Building "Windows 8": Metro style Browsing

There's so much more to moving the browser experience forward than just putting it on a touch device. To deliver the best browsing across any form factor running Windows 8, we re-imagined the experience of the web browser and the underlying architecture.
Our approach in Windows 8 starts with one great HTML5 browsing engine that powers two different experiences. The single engine provides strong support for web standards, hardware-accelerated performance, security, privacy, and more. Then, we built two experiences on top of that engine: a new Metro style experience as well as a more traditional, current-generation desktop browser with tabs and relatively minimal "chrome."
The result is that you can carry one device and it provides both experiences without compromise, acting as an immersive tablet and a flexible laptop. You can have both experiences on a powerful multi-monitor desktop as well -- no compromise.
You'll get the best immersive, touch-first experience of HTML5 websites with the Metro style browser in Windows 8. If you prefer more traditional window and tab management, you have that in improved form with IE on the desktop. Both run on the same IE10 engine.
While building the entirely new Metro style experience, a funny thing happened: we realized it might just be a better way to browse even if you have a big screen, a desktop computer, and a mouse and keyboard. While it's a touch-first browser, it works well with keyboard and mouse or trackpad. If you've been doing more and more browsing on your phone, then you've likely become used to having almost no "chrome," far more visual tab management, and a more immersive, less "desktop"-y, more manual browsing experience. You might find that you prefer the new Metro style experience of Internet Explorer 10 to the desktop.
Just as a reminder: the Metro style browser in the current Windows Developer Preview is for developers, not consumers. There is work ahead with the developer community to make the experience consumer-ready (for example, having sites update older, out-of-date libraries that don't work well with IE10, or making sure that sites that already run plug-in free for other devices work that way with the Metro style browser).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Windows 8
• Windows Developer Preview
• IE 10

[chaosquall1]

what about us that dont use touch / dont want to use touch? i downloaded the beta for windows 8 dev preview it was crap i am pretty angry

[SuperJaycee13]

@chaosquall1 First of all the Windows developer preview is not a beta, this is an early give away for the "developers" so they can work on the Metro apps. WDP might contain bugs for its on a pre-beta stage. Windows 8 is a no compromise OS, meaning it will run on desktop and laptop, on netbook, with mouse and keyboards and of-course tablets and slates.

[ondalau]

@SuperJaycee13 Very cool. But I hope, Microsoft doesn't replace start menu with start screen for non-touch devices.

[SuperJaycee13]

@ondalau This is the end of Start Menu era since Windows 95.

[TheRemonstration]

All in all it means spending money to upgrade and have the super duper Mac IPAD killer so you can continue to say YAPPLE dumbs people down. But maybe people ARE already dumbed down?

I have great hopes for Win 8---I hope Aienware comes out with a super Win 8 giant touch tablet that floats in front of you--with 100 gigs of ram and 20 gigs of video ram and a infintie resolution screen and a trillion terrrabytes of solid state storage. and full backwards compatibility.and feather weight

[LOLfilms100]

Metro may look good but is not the way to go



[Zestypanda]

Before people start hating, you CAN minimize the ribbon, when you do that, it's not that bad.

[Zestypanda]

No offense but windows 8 looks ugly as hell, my grandmother is still using xp because windows 7was confusing to her, she is sure as hell not upgrading to windows 8!

[chaosquall1]

@SuperJaycee13 it was listed as a pre-beta. Some things i liked like the new task manager ect. I just hope they dont enforce the slide screen interface on us