I’m a regular user of the Surface RT, and by far the biggest problem with it is being forced to use Internet Explorer as my browser. From that perspective, news that we might see a Metro-fied versio of Firefox for Windows RT (and Windows 8) is sort of welcome.
TechnoBuffalo reports that internal documents on the Firefox Wiki suggest a ‘modern’ version of Firefox for both platforms could appear by December. Windows 8 users can run Firefox (or Chrome) in desktop mode, but that option doesn’t exist for the loss-making Surface RT.
I’d welcome Firefox because it supports keyword bookmarks, which are the feature I miss most in IE. Not being able to switch from Bing as the default search in IE RT also sucks. That said, I’d ideally prefer to be able to run Firefox in desktop mode, which seems less likely on this report.
Mozilla Launching Windows 8-Optimized Firefox Browser on Dec. 10 [TechnoBuffalo via Business Insider]
Comments
4 responses to “Browser Choice On Windows RT May Finally Happen By December”
It’s Windows RT, you bought it knowing that you don’t get to run anything in Desktop mode except Office, which you got for free. It’s a touch screen based OS.
^^ True. IE’s not as bad as it used to be, so the amount of browsing I do on my Surface RT (Or I should say the amount my girlfriend does) doesn’t worry me.
This whole discussion over windows rt and ‘real’ (desktop) programs is just wrong. Nobody expects an ipad to run macOS software. Windows rt is not windows 8. I wished Microsoft wouldn’t have included the desktop app by default. That makes people think it’s the same system that runs on their pic’s..
the new IE in win 8.1 has been a welcome improvement. Im finding it alot quicker.
I tried the nightly version of metro Firefox a few months ago when I got my surface pro. It had a lot of issues but was on the right track. Would be much better than IE if it weren’t for crippling bugs like the keyboard covering the address box when you type the URL -_-
Otherwise looking forward to this. Still waiting on chrome to put out a proper metro ui though :p
You can change the default search instead of bing. You have to do the setting on desktop mode which will apply to the metro mode. I am able to default to Google. When I type my search criteria in the address bar, it used Google as a search results.