14 DAY TRIAL // A dedicated version of Mozilla Firefox aimed at Windows 8 users isn't quite a new thing, as Mozilla programmer Brian Bondy has already announced it almost one month ago.
Bondy however revealed more details of the upcoming browser today, explaining that the currently “Metro”-codenamed browser would come with several keyboard shortcuts and plenty of other changes.
The front end will also be tweaked with two different tab modes: one that that shows tab previews above the URL bar whenever you swipe down and another one that uses the classic layout with always-visible tabs.
The Firefox installer has also been modified to properly install all files on the new Windows version.
“We also have zip builds which will do the needed Metro registration after you set the default browser from within Firefox preferences,” Bondy said in a blog post.
The default browser handling function received several modifications as well because Windows 8 performs the registration in a different way. Whenever a new application wants to register as the default browser on a Windows 7 or Vista machine, it prompts an UAC window and waits for user's approval before making any change to the system.
“In Windows 8 Microsoft changed this so that you can do this registration entirely in HKCU. We updated our code to take advantage of this, so as of Windows 8, you will never see a UAC dialog for default browser handling in Firefox,” the Mozilla programmer added.
An official release date for the Windows 8-optimized Mozilla Firefox is not yet available, but the application will most likely receive another wave of changes before an official preview is released to the public. The program however is very likely to be released soon after the public launch of the Windows OS.