Microsoft ban third-party browsers on Windows 8 ARM
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In a twist that’s very reminiscent of Microsoft’s naughty nineties, Mozilla has revealed that Windows RT — aka Windows 8 on ARM — will only support one web browser: Internet Explorer. While Firefox will technically be able to run in Metro mode on Windows RT, it will be so crippled as to be unusable; in “classic,” Desktop mode, third-party browsers such as Firefox won’t be allowed to run at all.
Updated @ 8:00am: The issue seems to revolve around API access in Windows RT. Third-party developers (and apps) will only have access to the WinRT (Metro) API, while Microsoft’s own software will have access to the low-level (and old school) Win32 API. This means that Mozilla can build Firefox for Windows on ARM, but without access to Win32 it will be very hard to compete with Internet Explorer.
At first blush this sounds like a classic ploy to stymy the opposition and regain market share — and for all I know, maybe it is — but there are also a few logical reasons for Microsoft’s decision. From the get-go, Microsoft has been leery of developers porting x86 code to ARM, in case these ported apps don’t have the efficiency and stability that a low-power (and battery-powered) ARM tablet requires. It’s for this reason that Microsoft didn’t offer some kind of OS- or hardware-level x86>ARM translation.
Browsers are also one of the juiciest attack vectors for malware — and also one of the most “visible” aspects of a modern operating system. If a user installs Firefox (or Opera or Chrome) on a Windows RT table, and then it gets bogged down with malware and toolbars, you are likely to walk away with a sour taste for Windows RT; “It’s just like Windows 7 damnit!” By only allowing Internet Explorer, Microsoft should be able to keep Windows RT running smoothly for longer. (This is the same reason that Apple doesn’t allow third-party operating systems on its iOS devices, incidentally.)
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Finally, moving away from the logical and more towards legal and ideological wrangling, Windows RT isn’t Windows 8. We always wondered why Windows 8 on ARM was suddenly renamed to Windows RT, and this is probably the reason. With one fell swoop, Microsoft may have escaped the the antitrust ruling that forced European versions of Windows to offer alternative browsers, and done an end-run around the DOJ-Microsoft antitrust settlement in 2001. Irrespective of the reasoning behind the restriction, we should discuss the heinous implications forusers. First up, this means there won’t be any browser add-ons on Windows ARM tablets. There also won’t be any HTML5 web apps (either from the Chrome Web Store, or Mozilla Marketplace, or fancy WebGL-powered websites. If tablet computing turns out to be as big as Microsoft and Apple are anticipating, then this restriction will seriously hamper competition, and thus the continued, rapid advances being made to web browsers and underlying technologies, such as HTML5, JavaScript, and HTTP.
I think it’s unlikely, but if ARM tablets beat out x86 tablets, this could mean a return to the mid-’90s digital dark age, where more than 90% of web surfers used Internet Explorer — a fate worse than death itself.
Source: http://www.extremetech.com/computing...windows-on-arm
