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This is an understandable decision from Firefox's perspective. Windows 8/8.1 are okay on tablets, but if the interface and implementation requires a lot of poli

This is an understandable decision from Firefox's perspective. Windows 8/8.1 are okay on tablets, but if the interface and implementation requires a lot of polish, they need the user base to get it there. I think one problem with Metro adoption has actually been the way one browser vendor in particular treated its users. I'm talking, of course, of Google Chrome. For a long period of time, reinstalling Chrome meant getting dropped into a hideous, single-window "Metro" implementation that offered none of the benefits of the environment, and every downside. I would prefer to use IE in full screen mode over "Chrome in Windows 8 Mode" and that's saying something. Now Google's "Windows 8 Mode" is essentially a ChromeOS implementation in Windows, which I sort of think is cool, and mostly think is just perplexing for users. I wonder why no one - Mozilla, Google, Opera - has implemented exactly what IE does. A very simple interface with not a lot of bells and whistles, an address bar, a tab picker, and a full screen browser. Maybe it's because Google Chrome doesn't seem to work well with multitouch - support seems to be based on the whims of the version number - and Mozilla's engine similarly seems to have interactivity issues. As a result, I get the feeling when using these browsers on a Surface Pro that no one at Google or Mozilla is too. For over a year, pinch to zoom and other multi-touch gestures didn't work on Chrome. Or they would on Canary or Dev, but only for a few weeks, before suddenly not working again. Pinch to zoom is abhorrent on Firefox - a clunky experience that makes me regret doing it every time. And scrolling requires two fingers on Firefox - or at least it does in Nightly now - and so for the longest time I thought it didn't work at all. I don't know why they've decided their browser is the only one that needs two fingers to scroll. Chrome works terribly on a mid to high DPI display. I can't for the life of me close a tab. The result is clunky. Users don't want clunky things. Chrome defaulting to Metro mode for Windows 8 users during a period when the browser barely or intermittently supported touch leaves me with only foul things to say to a Chrome dev or their program manager if I ever meet one. Likewise, I can't understand why Firefox is making Firefox in Metro a major project - give me a full screen interface to Gecko with a big address bar at the top or bottom and let me use that. EDIT: WHOA! Firefox Nightly's (30.x) Windows 8 mode is actually decent. Pinching to zoom doesn't inflict masochistic terrors on me, and one finger is all that's necessary to scroll. When did this happen and why doesn't someone tell people about it?

fournm 13y ago
From my experience it's been the same in Aurora 28/29--at least for the scrolling, I can't recall ever having pinch to zoom issues.
- AaronFriel 13y ago
  In desktop mode it's horrible - a positively un-fun experience that makes me regret doing it. Are you referring to the Windows 8 mode?
mbrubeck 13y ago
Firefox for Metro was pretty much what you described -- at least, that was our goal. It has a very simple UI, which is very similar in spirit to IE11 for Metro. However, this meant adding entire new input/graphics/widget backends to the Gecko platform using a combination of WinRT and Win32 APIs, and a long slog to get those stable and responsive enough to ship to millions of users. And designing and build a new UI (even a minimal one) means we don't get existing desktop Firefox features "for free" -- stuff like private browsing, add-ons, bookmarking, password management, sync... Even minimal browsers have a surprisingly large surface area if you want them to be usable for daily browsing. We cut out a lot of that stuff for the first release, but that also means we had a long road ahead toward a feature set that was competitive with other browsers (including desktop Firefox, or Firefox for Android). And that's not even getting into technical issues with the Metro environment, like the inability to run the NPAPI version of Flash Player... Just as one example: When writing a browser, you need to do your own text rendering and layout. That means you can't rely on the OS to handle things like select/copy/paste. So you end up implementing your own touch-friendly selection UI, and making it match the OS behavior as much as possible. This turns out to be a minefield of subtleties and edge cases.
- AaronFriel 13y ago
  I've played with the Firefox Metro UI for about half an hour now - obviously since my post - and I really like it. It's a solid start. Is it possible that the reason you're seeing low use is because users aren't aware the option exists? Also, why are features in Firefox Metro not ported to Desktop? Touch zoom and scroll for example, are vastly superior in Windows 8 Mode right now.

fournm 13y ago

From my experience it's been the same in Aurora 28/29--at least for the scrolling, I can't recall ever having pinch to zoom issues.

AaronFriel 13y ago
In desktop mode it's horrible - a positively un-fun experience that makes me regret doing it. Are you referring to the Windows 8 mode?

mbrubeck 13y ago

Firefox for Metro was pretty much what you described -- at least, that was our goal. It has a very simple UI, which is very similar in spirit to IE11 for Metro. However, this meant adding entire new input/graphics/widget backends to the Gecko platform using a combination of WinRT and Win32 APIs, and a long slog to get those stable and responsive enough to ship to millions of users. And designing and build a new UI (even a minimal one) means we don't get existing desktop Firefox features "for free" -- stuff like private browsing, add-ons, bookmarking, password management, sync... Even minimal browsers have a surprisingly large surface area if you want them to be usable for daily browsing. We cut out a lot of that stuff for the first release, but that also means we had a long road ahead toward a feature set that was competitive with other browsers (including desktop Firefox, or Firefox for Android). And that's not even getting into technical issues with the Metro environment, like the inability to run the NPAPI version of Flash Player... Just as one example: When writing a browser, you need to do your own text rendering and layout. That means you can't rely on the OS to handle things like select/copy/paste. So you end up implementing your own touch-friendly selection UI, and making it match the OS behavior as much as possible. This turns out to be a minefield of subtleties and edge cases.

AaronFriel 13y ago
I've played with the Firefox Metro UI for about half an hour now - obviously since my post - and I really like it. It's a solid start. Is it possible that the reason you're seeing low use is because users aren't aware the option exists? Also, why are features in Firefox Metro not ported to Desktop? Touch zoom and scroll for example, are vastly superior in Windows 8 Mode right now.