Mozilla is bringing Firefox to Microsoft’s Home windows retailer right this moment. Firefox is among the first third-party options obtainable within the Microsoft Retailer, and it’s utilizing its personal Gecko browser engine as an alternative of Chromium options like Opera or the various different options that leverage Microsoft’s Edge webview.
Microsoft’s new open retailer insurance policies have lastly made it potential for third-party browsers like Firefox to seem within the Microsoft Retailer. Whereas we haven’t seen Chrome seem but, Opera was fast to make sure its personal browser can also be listed within the retailer.
“Beforehand, in the event you had been on Home windows and needed to make use of Firefox, you needed to obtain it from the web and undergo a clunky course of from Microsoft,” explains Mozilla. “Now that Microsoft has modified its Retailer insurance policies, selecting Firefox as your desktop browser is much more seamless – and it comes with all the newest Firefox options.”
Firefox launching into the Microsoft Retailer comes simply months after Mozilla defeated Microsoft’s default browser protections in Home windows. Mozilla has quietly made it simpler to change to Firefox on Home windows, with a one-click course of that isn’t formally obtainable for anybody aside from Microsoft. Mozilla seems to have reverse engineered Microsoft’s potential to set Edge because the default in Home windows with a single click on, as an alternative of the multi-prompt course of that exists in Home windows 10 right this moment.
Curiously, this one-click course of doesn’t seem to work within the Microsoft Retailer model of Firefox. Which means Mozilla both prevented submitting its workaround model of Firefox or Microsoft rejected it from the Microsoft Retailer and the corporate was pressured to take away the default browser workaround.
Microsoft has made the method of setting the default browser even more durable in Home windows 11, and Mozilla has been attempting to persuade Microsoft to enhance its default browser settings in Home windows since its open letter to Microsoft in 2015.
Firefox is now obtainable within the Microsoft Retailer for each Home windows 10 and Home windows 11.
