Mozilla Shows Metro Version of Firefox for Windows 8

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cnox

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You know, the last 'boxy' ui i worked with was Lotus Notes. Oh my god, that was the worst experience I've ever had...EVER. EVER EVER. I hope I never go back, but it looks like the metro UI may be just that...15 years later.

The optimist in me will say that there will be a transition from what the first release delivers and what the long term Ui design will be, but it's going to be a painful transition methinks. But we'll all take it because there's nothing better for gaming out there...
 
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I'm more than worried by these succeeding Windows version, XP, the crappy Vista, 7, now a really worrysome 8, and more importantly all the significant user problems and painful transitions that come with them. I'm still using XP with delight.

May be application companies have their word to say, by not necessarily following what MicroSoft dictates.
 
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You mean like all the pre-OSX versions especially 9.0 and 9.1?
 

wiyosaya

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[citation][nom]franky4ro[/nom]is it me or win 8 will be the next milennium and vista )[/citation]
I don't think you are the only one who thinks this.
 

Hypertraxx

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[citation][nom]franky4ro[/nom]is it me or win 8 will be the next milennium and vista )[/citation]
[citation][nom]wiyosaya[/nom]I don't think you are the only one who thinks this.[/citation]
Neither do i.
 
[citation][nom]franky4ro[/nom]is it me or win 8 will be the next milennium and vista )[/citation]

Hey, Vista wasn't as bad as Millennium and is a lot better than it first was. XP also sucked when it first came out and wasn't too great until the second service pack. Vista also just needed until it's second service pack before it didn't suck much anymore.

[citation][nom]mhch[/nom]I'm more than worried by these succeeding Windows version, XP, the crappy Vista, 7, now a really worrysome 8, and more importantly all the significant user problems and painful transitions that come with them. I'm still using XP with delight.May be application companies have their word to say, by not necessarily following what MicroSoft dictates.[/citation]

Companies don't skip OS updates just because they suck at the time. Companies skip OS updates because they see no reason to upgrade what is still working just fine for them, especially with how expensive upgrading an entire infrastructure is. Companies are still often using XP, Server 2003, and even Win 2000 on many computers for this reason. If fixing something is as expensive as it is in the business world, why fix what isn't broken? That is why they don't upgrade.

Besides that, Windows 8's only serious problem is Metro, which can easily be disabled or worked around if you can't learn to live with it (it really isn't too bad once you give it a chance, but I'd probably disable it after playing with it for a while anyway). Vista had several problems including poor performance, poor driver support, poor software compatibility, poor stability, and more. Windows Vista still has fairly poor performance, but it's better and it's other problems improved a lot. Windows 8 is not slow (it's the fastest Windows since XP, if not even faster than XP), has great driver support (it works with almost all Windows Vista and 7 drivers), has great software compatibility, and is stable.

XP originally had all of the same problems that Vista had (except fore the performance thing; it wasn't that much slower than it's predecessors) too. Come service pack 2, XP became far better. XP went on to become the most popular consumer version of Windows because it became great. Vista didn't become great, but it's decent now. It's kinda like how IE 9 is a decent browser, but it's previous versions all suck (previous versions of Vista all sucked, that's the analogy). IE 9 still isn't great and there are better options both older and newer, but it is decent. Vista still isn't great and it has both superior predecessors (XP) and superior successors (7), but it is decent.

Also, a lot of the perceived Vista is crap came from it being installed on machines that had less than 2GB of RAM (not a rare thing back in 2006 and 2007). XP's memory needs weren't as bad for it's time because it only needed 256MB to run properly (hardly worse than Windows 2000's needs and was a common minimum amount of RAM back then). However, many machines of the time from Windows Vista's upbringing had only 256MB to 1GB of memory and Vista doesn't do well with so little RAM.
 
Mozilla need not bother developing a Metro interface for Firefox as I predict that Windows 8 will fail worse than Vista. No one will want or use it on the desktop although it may find some limited acceptance on tablets.
 

killerclick

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Microsoft is forcing Metro on users in order to move the PC towards becoming a closed/kiosk system that runs only preapproved apps from the Windows store. They want that 30% cut from app sales and since they can't gain any traction in the mobile market, their solution is for everyone to start using their PC as a smartphone or tablet. What? You have three 27" screens? No worries, you can use this interface we made for mobile phones.

