Posted on 03/17/2014 12:27:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Mozilla has announced that it has abandoned a version of its Firefox web browser for Microsoft's Modern, or Metro, Windows 8.1 user interface. Although the Firefox web browser for Windows 8.1 Metro has been two years in the making, and in spite of a public beta released last month, Mozilla has decided not to release that version of Firefox, with Windows 8.1 users invited to continue to use the desktop edition.
In a blog post on Friday, Firefox VP Johnathan Nightingale cited apathy as one of the driving factors, explaining, "On any given day we have, for instance, millions of people testing pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, but we've never seen more than 1,000 active daily users in the Metro environment." He said that it is important for the company to "pick our battles".
The development of Firefox Metro has been beset by problems, which explains its lengthy gestation period, and Mozilla believes that its resources are best put to use in further development of the desktop edition and that releasing a final version of Firefox Metro would be "a mistake".
This news is a mixed blessing for Microsoft. While the removal of a major competitor and the limitations of Chrome in the Metro environment make Internet Explorer the only game in town, the withdrawal also represents another indictment of the Metro, er, Modern user interface.
With an upcoming update to Windows 8.1 including a move back towards the traditional Windows desktop environment and Windows 9 expected to complete the backpedalling, Mozilla has very little to fear about the impact this decision will have on its user base.
However, Microsoft is fast being forced to recognise that the Windows 8 Metro, or Modern, user interface will likely become history best forgotten along with Windows Vista and Windows ME.
Being in the business for years now I can say that Metro is the ugliest UI layer I have every seen. I keep seeing all these phone/web apps that are going to the plain, flat back and white as well, just plain ugly.
Yowser! The Metro/whatever stuff was integrated so badly, am not surprised M$ is walking it back. It was an interface only a child could love. There are no adults up at M$ anymore, and it shows in their shoddy products and documentation.
Thanks for the info.
I presume this implies a full-screen app, with no window frame border possible, & no ability to resize it to something smaller that full-screen - like others of its ilk. In short, dumb as dirt & horribly annoying on a non-hand-held device. I’d ditch it too. In fact, I wouldn’t have wasted money on it in the first place. Better a more capable app that can be resized as desired.
But it works so well on the Xbox. /s
Yeah because people really wanted to use a browser that wasnt available to download in the Windows Store, and from all accounts, was buggy as hell.
But the best way to sweep that under the rug is to just blame Windows 8. There are plenty of people whose job it is to have a meltdown over anything Win8 that will rush in and cover for you.
I don’t use any metro apps myself so I can see them making this decision.
I don’t like using touch. It’s so easy to mistype and mis-touch if you have fat fingers like I do.
Unfortunately, my computer is Windows 8.1 and I am using FF latest version BUT I have had so many pop up ads using FF even though I have it set up to not get these. It is soooo annoying.
When I used IE version 11, I don’t get these pop-ups.
With Microsoft discontinuing support of XP and XP being limited to Direct X 9.0 (which causes graphic driver glitches for modern cards), I have migrated my XP machines to Win 7 64-bit Pro and couldn’t be happier. On top of that I can run XP as a virtual machine if I need older apps that are incompatible with Win 7. I have ran several of these machines for a few years to a few months and have yet to see a BSOD.
Simply follow the rule of getting every other operating system from Microsoft and you will be good. After the disaster of Windows ME we got XP, after VISTA we got 7, after 8 we will get something decent. Why these guys follow this pattern and can’t seem to learn from their own history would make for an interesting case study for a business class.
What’s the funding model for Mozilla?
My recurring observation re OSS is that people will do free work insofar as it’s rewarding somehow, but there’s always a significant percentage of work which nobody wants to do (boring, hard, few users, no appreciation) without money. Gotta wonder if that’s a big part of pulling FF development on Metro: development for that platform just isn’t rewarding enough without $$$, so nobody wants to build anything interesting enough for anyone else to want to use?
I am using Waterfox (64 bit Firefox) and like it. My backup browser is Comodo Dragon. Installed Ghostery on both.
What the heck is that?
First thing I do when I log in is blow by that silly interface and go right to my trusty old desktop anyway.
Get over it. You sound like a bunch of luddites. It’s not for everyone just yet but I find it very useful in the tablet format and on a desktop touch tech monitor. The current presentation of tiles isn’t always the prettiest but pretty is for your car and trophy wife, not business use. Mozilla can pull their metro app, it wasn’t done that well anyway. I can always go to the desktop and use a regular FF icon, if I find a need to use FF. The metro look will morph into something more appealing for those who care about looks over usability (apple users) and after a while no one will question it anymore.
I heard the same themes and bitching when PCs went from DOS to Windows. Even today there are some I work with who believe that development and using apps is best done completely from the DOS prompt.
Classic shell works fine on 8.0, and its free.
It was however written by a Russian.
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