One of the biggest challenges hindering Microsoft"s attempt to make Windows on ARM a reality is the lack of Windows apps designed to run natively on the architecture. That seems to be changing rapidly, however, with the availability of the first pre-release builds for Mozilla"s Firefox browser made from the ground up for the ARM64 architecture.
Of course, since this is only a "nightly" release for Firefox, Mozilla warns users of the potential hiccups they may face when using the software. Indeed, with these being the very early days for the browser on Windows on ARM, Mozilla states that these builds may be even more bug-riddled than their normal nightly releases. They have also not gone through the company"s usual string of automated testing processes, so users should be wary of using the browser as their daily driver.
In terms of the known bugs and missing features, the company"s announcement notes:
There are still a few areas that we know need work: the Gecko profiler is not functional, but should be by the end of the week. The crashreporter does not work. Our top-tier JS JIT (IonMonkey) is not turned on. WebRTC is not turned on. EME (Netflix, etc.) does not work yet. And so forth...Did I mention that these are nightlies?
Firefox is not the only browser that will soon be making its way to the ARM64 architecture. At the company"s launch of its new Snapdragon 8cx chipset, Qualcomm also revealed that Chromium would make its way to Windows on ARM soon. That"s not actually very surprising, given Microsoft"s recent decision to abandon the use of its own engine in Edge in favour of the open-source Chromium project.
You can try out the Firefox Nightly for Windows on ARM here, which has full installer and updater support. You can also find a full list of the builds released by Mozilla today here. The browser maker first released nightly builds supporting ARM64 near the end of the last year and has updated their builds daily since. The official launch of Firefox for ARM is likely not too distant.
Source: Mozilla via Windows Central