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Comment by TazeTSchnitzel | Hacker News Reader

>"The difference here is that Microsoft is using its Windows monopoly power in the OS market to exclude competition in the browser market."

Some might see it that way. Personally, I don't think that's Microsoft's goals at all, it's just an unintended consequence of them trying to slowly phase out the Win32 API and Desktop applications, and switch entirely to Metro-style WinRT-based apps.

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That would make sense except that they specifically exempt their own browser from the restrictions that will apply to every other browser.

The problem is that third party applications can cause security and performance issues and it's Microsoft who ultimately takes the blame for it. They exempt their own browser because it's their own browser.

I'd say it's more an exemption for their own rendering engine. IE10 is more than just a "browser" in Windows 8, it is the engine used to execute several Windows 8 applications.

It's an exemption for whatever is preinstalled on the device :) The actual technical mechanism behind this "ban" is simply that installing desktop apps in general is blocked on Windows RT. A "Metro style enabled desktop browser" (what Metro style IE and Metro style Firefox are) is really just a desktop executable that acts like a Metro style app.

No, it makes sense (not that it's necessarily the main or only reason) - it's much easier to break APIs when the only clients are internal.

i am using firefox since versino 0.x, now of course, apple brags about a monopoly on tablets and firefox is not there, if gartner/idc predictions are true, tablets and other arm based devices will rule the world in 2015. so it is better for mozilla to target apple and ms at the same time.

It may certainly not be their goal, but they should know better.

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