Mozilla has released a beta version of the Firefox web browser designed from the ground up for Windows 8.

Earlier this year, Mozilla began development on a version of Firefox that runs on x86 Windows 8. This version of Firefox runs in both the Windows 8 "classic Desktop" environment, and in the new "Metro" environment.

For those of you running the RTM release of Windows 8, you can now download a build of Mozilla Firefox from the Elm development branch and start testing. Elm is the experimental repository where most of Mozilla's Metro development work has been happening. Once installed, these builds will self-update so that you can track Metro Firefox development.



The preview includes a new Metro style Firefox Start page, support for Firefox Sync, Metro touch and swipe gestures, integration with Windows 8 "charms", and a simple streamlined interface. Over the coming weeks and months, Mozilla will be adding more features, tightening up Windows integration, improving performance.

This is an early preview so have in mind that there are bugs and missing features.