one.

Oh carp, I’m really sorry.. is it one of those macs where the computer is sellotaped to the back of the screen? I didn’t see it until now…

In which case, you are fubared…buy a new computer, and set fire to that one.

I think it's what tech people call a laptop.

I'm just trying to help, and my best advice* is your monitor looks like something from the 90's.

*you can obviously ignore my advice.

Good luck/ peace out..

I have managed to put the screenshot button on the bottom bar. Impressive stuff.

Can you Right click in the top bar and turn off Menu bar and never show bookmarks toolbar

Not sure if its the same on PC as Mac

"Dafydd I have done what you said. It works but has also got rid of the one I wanted!" - if you just move the pointer to the top of the screen they all reappear!

I have managed to put the screenshot button on the bottom bar. Impressive stuff.

Good stuff, for your next challenge, try to figure out how to hide that massive taskbar at the bottom for even more screeen space!

Seems like it would be a good idea to set the Dock to auto-hide; System Preferences>Dock>Automatically hide and show the Dock