Mozilla Firefox Metro / Modern UI App For Windows 8 Review
Firefox is ready for the next leap with modern/metro UI Interface for Windows 8 users. You can download it as a Nightly build with present version 18.0a1. The interface has been completely redesigned to suit Windows 8 Metro UI and you will have a complete set of new experiences with this version.
First and foremost, it’s a nightly build, so do not just make your mind to use it as your regular browser. You may face a lot of bugs while using Firefox Metro UI as this is the first release. So lets have a look at the new features and experience Firefox Modern UI got to offer.
Firefox Modern UI Interface
Home Page
Full screen page view
Single Right Click
Interface is neat, by default when you open any webpage you will be reading it in full screen. There are no menu bar and options present at the top of browser. To bring up additional options, you need to right click once on any blank section of page. To bring up tabs you need to right click again.
Scrolling Problem:
Current nightly does not support mouse scroll, that means you cannot go up/ down webpages by scrolling through mouse. So how to scroll up/ down webpages! Well, just Middle Click and drag the mouse up or down as you desire.
2. Consecutive Right Clicks
With this version you may find that when multiple tabs are opened, there is a small lag when the tabs appear. To temporarily solve this, disable the tab view. You can disable tab view from options at right hand top corner.
Firefox Modern UI Bottom Bar
Now you can directly jump to the download section from the download button. Settings icon gives you two choices. You can open a page in the normal desktop version if you wish. Also you have the option to search text within the webpage.
To search the page you can also use CTRL+F, I must mention that you will love the search box. It is totally different from all the other normal versions.
Other options that you have are zoom In & Out, though it didn’t work for me or may be I was doing something wrong.
You can also directly bookmark a page or pin it. That’s really handy feature to have.
Firefox Modern UI in Page Selection Clicks
This is another major thing that I liked in the new interface. Unlike the previous versions, you will find that when you select a text or link the right click options are totally different. Its rather a clean and compact menu instead of the long list.
Firefox Metro UI Download Manager
The downloads do not start in a separate download box, downloading style is now similar to Chrome’s default downloading i.e the bottom bar.
Download section can be accessed anytime with ease. When I was downloading files, it was a bit non responsive with missing file names. There was no speed or remaining time display for current download. The file names appeared on restarting the browser.
Firefox Metro UI Preferences
This menu is totally revamped and also made simpler compared to the normal Firefox desktop version. You can enable or disable features just with a click.
Get Started With Firefox Modern UI
After Installation you will find the nightly shortcut on your desktop. Open it, do not be surprised if the normal desktop version opens. Make it your default browser and choose Nightly to open web links when you are provided with the option. Now close it and visit your Start Screen, you will find the Nightly Tile there.
Conclusion
Personally, I really liked the modern UI. Its the first nightly, so we can expect a lot of inclusions and changes till the final version is out. At present its sleek but not smooth. Using Firefox with this interface is full of excitement that you might not want to resist. You can use it in parallel to your primary browser till stable versions arrive.
Do let us know your experience with Firefox Modern UI for Windows 8. What changes would you like in future versions?
[button-blue url=”https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox_Metro_UI” target=”_blank” position=”left”] Download Firefox Modern UI [/button-blue][clear]Note- Metro UI and Modern UI are the same thing. Initially, Microsoft called their new interface in Windows 8 as Metro but then renamed it Modern UI to avoid any Trademark conflicts. So, In this post, wherever you find the word Modern or Metro, don’t get confused.
