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Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you always wanted to know about Camino.

About Camino

Installing Camino

General Questions

Using Camino

Troubleshooting

About Camino

Q. What is Camino?
A. Camino is a free, open-source web browser for Mac OS X. It uses Apple’s Cocoa programming toolkit and the Gecko web page rendering engine from Mozilla. Camino is small, fast, and easy-to-use, and offers many advantages over other browsers, such as the ability to block pop-up windows and annoying advertising. Read more about the browser on the Features page or on our Project home page.

Q. What is Mozilla?
A. Mozilla is an open-source project and toolkit, designed for standards compliance, performance, and portability and dedicated to preserving choice and innovation on the internet.

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports the development and testing of Camino and other products by providing source code version control tools, bug-tracking tools, build equipment, and binary downloads, and serves as the legal organization representing community projects like Camino (e.g., for trademark registrations). For more about mozilla.org, read About Mozilla. The Foundation also has two for-profit subsidiaries, the Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Messaging, which employ software engineers to develop the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client, respectively.

Camino is developed by the volunteer members of the Camino Project.

Q. What’s the difference between Camino and Firefox?
A. Camino is a native Mac OS X application; this means it will only work on the Mac platform. Firefox, however, comes in all kinds and flavors and works on several operating systems. Camino combines the Mac user experience — famous for its consistent visual and behavioral experience across applications and the operating system — with the Gecko rendering engine — built and tested by thousands of volunteers, incorporating the absolute cutting edge in web innovations. Camino uses the Mac OS X Aqua interface and uses APIs and services only available to applications native to Mac OS X. Some of these services include the Address Book, Keychain, and Bonjour (Rendezvous). Though Firefox looks like it is using the same Aqua interface, it actually fakes it, and Firefox focuses on cross-platform consistency rather than integration with Mac OS X technologies.

Q. Can Camino coexist with Firefox and/or SeaMonkey?
A. Yes. Camino, Firefox, and SeaMonkey use different profiles that don’t interfere with each other.

Q. What does “Camino” mean?
A. “Camino” is Spanish, as in “el Camino”. It means “way” or “path” and is an extension of the “Navigator” idea from which this project originally sprang.

Installing Camino

Q. Where can I find out more about the latest Camino release and download it?
A. For more information about the latest official release of Camino, including a download link, see the release notes.

Q. How do I install Camino?
A. To install Camino you simply drag the Camino application icon from the disk image to your Applications folder.

Q. How do I install Camino on Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion?
A. Camino runs on Mac OS X 10.8 just like it does on other version of Mac OS X. However, because of new security restrictions (“Gatekeeper”), after downloading you’ll need to ctrl-click or right click on the Camino application icon and choose “Open”. You’ll only need to do this the first time you run Camino. A future version of Camino will be updated to be compatible with Gatekeeper.

Q. How do I uninstall Camino?
A. Simply drag the Camino icon to the Trash and empty the Trash. Optionally, remove the profile folder (in your home directory ~/Library/Application Support/Camino), which contains all your bookmarks and settings.

Q. How do I upgrade Camino?
A. Camino supports automatic updates. By default, Camino will notify you of a new release once it is available. You can also check for new releases manually by selecting Check for Updates… from the Camino menu. Click Install Update in the Software Update window, and Camino will download and install the new version for you. Your existing bookmarks, history, and settings will not be affected by the upgrade.

General Questions

Q. What is the difference between releases and nightlies?
A. Releases are stable, well-tested versions of Camino that should be downloaded by the first-time user. Nightly builds are released every day and contain the very latest changes, including new features and new bugs. Don’t expect everything to work in the nightly builds.

Q. Is Camino available in my language?
A. Possibly. Since Camino is an open-source project, contributors are constantly translating Camino into other languages. You can check to see if Camino is available in your language on the Releases page. If Camino is not available in your language and you would like to translate it, visit the Camino Localization Project for more information. Make sure you check the list of active contributors first so you don’t end up doing duplicate work. You can also look at the broader list of contributors who have registered with the Camino Localization Project and who are probably looking for teammates to help complete a translation.

Q. Where are my bookmarks, history, and other personal information saved?
A. Camino stores your personal settings — such as the bookmarks, preferences, and cookies — in your profile folder (in your home folder ~/Libary/Application Support/Camino). Saved passwords are stored in the Mac OS X Keychain.

