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Mozilla releases Firefox beta for Windows 10 ARM laptops
Mozilla is releasing an ARM version of its Firefox browser today for Windows 10. While Microsoft and Google have been working together on Chromium browsers for Windows on ARM, Mozilla has been developing its own ARM64-native build of Firefox for Snapdragon-powered Windows laptops. We got an early look at this version of Firefox late last year, and it seemed to fare well on an ARM laptop with a dozen tabs open.
This new build of Firefox is available today as part of Mozilla's beta channel for the browser for anyone with an ARM-powered Windows 10 laptop to test. That might not be a lot of people right now, but Mozilla has been working on its Firefox Quantum technology to optimize Firefox for the octa-core CPUs available from Qualcomm. This should mean the performance is relatively solid, while maintaining all of the regular web compatibility you'd expect from Firefox.
Also at AnandTech and Engadget.
Related: Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 8cx, an ARM Chip Intended for Laptops
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday April 12 2019, @06:39PM (3 children)
I thought Windows 10 on ARM was locked down so no one could run third party desktop applications, even if they existed.
Even the old NT/2000 ports to DEC Alpha (also a 64-bit platform, BTW) would let you write and run your own stuff. but it simply "was not x86" so no one wanted it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snow on Friday April 12 2019, @06:52PM (1 child)
I had a windows RT tablet a number of years ago.
The hardware was pretty nice. Quite thin. Good battery life, and a thin somewhat usable keyboard that detached. It felt pretty good in the hands.
Actually using the thing was terrible though. It was slow as shit and didn't run anything. It had a webbrowser (IE of course), and it was slow. The windows store was the only place you could get apps, and the store is complete shit. It made Blackberry's store look good.
That being said, I think it was a glimpse of the future. A future where MS is the gatekeeper just like Apple is the gatekeeper for your idevices. A place where all the code running on your system is approved and signed my Microsoft. A future where there is functionally no difference between your xbox and your computer.
It sucked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @03:09AM
> A place where all the code running on your system is approved and signed my Microsoft.
OK, so what OS will companies use to run their in-house software? My tiny company writes custom engineering software and so far everyone has wanted it on Windows (with one tiny exception of a shared object .so for a Linux system about 5 years ago). I can't see my customers requesting our software signed by Microsoft, the customers are very secretive about the whole process, some contracts don't even allow me to discuss the customer's company name.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday April 12 2019, @07:04PM
This is true of Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8. It is not true of the ARM version of Windows 10, which makes three key changes to the business model: