14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla officially launched a preview version of Firefox for Windows 8 this morning, thus giving adopters of Microsoft's so-called modern operating system a chance to browse the web with some other app beside Internet Explorer.
The Metro version of Firefox has reached the Aurora development stage, but won't be here in stable flavor until January 2014.
The preview build released today, on the other hand, lets us have a glimpse into the feature lineup of the Modern Firefox that'll be exclusively aimed at Windows 8 users.
As you can see for yourselves in these pictures, Firefox adopted a pretty appealing UI and, just like any other Metro app, it runs in full screen, offering a completely optimized for the touch interface.
Gigantic buttons, big fonts and a clean layout are contributing to a rather simple design of the new Firefox.
The app isn't fully responsive right now, so there are moments when the screen freezes for a second or two. Page loading works smooth, but the process seems to be faster in Internet Explorer.
Windows 8 integration is also available, so you can easily configure the browser via the Settings charms or send links to friends using the Share option.
Don't forget that Firefox for Windows 8 works only on the desktop build of the operating system, and no Windows RT support is offered at this point.
Installation is rather simple: download the newest Aurora build of Firefox and deploy on your x86 or x64 Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 machine using the desktop environment. Once installation comes to an end, make Aurora your default browser. This should also create a new live tile on the Start screen that lets you launch the browser in the Modern UI, just like the built-in Internet Explorer.
If you wish to remove Firefox for Windows 8, simply remove the app from Control Panel, just like you do with any other desktop program.
