Mozilla will implement a single profile across Metro and desktop

Nov 7, 2013 06:44 GMT  ·  By

Firefox for Windows 8.1 is expected to hit the market in early 2014, with Mozilla still working on the Metro port of the famous browser.

According to Mozilla’s Brian Bondy, one of the main features of the upcoming application is the support for a single profile across the Modern UI and the desktop, which pretty much means that consumers will have the possibility to use the same settings, including bookmarks and cookies, regardless of the browser version they launch.

On the other hand, the plug-ins available in the desktop version of Firefox won’t work in the Modern UI, as Microsoft has implemented a set of restrictions that block them from running.

“The opposite argument is also true for touch. Most of the time when using touch you'll want to use the Metro browser, but there are special cases where you'll want to switch, like if you need an addon or plugin to take effect,” Bondy explained.

And still, Mozilla believes that in case you’re using a keyboard and a mouse, there’s no need to launch the Modern version of the browser, as the touch-based flavor will be mostly aimed at tablet users.

“If you're using a keyboard and mouse, and since we will be having a shared profile, there is no reason you'd want to use the Metro browser. If you really want to you can, but surely you don't need to use both Desktop and Metro at the same time,” the blog post also reads.

Another change of the upcoming browser concerns the way links are managed in an already running session. The company says that, in case the Metro browser is already open and you click on a link in either the Modern UI or on the desktop, the page will load in the running browser.

On the other hand, if you’re not yet running Firefox, but you’ve configured it to be your default browser, the link will be launched in the environment you are currently in.