Mozilla Now has a Working Prototype of Firefox for Windows 8 Metro Environment [Screenshots]

Currently Metro IE 10 has been set as default browser in Windows 8 Consumer Preview at the same time, IE 10 will be the default browser on desktop also, I am not expecting Microsoft to change this in upcoming Windows 8 final. Mozilla has been already working on “metro version of Firefox for Windows 8” (Google also on metro version of Chrome) and its in their roadmap for Q2 as well. Mozilla feels Firefox must support Windows 8 Metro UI because if a browser doesn’t support metro it will loose default browser status hence the market share and that’s why Mozilla strongly believes a browser with great metro support can gain significant market share. Mozilla now has a working Firefox Windows 8 metro prototype and its quite similar to Firefox’s android browser.

Screenshots of Metro Version of Firefox in Windows 8

Brian Bondy from Mozilla working on this project shared screenshots and more details on Metro version of Firefox which still not finished yet and a long way to go with metro platform integration and some design questions to clear. He did mentioned clearly that this UI is not final.

Currently this prototype allows to navigate the web, create tabs, bookmark pages, build history, retain cache, adjust preferences and more.

Firefox integration with metro platform in Windows 8

Currently “Metro snap” is working where you can able to snap another app to right or left side of Firefox and continue browsing in metro version of Firefox.

From Search charm, you can type any url and it will open in Firefox if Firefox set as default browser and you can also perform searches which opens with default search engine in Firefox (metro version).

“Metro File Picker” allows to open any file from your Computer unlike to normal sandboxed metro app and this  Firefox metro allows to open single/multiple files, and also allows to save them to your Computer.

From Firefox metro, you can able to share any page by clicking on the share charm which lists all apps you can share to like: Mail, Twitter or Facebook.

Source: Brian Bondy blog