[css] Bootstrap 3 Styled Select dropdown looks ugly in Firefox on OS X

When styling a form <select> element in Bootstrap 3, it renders an ugly button on the in Firefox on OS X:

(http://bootply.com/98385)

This has apparently been a known issue for a while, and there are a number of hacks and workarounds, none of which are very clean (https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/765). I'm wondering if anyone has found a good solution to this issue other than using Bootstrap dropdowns or extra plug-ins. I have deliberately chosen to use HTML <select>'s rather than Bootstrap dropdowns because usability is better with long lists on mobile devices.

Is this a Firefox problem or a Bootstrap problem?

Details: Mac OS X 10.9, Firefox 25.0.1

Update 12/4/13: I did a side-by-side comparison of how each browser renders the <select>'s on OS X 10.9 using Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, in response to @zessx (using http://bootply.com/98425). Obviously, there is a big difference between how the <select> form element is rendered across browsers and OS's:

I understand that a <select> tag is handled differently based on what OS you are using, as there are native OS-based controls that dictate the styling and behavior. But, what is it about class="form-control" in Bootstrap that causes a <select> form element to look different in Firefox? Why does the default, un-styled <select> in Firefox look okay, but once it gets styled, it looks ugly?

We have been using the plugin bootstrap-select for Bootstrap for dtyling selects. Really works well and has lots of interesting additional features. I can recommend it for sure.

This is the normal behavior, and it's caused by the default <select> style under Firefox : you can't set line-height, then you need to play on padding when you want to have a customized <select>.

Example, with results under Firefox 25 / Chrome 31 / IE 10 :

<select>
  <option>Default</option>
  <option>Default</option>
  <option>Default</option>
</select>

<select class="form-control">
  <option>Bootstrap</option>
  <option>Bootstrap</option>
  <option>Bootstrap</option>
</select>

<select class="form-control custom">
  <option>Custom</option>
  <option>Custom</option>
  <option>Custom</option>
</select>

select.custom {
  padding: 0px;
}

Bootply

With Bootstrap 4+, you can simply add the class custom-select for your select inputs to drop the browser-specific styling and keep the arrow icons.

Documentation Here: Bootstrap 4 Custom Forms Select Menu

I found two potential ways of solving this specific problem:

1. Use Chosen

2. Target mozilla browsers using @-moz-document url-prefix() like so:

@-moz-document url-prefix() {
  select {
    padding: 5px;
  }
}

I am using Chosen. Look at: http://harvesthq.github.io/chosen/

It works on Firefox, Chrome, IE and Safari with the same style. But not on Mobile Devices.

I'm sure -webkit-appearance:none does the trick for Chrome and Safari.

EDIT : -moz-appearance: none should now work as well on Firefox.

You can use jquery.chosen or bootstrap-select to add style to your buttons.Both work great. Caveat for Using Chosen or bootstrap-select: they both hide the original select and add in their own div with its own ID. If you are using jquery.validate along with this, for instance, it wont find the original select to do its validation on because it has been renamed.

This is easy. You just need to put inside .form-control this:

.form-control{
        -webkit-appearance:none;
        -moz-appearance: none;
        -ms-appearance: none;
        -o-appearance: none;
        appearance: none;
}

This will remove browser's appearance and allow your CSS.

You can actually change the grey box around the dropdown arrow in IE:

        select::-ms-expand {
            width:12px;
            border:none;
            background:#fff;
        }

There is a slick-looking jQuery plugin that apparently plays nice with Bootstrap called SelectBoxIt (http://gregfranko.com/jquery.selectBoxIt.js/). The thing I like about it is that it allows you to trigger the native select box on whatever OS you are on while still maintaining a consistent styling (http://gregfranko.com/jquery.selectBoxIt.js/#TriggertheNativeSelectBox). Oh how I wish Bootstrap provided this option!

The only downside to this is that it adds another layer of complexity into a solution, and additional work to ensure compatibility with all other plug-ins as they get upgraded/patched over time. I'm also not sure about Bootstrap 3 compatibility. But, this may be a good solution to ensure a consistent look across browsers and OS's.

Building on the excellent answers by rafx and Sina, here is a snippet that only targets Firefox and replaces the default button with a down-caret copied from Bootstrap's icon theme.

Before:

After:

@-moz-document url-prefix() {
  select.form-control {
    padding-right: 25px;
    background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml,\
      <svg version='1.1' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' width='14px'\
           height='14px' viewBox='0 0 1200 1000' fill='rgb(51,51,51)'>\
        <path d='M1100 411l-198 -199l-353 353l-353 -353l-197 199l551 551z'/>\
      </svg>");
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-position: calc(100% - 7px) 50%;
    -moz-appearance: none;
    appearance: none;
  }
}

(The inline SVG has backslashes and newlines for readability. Remove them if they cause trouble in your asset pipeline.)

Here is the JSFiddle

Actualy you can do almost everything with dropdown field, and it will looks the same on every browser, take a look at code example

select.custom {
  background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg%20version%3D%221.1%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20xmlns%3Axlink%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F1999%2Fxlink%22%20x%3D%220px%22%20y%3D%220px%22%20fill%3D%22%23555555%22%20%0A%09%20width%3D%2224px%22%20height%3D%2224px%22%20viewBox%3D%22-261%20145.2%2024%2024%22%20style%3D%22enable-background%3Anew%20-261%20145.2%2024%2024%3B%22%20xml%3Aspace%3D%22preserve%22%3E%0A%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M-245.3%2C156.1l-3.6-6.5l-3.7%2C6.5%20M-252.7%2C159l3.7%2C6.5l3.6-6.5%22%2F%3E%0A%3C%2Fsvg%3E");
  padding-right: 25px;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: right center;
  -webkit-appearance: none;
  -moz-appearance: none;
  appearance: none;
}

select.custom::-ms-expand {
  display: none;
}

https://jsfiddle.net/x76j455z/10/