The only browser in the Classic environment of Windows RT allowed to run is Internet Explorer, Microsoft has reported to Mozilla. Microsoft would include safety as a reason to plead for this exclusivity of IE on the ARM-version.
Windows RT will get a Windows Classic environment and a Metro environment for apps, but only in this last area is Microsoft, according to Mozilla other browsers. According to the maker of Firefox, to miss browsers and apps in the Metro environment of the advanced features in the areas of speed, stability, and security. The organization conducts talks with Microsoft to softwareconcern mind, but as yet without success. The developer of Firefox, see legal action as a last resort.
The lawyer of Mozilla, Harvey Anderson, points out that the history seems to be repeating. According to him, the fact that IE is the only browser for the platform is a complete return to the digital middle ages, when there was only one browser on the Windows platform.” Microsoft was in the past, regularly under fire for the abuse of its monopoly position; it would have its own browser, to give priority on Windows, and competitors such as Netscape from the market press.
The reasons Microsoft to Mozilla gave for the decision to not browser of a third party to do so, are twofold. First, have ARM chips, according to Microsoft, other requirements in the field of security and energy management, and on Windows RT would only Microsoft to fulfil. Secondly, it is Windows RT in the eyes of Microsoft is simply ‘Windows’.
Anderson points out that ARM is not unknown territory for Mozilla and Windows RT the same user experience, same interfaces and same Windows Update system as Windows 8. “The idea that the Windows no longer cuts no wood”, according to the defence counsel.
Microsoft is not the only party that softwarerestricties imposes in its OS for tablets. So is Apple only on Webkit-based browsers on iOS. By strict requirements on the software hope the manufacturers a better user experience. Especially browsers in the course of the years it has become a platform in itself, with its own apps, hardware-based gpu acceleration and security features.
Update, 11.40: Google has expressed in a statement behind the position of Mozilla itself: “We share the concerns Mozilla has spoken about how the environment of Windows 8, the choice for users and innovation limited. We will always have innovation in the browser market welcomed -on all platforms – and are convinced that having strong competitors, all of us harder work. Ultimately benefit consumers and developers make the most of it.”