Technically, there's nothing wrong with the desktop browser, of course the rendering engine and performance will be identical between both Metro and desktop.
With Windows 8, however, those reasonable decisions to use Flash or Silverlight will now be heavily penalized. However, until now, Microsoft's messaging has been tempered somewhat: use HTML5 when you can, but if you can't-if you need support for DRM-protected media streaming, for example-then it's reasonable to switch to an alternative, plugin-based technology. HTML5 potentially has reach far beyond that of Flash, since it can target both conventional browsers and closed ecosystems (such as iOS) alike. Microsoft has been vigorously promoting HTML5 for the last year and a half as the best way of providing rich interactivity on the Web. Sites that currently depend on the capabilities provided by Flash or Silverlight should switch to HTML5.
The rationale is a familiar one: plugin-based content shortens battery life, and comes with security, reliability, and privacy problems. This yanks you out of the Metro experience and places you on the traditional desktop. Should one ever come across a page that needs a plugin, the Metro browser has a button to go to that page within the desktop browser. Whether Flash, Silverlight, or some custom business app, sites that need plugins will only be accessible in the non-touch, desktop-based browser. The second of these, the Metro browser, will not support any plugins. However, the latest offering from Google doesn’t seem to follow any of the design philosophies and conventions that are laid out in the Metro guidelines, in fact it pretty much does its best to disregard them.Windows 8 will have two versions of Internet Explorer 10: a conventional browser that lives on the legacy desktop, and a new Metro-style, touch-friendly browser that lives in the Metro world.
The Chrome browser is more than likely going to be successful on the Windows 8 platform purely because a large set of users already have their preferred web browsing software and are unlikely to deviate from that with a new OS.
For those that may prefer to use a different browser, Google have possibly come to the rescue by releasing their own Metro-inspired browser, which becomes the first browser to hit the platform developed by a company other than Microsoft.įirst and foremost, to be able to benefit from this new version of Chrome, users will need to be using the Windows 8 Release Preview of the operating system and then download the update from the developer channel. Windows 8 will obviously ship with a new version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, an offering that has been getting praise recently but still remains hit -and-miss amongst the majority of people. I think it is pretty safe to say that the majority of computer users make extensive use of the internet, meaning that amongst other applications, a web browser is likely to be one of the most-used piece of software on most machines.
With Windows 8 featuring the much loved Metro-style interface, users are not only excited about getting their hands on what represents the next step for Microsoft, but also keen to see what software is produced by third-party developers. Microsoft’s latest Windows 8 operating system has been getting a lot of attention and causing waves in the technology world over the last few months, attention that has intensified in recent weeks thanks to the release of the Release Preview that pretty much shows us what to expect when it hits the shelves.