Mozilla To Fight Microsoft’s Firefox Ban On Windows RT’s Classic Desktop Mode
Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, has said that it will fight a third party browser ban by Microsoft on Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 designed to run on ARM powered devices, such as tablets and smartphones. Microsoft is not restricting access to x86/x64 versions of Windows 8 that run on regular PCs, however.
On Windows RT, Microsoft will only allow third party browsers to run in Metro mode, while completely banning them on the “classic desktop” mode, which uses Win32 APIs in Windows RT. However, a special version of Internet Explorer 10 will come bundled with RT and will run on that classic desktop. Microsoft claim that the ban is driven by security, reliability and performance reasons, as Windows chief executive Steven Sinofsky explained, “If we enabled the broad porting of existing code [to Windows RT] we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this.” Note that those same Win32 APIs would still be needed in Metro mode to deliver a fully featured web browser by Mozilla. Hence, this restriction effectively prevents them from competing with IE10.
However, Mozilla isn’t buying this and claims that Microsoft is returning to the monopoly tactics of old, by locking out competitors which goes against the antitrust ruling against it. However, legal action isn’t Mozilla’s first choice, but instead believe that the most effective way to resolve this is “through critical discussion and transparency of the issues rather than through legal action”, according to Harvey Anderson, Mozilla’s top lawyer.
Oddly though, Mozilla hasn’t put up much of a fight Against Apple ban to let their browser run on any of their products a while back, whether they be desktop or mobile. This appears to be because Apple have a much smaller share of the total browser market compared to Microsoft, who still have a near monopoly on desktop operating systems and are not a convicted monopolist like Microsoft.
“Apple is not a convicted monopolist that has legally binding commitments to not block access to browser-related APIs [application programming interfaces], like Microsoft,” Dotzler wrote in a comment added to his first post. And in another, he said, “Those [legally-binding] commitments don’t go away because Microsoft wishes them away.”
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