Q. Why doesn’t Camino have feature X?
A. Camino is a product that is under constant development and there are still features we plan on adding in future releases. Having said that, we intend to keep Camino as simple and easy-to-use as possible, so we are reluctant to add every requested feature. If there is a feature that you think really should be included, send us feedback.

Q. Does Camino support Firefox extensions?
A. No, and it never will. Firefox extensions rely on XUL (a user interface toolkit made by Mozilla) to interact with the user and draw their interface. Camino uses Cocoa (an interface toolkit made by Apple) and does not support XUL.

However, several popular extensions have been re-implemented as Camino preference panes or are built-in to Camino; see our migration Documentation for more information about these add-ons. Camino 2.1 also supports a custom method of installing some Firefox extensions that consist solely of a JavaScript XPCOM component (such as Google Analytics Opt-Out).

Customizing Camino

Q. How do I import bookmarks from my other browser?
A. See our Documentation for information about how to work with bookmarks in Camino.

Q. How do I customize the toolbar?
A. See our Documentation for information about customizing Camino’s toolbar.

Q. Where are my passwords saved?
A. Camino saves passwords in the Mac OS X Keychain, and it can read web page passwords saved in the Keychain by other applications, like Safari. All of the passwords that are added to the Keychain can be accessed and edited using Keychain Access, which is located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.

Q. Does Camino support “form fill”?
A. Camino can fill in certain non-password forms using information stored in the “Me” card in Address Book. To have Camino fill out a form using this information, choose Fill Form from the Edit menu or add the Fill Form button to your toolbar.

Camino can also auto-fill login and password forms using information saved in the Keychain.

Q. What is the keyboard shortcut for [some feature]?
A. See our Keyboard Shortcuts page for a full list of supported shortcuts.

Q. Can I change Camino’s keyboard shortcuts?
A. If you would prefer to use some other keystroke for a certain menu item, you can use the standard Mac OS X method of customizing keyboard shortcuts, the “Keyboard” (“Keyboard & Mouse” on Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5) pane of the System Preferences.

  • On Mac OS X 10.4, first quit Camino if it is running.
  • Open System Preferences.
  • Choose the Keyboard (Keyboard & Mouse on Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5) pane.
  • Select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
  • Press the + button at the bottom of that tab.
  • In the Application pop-up menu, choose Camino.
  • In the Menu Title field, type the exact name of the menu item you want to change, and in the Keyboard Shortcut field, press the key combination for the new shortcut you want that menu item to have. Press the OK button to save the new shortcut. On Mac OS X 10.5 and up, the new shortcut is available immediately.
  • On Mac OS X 10.4, you may now relaunch Camino.

Q. How do I create a tab group?
A. See our Documentation for information about working with tabs in Camino.

Q. Does Camino have an ad-blocker?
A. Yes! Camino includes an ad-blocker that blocks ads on most pages. You can enable it in the Web Features preference pane. If you see an ad get through, feel free to file a bug to help improve our ad-blocker.

Q. Does Camino support “session saving” or remember what pages were open if Camino quits unexpectedly?
A. Yes! Camino automatically keeps track of pages that are open in case it quits unexpectedly, and the next time you launch Camino, you will have the option of restoring the pages that were open before the unexpected quit.

You can also configure Camino to restore the pages you were viewing when you chose to quit Camino; in the General preference pane, simply check the box for Load the pages that were open before quitting.

Q. Can Camino re-open the page I just closed?
A. If you accidentally closed a page before you were done with it, you can open the page again by selecting it from the Recently Closed Pages menu in the History menu.

Q. Can Camino increase or decrease the size of everything on a web page?
A. Yes, Camino’s full content zoom can increase or decrease the size of everything on a web page. To increase the size of the contents of a page, choose Zoom In from the View menu, use the keyboard shortcut ⌘=, or add the optional Zoom In button to your toolbar. To decrease the size, choose Zoom Out from the View menu, use the keyboard shortcut ⌘-, or add the optional Zoom Out button to your toolbar.

Q. Does Camino support RSS or Atom feeds?
A. If a page you are viewing offers an Atom or RSS feed, Camino will detect the feed and notify you by displaying the feed icon at the right edge of the location bar. By clicking on the feed icon, you can subscribe to the feed in your prefered feed-reading application (including certain web-based feed readers).