What could possibly go wrong?
 

alextheblue

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[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Microsoft is forcing Metro on users in order to move the PC towards becoming a closed/kiosk system that runs only preapproved apps from the Windows store. They want that 30% cut from app sales[/citation]Metro is a UI. It has nothing to do with the move towards "App Store" type ecosystems. They're going that direction because that is where the market is headed everywhere you look - on phones and tablets this type of distribution platform dominates. I don't see you bitching about iOS and Android doing the same thing all this time (taking a 30% cut).

Heck at least with MS, if your app becomes a hot seller and sells $25,000 they drop their cut from 30% to 20%. So any popular app for Windows 8 (which will be on a ton of devices) will soon be sending more money the developer's way. They also let you sync and use purchased apps on up to 5 devices, at the same time, using your account. So you could own 2 tablets, 2 laptops, and a desktop, all just for you, log in and you've got access to your stuff on all of them. I'm sure you can de-register devices too.
 

killerclick

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Metro is Microsoft's way of forcing their existing user base onto the App Store walled-garden model. That's why you can't disable Metro and that's why desktop mode is being aggressively relegated to legacy-land. Sure, the Microbots have their talking points about people being afraid of change and all that, but the reality is they're salivating over that 20-30% cut, the ad revenue from ad-supported apps and of course $50-$100 registration fee for developers.

I know I'll be sticking to Windows 7 for as long as it can run the software I need, or until Microsoft makes Metro entirely optional (I can live with the App Store software model).
 

livebriand

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[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]Time for Google to exploit this delay with a Metro version of Chrome?[/citation]
Honestly, if Mozilla continues with this ugly metro UI crap, I may just switch to Chrome as a way of saying F-U to them. Seriously.
 

livebriand

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[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Metro is Microsoft's way of forcing their existing user base onto the App Store walled-garden model. That's why you can't disable Metro and that's why desktop mode is being aggressively relegated to legacy-land. Sure, the Microbots have their talking points about people being afraid of change and all that, but the reality is they're salivating over that 20-30% cut, the ad revenue from ad-supported apps and of course $50-$100 registration fee for developers.I know I'll be sticking to Windows 7 for as long as it can run the software I need, or until Microsoft makes Metro entirely optional (I can live with the App Store software model).[/citation]
I completely agree with you. Maybe when Windows 8 fails dramatically they'll realize their mistake (that we're all warning them about right now) and undo it.
 

livebriand

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[citation][nom]franky4ro[/nom]is it me or win 8 will be the next milennium and vista )[/citation]
ME: Unstable, based on the old 9x kernel that was about to go extinct.
Vista: Stable (NT 6.0), but slow and poor driver support at the time (which has since improved, and with 2GB RAM performance is fine). It really wasn't that bad.
8: Fucked up from the start, with the metro UI being forced on desktop users. This will fail horribly, worse than Vista, no doubt about it.
 


Vista? Stable when it came out?!?! No. Of MS's OSs from the last ten years or so, only 7 was stable when it first came out and even then, only because it was a modified Vista instead of a whole new OS (not that that depreciates it's accomplishments). Vista was not stable when it first came out, at least not for me nor anyone who I know. BSODs were a very common thing to the point where Vista got uninstalled and replaced by XP. There was also the low performance and poor driver support, but it was not stable. BSOD was practically a feature!

That 8 has Metro is a completely different problem. 8 is stable, very fast, and has great driver support. It's only serious problem is it's UI, which can be disabled fairly easily. Even if it couldn't be disabled easily, you could just replace the UI with another free one from softpedia.com (did anyone here not know that you can choose from plenty of UIs for Windows if you actually care to look?) or some other site. Getting the start menu back is possible without even disabling Metro too if you care to try. Just go to Softpedia and download ViStart and ViOrb and you can have your start menu back in minutes without any registry editing or work arounds to disable Metro. They basically run on top of the desktop UI, so clicking the start orb will open up the start menu instead of Metro and hitting the start button can be configured to do the same thing rather easily. There are many more start menu programs too.

Basically, it leaves Metro unharmed so you still have it, but when you're on the desktop, it doesn't bother you as much because you still have a start menu. Of course, there's still always te option of the UI replacement or disabling Metro, but this is a less drastic approach for those who prefer that.

EDIT: fixed spelling.
 
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