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Mozilla Planning Firefox Metro For Windows 8 On December 10
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is finally getting close to releasing a Metro version of its Firefox browser that will run on Windows RT as well as the tablet-side of Windows 8. The touch flavor of the app will arrive on December 10 along with Firefox 26. That's assuming, of course, that there won't be more delays. Given what we've seen so far, we wouldn't be surprised to see a final Metro version arrive in 2014."
Summary is incorrect.
This is getting old, but why exactly do you need the Start menu? Ever since Windows 7 came out, I've pinned my daily-use applications to the taskbar and that works 99% of the time. The remaining 1% of the time (when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing, and you can still do that in Windows 8. I agree they should have had boot-to-desktop right when Win8 was released, but anyway that's coming in 8.1 now.
Either you haven't used Windows 8 or you're trolling. Win8 has been noticeably faster than Win7 from the very first preview release, both on cold boot and resume from sleep (and no, sleep is not the same as hibernate).
Sure, Microsoft may have failed with their grand vision to unify tablets and desktops, but with boot-to-desktop, Win8 is flexible enough to make most people happy. Tablets can just use the Metro UI, desktop fanatics can just boot to desktop, and some others like me are perfectly happy staying in desktop mode most of the time yet switching to Metro occasionally.
You lost us as soon as you said XP is better than 7.
It isn't.
The trouble with Windows 8 is it's Vista - enough small things are annoying that it adds up to a great big annoyance. If they'd just finish it off (clue: listen to customers), it could be great.
No sig today...
Microsoft has changed UI name, seemingly due to trademark clash. It was even on /.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/03/1221242/microsoft-drops-metro-name-for-windows-8-ui
For many, if not most people it is. While seven fixed most of vista's epic failures to tolerable levels, it still contains quite a few.
Now you can in fact nullify most of the failures that are retained, largely using same software that helps nullify much of win8's fails, namely classicshell. But it's still worse, and personally I'd still be happily running XP if not for lack of proper 64-bit support (specifically lack of hardware drivers for 64-bit version of XP) and lack of DX11 ('m a gamer).
Other than those two features, XP is clearly better in my experience. I don't even mind EOL. I had a workstation in personal use that ran vanilla unpatched XP until well past XP SP2 age because windows update borked itself so hard on the system, it couldn't be updated. I just kept the infection vectors secure and it was fine. I.e. solid firewall, solid anti-virus software, up to date 3rd party software that could be used as infection vectors, no suspicious flash drives and so on.
Not a single virus. Hilariously, when I got myself an XP2 slipstreamed disk I forgot to unplug internet connection before installing. That machine got owned before I could install firewall software. I had to format and reinstall. But vanilla version with up to date firewall etc? No problems whatsoever.
The metro screen is the start menu so many people seem to think disappeared.
Don't miss the forest hidden behind all those trees - The start button simply serves as a convenient proxy for a hard-to-articulate sense of generalized annoyance.
Yes, Win8's interface has some serious shortcomings, particularly for power users. Yes, it still works more-or-less okay as a GUI, and if forced to use it for a few weeks, most of us would just get used to it. But the entire Metro interface slaps us with Microsoft's sheer arrogance in randomly deciding to make change for its own sake rather than because people asked for it.
As another example that makes the point in a less "wow so much I don't know where to start" way, the "ribbons" in MS office. I liked menus and toolbars, and aesthetically dislike ribbons. But I will admit that they don't take any longer (or shorter!) to use once you get used to them - Once you get used to them. But why the hell should anyone need to get used to them? Okay, they do offer a few enhancements (in-place font and chart previews as obvious examples) over toolbars...Not out of any inherent quality of ribbons themselves, however, but simple because MS added new features that they didn't backport to toolbars. Change for change's sake.
The remaining 1% of the time (when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing
The problem here is that while you're typing, the context of the currently open applications' windows disappears. It's like the effect of amnesia while going through a doorway. It'd be fine if the Start Screen were semi-transparent, but because it's opaque and full-screen, it forces a subconscious context switch. And that's why I still install Classic Shell, so that the search-by-name box doesn't distract me by covering everything.