Q. Does Camino support the Mac OS X spell-checker?
A. Yes, Camino uses the same Mac OS X spell-checker as Mail, TextEdit, and Keynote to check spelling in web page text fields. When the spell-checker finds a misspelled word, Camino will display a dotted underline underneath the word. Ctrl-click on the word and choose the correct spelling from the context menu, or tell the spell-checker to learn or ignore the word.

Q. Does Camino support AppleScript?
A. Yes, Camino has support for many common web browser AppleScript commands, including opening web pages, switching tabs, accessing HTML source, and working with bookmarks. Camino also supports writing custom toolbar items in AppleScript. To learn more about Camino’s AppleScript support, open Camino’s scripting dictionary in Script Editor and see our AppleScript Guide.

Q. Can Camino make the browser window take up the entire screen?
A. In older versions of Camino, clicking on the zoom button (“green ball”) in the window titlebar or using the Zoom command in the Window menu would make the browser window take up the entire size of your screen. Recent versions of Camino, like well-behaved Mac applications, now resize the browser window to the size that best fits the content of the window when using the zoom button or menu command. To access the old behavior, hold down the ⇧ key when using the zoom button or menu command.

Does Camino support the use of proxy servers?
A. Yes, Camino obtains information about your proxy server settings (including Proxy Auto-Config, or PAC) from the Network pane of the System Preferences (see the “Proxies” tab there). If you switch network locations or change the proxy settings, Camino will pick up those new settings without restarting.

If for some reason you need to use separate proxy or PAC settings for Camino, see our Documentation for hidden preferences required to override the system settings.

Troubleshooting

Q. I lost a button in my toolbar (or my entire toolbar is missing). How do I get it back?
A. If your entire toolbar is missing, you can make it reappear by choosing Show Toolbar from the View menu, by using the ⌘⇧T keyboard shortcut, or by clicking the oblong button on the right edge of the window’s titlebar.

If one or more individual buttons are missing from the toolbar, see our Documentation on customizing Camino’s toolbar for information about restoring the missing buttons.

Q. I see the Flash logo instead of Flash plug-in content; what’s wrong?
A. If you see the Flash logo instead of Flash plug-in content, Camino’s Block Flash animations preference is enabled. You may have enabled this yourself, or, if you are using a PowerPC Mac, Camino may have turned the preference on when you upgraded to Camino 2.1 in order to protect you from security vulnerabilities present in the last version of the Flash plug-in available for PowerPC Macs. Please see this page for more information.

Q. Java applets do not work in Camino; how do I fix the problem?
A. Starting with Camino 2.1, Java is disabled by default. In addition, Camino 2.1 and later no longer ship with a built-in Java plug-in. For more information about installing a Java plug-in and enabling Java, please see this page.

Q. When I click on a “mailto” link, Camino claims “mailto is not a registered protocol.” What’s wrong?
A. This message is due to an error in the way Apple’s LaunchServices communicates with Camino. If you use Eudora as your mail client, the simple solution is to open Eudora by double-clicking on your “In” mailbox file and then clicking “OK” in the “This will open the application ‘Eudora’ for the first time” dialog. If you use another mail client, the following steps should resolve the situation:

  1. Quit both Camino and your mail client.
  2. Open Mail and set it to be your default mail client (from the Mail application menu, choose Preferences… and then click on the General toolbar icon; in the drop-down menu next to Default Email Reader:, select Mail). Then quit Mail.
  3. Open Camino and click a “mailto” link; after Mail launches, quit Camino.
  4. In Mail, change the default mail client back to your preferred email application and then quit Mail.
  5. Open Safari and click a “mailto” link; you should see the “This will open the application ‘Name of Mail Client’ for the first time” dialog. Click “OK” in the dialog and your mail client should launch; then quit both Safari and your mail client.
  6. Open Camino and click a “mailto” link; your mail client should now launch as expected.

Q. When I choose Email Page Location, Thunderbird opens an empty email message. What’s wrong?
A. This is a bug in Thunderbird 2 that occurs when composing rich-text email is enabled. This bug has been fixed in Thunderbird 3 (if you are unable to upgrade to Thunderbird 3, you can work around this bug in Thunderbird 2 by using plain-text composition instead).

