News - Mozilla ceases development of Firefox for Windows Modern UI

[HEXUS]

Firefox was also the 'most vulnerable' browser at the Pwn2Own competition.

Read more.

[devBunny]

"if Metro becomes suddenly popular"

.. then a lot of hats will be suddenly on the menu!

[azrael-]

"if Metro becomes suddenly popular"

.. then a lot of hats will be suddenly on the menu!

I don't own a hat. But I'd buy one just for having to eat it when Metro takes off. As it stands I'm certain that money is safe.

[3dcandy]

Indeed I'd eat a horse...
But in all seriousness, the amount of people I know who have downgraded to 7 this year is frightening, if I were Microsoft I'd be very very worried

[Percy1983]

I will say if anybody knows of anybody else wanting to downgrade to 7 let me know I will happily trade my 7 key for an upgrade to 8.1 on my netbook, my other 2 PCs are already there.

I will say this move won't bother me in the slightest, I use firefox in desktop mode only, actually my PC is in desktop mode 99% of the time with no problems and better performance.

[3dcandy]

I will say if anybody knows of anybody else wanting to downgrade to 7 let me know I will happily trade my 7 key for an upgrade to 8.1 on my netbook, my other 2 PCs are already there.

I will say this move won't bother me in the slightest, I use firefox in desktop mode only, actually my PC is in desktop mode 99% of the time with no problems and better performance.

And that is the reason many people are shunning 8 right there...(except the performance)

[crossy]

I will say if anybody knows of anybody else wanting to downgrade to 7 let me know I will happily trade my 7 key for an upgrade to 8.1 on my netbook, my other 2 PCs are already there.
I will say this move won't bother me in the slightest, I use firefox in desktop mode only, actually my PC is in desktop mode 99% of the time with no problems and better performance.

Just bought a Nokia 2520 tablet for my wife, this runs Windows RT. Her main uses are web and mail, so we went to setup Outlook. Clicked the MUI button which promptly dropped us back to the "normal" (her words) desktop so she could press the Outlook button on that desktop's task bar. Which had me wondering, out loud, what the point of MUI is - since a 10" tablet is surely one of those usage cases where MUI would make sense?

By the way, we spectacularly failed to get Outlook setup (it doesn't like something in 1&1's email landscape), so we "failed back" to using RT's "Mail" client which, coincidentally, does seem to be fully "MUI enabled" and worked flawlessly with her email setup. (Now all we need is some way to implement junk mail filtering).

I came away further convinced that Microsoft's "MUI everywhere" stance is horribly ill-conceived. In which case - getting back to the Mozilla announcement - Mozilla are 100% correct to drop MUI development ... definitely a "road to nowhere".

[Percy1983]

I think that is the point I am making, I don't use any MUI on my desktop PC and its just a bigger more customisable start menu, if it bothers me I would just install classic shell.

I will say its seems the mobile and desktop is quit dis-jointed, I have a windows phone which doesn't mix the 2 up and it works perfectly but to desktop user the MUI apps are just cut down desktop apps which on a desktop does seem a little pointless.

[azrael-]

I think that is the point I am making, I don't use any MUI on my desktop PC and its just a bigger more customisable start menu, if it bothers me I would just install classic shell.

I will say its seems the mobile and desktop is quit dis-jointed, I have a windows phone which doesn't mix the 2 up and it works perfectly but to desktop user the MUI apps are just cut down desktop apps which on a desktop does seem a little pointless.

Not to start any pro/contra Windows 8 discussion, but I'd bet that Metro UI (I'm loathe to call it MUI, since that refers to something else entirely) is *the* bone of contention with regards to Windows 8 adoption. Under that layer of Metro UI crud there lies a very capable OS, arguably Microsoft's best yet.

Had Microsoft left in the classic start menu (it was forcefully removed from the consumer versions, as it is still in Windows Server 2012) and generally made the touch-centric interface configurable (Windows 8.1 is a start) then I'd wager Windows 8 would have been as popular as Windows 7. Perhaps even more so.

[shaithis]

Bit of a shame (not that I've ever used it) but I was hoping that the mobile version might have spurred mozilla into stream-lining and bug-fixing a bit better......guess I will be sticking with chrome some more :/

[crossy]

I will say its seems the mobile and desktop is quite dis-jointed, I have a windows phone which doesn't mix the 2 up and it works perfectly but to desktop user the MUI apps are just cut down desktop apps which on a desktop does seem a little pointless.

Oh totally agree. MUI on phones is actually pretty neat, but as I've said previously this @random switching between "legacy" and "MUI" desktops on desktop/tablet just gets me confused and then angry.

Actually someone I know was asking why Microsoft didn't take the code that pops up the thumbnail of a window in Windows7's (/Windows8-legacy) taskbar and use that to auto-generate a MUI tile, and pin it to the left of the MUI list - sort of "Active Applications" group. If they also added a MUI "folder" that had the desktop shortcuts in it then you might be able to dispense with that legacy desktop altogether. Not that I'm suggesting that this necessarily be "better" but at least it'd dispense with the need for that jarring context switch.

[Percy1983]

I will say I have not used RT so can't comment there, but I don't see the big problem, I click the start but the start menu is now bigger and a bit different, I click the program I want and it opens said program back on my desktop.

I suppose the thing with firefox is how many people want a MUI version? I wouldn't even touch it (as I don't with the IE MUI version) on a desktop so I would never have noticed if it did or didn't have a MUI version and I suppose this is what they can see windows 8 users are using the desktop version.

[MrJim]

I suppose the thing with firefox is how many people want a MUI version? I wouldn't even touch it (as I don't with the IE MUI version) on a desktop so I would never have noticed if it did or didn't have a MUI version and I suppose this is what they can see windows 8 users are using the desktop version.

I imagine that on a touch-enabled device, having another MUI web browser like Firefox might be quite useful; I still occasionally encounter websites which refuse to work properly with Chrome, so I have Firefox installed as an alternative. But the crucial point is on a touch-enabled device. On a conventional desktop system with mouse & keyboard, there really isn't much point.

[Frankenfurter]

Noooooooo!

Oh, wait... What a relief, I'm running 7!
Just like everybody else.

Seems they've made a wise move to me...

[crossy]

I will say I have not used RT so can't comment there, but I don't see the big problem, I click the start but the start menu is now bigger and a bit different, I click the program I want and it opens said program back on my desktop.

If you want to see what RT is like, just fire up a Windows8 desktop session on a small monitor. As far as I can tell they're identical.

Now here's a question that's just occurred - what's the big deal with having a MUI version anyway? I thought that the big plus for MUI was for apps that could use the tiles to show update information - like a mail client showing a count of unread messages, or a music player app having right-click controls. If what I've just said is right, (i.e. MUIness isn't about just having a large rectangular icon), then a MUI version of Firefox doesn't make sense - because it doesn't have any usable controls nor needs to show update status.