Mozilla Foundation has announced the start of development of the Metro version of Firefox. The developer Brian R. Bondy has specified that the browser functions as a traditional desktop application, but can also access some features specific interface Metro. The first beta of Firefox for Windows 8 will be released this summer.
The Windows 8 may be performed three types of applications: desktop application, applications, Metro and a third category reserved only for browsers from Microsoft called “Metro style enabled desktop browser “. Firefox falls into this third category and therefore should be developed to exploit the capabilities of Metro, or the live tile on the Start screen, contracts and snap (simultaneous display of two app on the same screen).
A desktop browser “enabled Metro style” as Firefox will be distributed in a single package installation and gods work in both environments (Metro and desktop). To access the Metro Mode, Firefox will however be set as the default browser, the default viewer for web pages and associated protocols. Unlike metro applications, the browser will be available through the traditional method, not on Windows Store.
Firefox for Windows 8 will use the Win32 API for rendering and HTML5 support plugins like the current desktop version for Windows 7. However, the developer must incorporate a portion of code to determine which browser should handle the opening of the link. For example, if the user clicks on a link in Outlook 15 , Firefox must be run in desktop mode.
Microsoft has published some guidelines that developers must follow to create a new browser belonging to this category of applications. Otherwise, Windows 8 will consider the software as a normal desktop application and cannot exploit the Metro features. Currently, there are two versions of Internet Explorer 10, but it is likely that future releases will be issued in a single version.