Q. My language isn’t supported by the Mac OS X spell-checker; how do I check my spelling?
A. The Mac OS X spell-checker is extensible, so there are many third-party spell-checker modules and dictionaries available to support other languages. If you have installed one of these dictionaries, Camino will use it just like other applications on your Mac. The following are some of the third-party dictionaries and the languages they support:

  • CheckSpell adds Czech, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian to the Mac OS X spell-checker. (Note that CheckSpell is incompatible with, and will remove, cocoAspell.)
  • cocoAspell supports 74 languages.
  • Hebrew Spelling Service plugs Hspell into the Mac OS X spell-checker.
  • MySpellX adds Hungarian to the spell-checker.
  • Soikko Mac OS X:lle adds support for Finnish to the Mac OS X spell-checker.
  • Stafsetning adds support for Icelandic to the Mac OS X spell-checker.

Q. I read and write in several languages; how do I switch which language is used by the spell-checker?
A. On Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, Ctrl-click in any web page text field and select the appropriate language from the Spelling Language sub-menu.

On Mac OS X 10.4, because of limitations of supporting code that Camino cannot change, a somewhat-complex series of steps is required to switch which dictionary the Mac OS X spell-checker uses to check text in Camino. In many cases, however, the system will choose the correct dictionary automatically. If it does not, follow these steps:

  1. Type a word in the search field in the toolbar.
  2. Ctrl-click on the word.
  3. In the context menu, open the Spelling sub-menu and choose the Spelling… item.
  4. In the Spelling panel that appears, select the appropriate dictionary from the pop-up menu and close the panel.

If the languages you use are among the languages supported in the Mac OS X spell-checker by default, you might consider selecting the “Multilingual” dictionary, which will check spelling using all of the default dictionaries.

Q. I accidentally added a word to the dictionary; how do I make the dictionary forget the word?
A. The Mac OS X spell-checker allows you to make the dictionary forget a word using the Spelling panel. Because of limitations of supporting code that Camino cannot change, a somewhat-complex series of steps is required to open the Spelling panel to forget a word from within Camino.

  1. Type the word you want to forget in the search field in the toolbar.
  2. Ctrl-click on the word.
  3. In the context menu, open the Spelling sub-menu and choose the Spelling… item.
  4. If the word you want to forget does not appear in the text field in the Spelling panel, type the word. Then press the Forget button to forget the word. Now close the Spelling panel.

On Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, simply choose the Unlearn Spelling item from the context menu at step 3.

Q. How do I disable spell-checking?
A. If you wish to disable spell-checking in Camino in a specific web page text field, Ctrl-click in that field and select the Check Spelling While Typing from the menu; this will remove the check mark next to that item and disable spell-checking.

If you wish to disable spell-checking for all web pages, see our Documentation for hidden preferences.

Q. What is the Camino Crash Reporter, and why does it appear after Camino crashes?
A. If Camino crashes, you’ll see a program called Camino Crash Reporter appear, asking you to send information about the crash. The Camino Crash Reporter is part of a larger crash reporting system that helps developers identify and fix stability problems in the application’s code. Camino Crash Reporter replaces the old Talkback system that was present on PowerPC Macs in Camino releases prior to Camino 2.

When Camino crashes, the Camino Crash Reporter application is triggered and it offers to let you report a crash to the Camino developers. (If you prefer not to report a crash, simply click the Cancel button and the Camino Crash Reporter will quit without sending a crash report.) You should fill out the text field with a comment describing what you were doing when Camino crashed. When you click the Submit Report button, the comment, technical details of the crash (approximately equivalent to the information you might see in a report created by the Mac OS X Crash Reporter), and Camino’s best guess of the URL that triggered the crash are all sent to Mozilla’s crash reporting servers. Note that while your comment is displayed along with your crash report, there is no other personally identifiable information displayed with your crash report. In particular, the URL that triggered the crash is not visible with your report and is only used in aggregate reports that cannot be linked back to your individual crash report.

Camino developers regularly access Mozilla’s crash reporting servers and examine the aggregate reports to find common causes of instability. Many of the most common crashes are caused by third-party software (such as browser plug-ins), but when Camino developers find common crashes in Camino or Mozilla code, they file bugs in Bugzilla with information from the aggregate reports and various individual crash reports. Developers then use the information to develop fixes for the problems that cause these crashes.

Participation in crash reporting is entirely optional, and when you do submit crash reports, Mozilla’s crash reporting servers are carefully designed to keep your report from being linked back to you while still providing useful debugging information to Camino developers. Each crash report is very helpful, and the Camino Project encourages users to submit reports for every crash; developers cannot fix bugs they cannot identify.

Other Documents

If there are any questions, tutorials, or preferences that would be helpful if they were explained in these pages, don’t hesitate to contact us, and we will add them as necessary.