Pale Moon 27.0 is out
Pale Moon 27.0 is the latest version of the popular web browser that introduces several important changes, as well as new and updated features.
We reviewed some of the changes previously here on Ghacks, and suggest you check out the article as we won't cover some of them in detail in this release review.
Pale Moon 27.0 is available for download on the official Pale Moon website already. If you have Pale Moon installed already on your device, you may select Pale Moon > Help > About Pale Moon > Check for Updates, to run a manual check for the update. This should get picked up by the browser's automatic updating module, and downloaded and installed then.
Pale Moon 27.0
Please note that Pale Moon 27.0 is no longer compatible with Windows XP. If you use the operating system, your only option to keep on using the browser is to stay on version 26 of it.
It is also important to note that Pale Moon 27.0 is only available in English currently. Localized versions will be released when the localization work is done.
One of the major new changes of the new browser version is better media support. Pale Moon 27.0 supports Media Source Extensions (not the DRM part Encrypted Media Extensions) and mp4 media files that are delivered in fragments.
There is also a new option for MSE for WebM videos, but it is not enabled by default as the implementation has a couple of issues right now that need to be resolved first.
Both options should improve the browser's compatibility with many HMTL5 based web streams significantly.
Since EME is not supported, it is still not possible to watch media on commercial streaming services using HTML5. Pale Moon users may however use Adobe Flash for that if they install the plugin on their device.
Other changes and feature additions of interest are support for DirectX 11 and Direct2d 1.1, full support for HTTP/2, and support for SSL / TLS connections to proxy servers.
Many changes and improvements are for "under the hood" systems of the browser. The rendering engine Goanna was updated to version 3.0 and the JavaScript engine was updated as well to support new features.
Both should reduce the number of compatibility issues that users of previous Pale Moon versions experienced in the past on certain sites.
Pale Moon's caching system has improved as well. You may want to clear the cache right after the upgrade to Pale Moon 27.0 to take full advantage of it.
- Select Pale Moon > History > Clear Recent History from the menu.
- Click on details, check all items you want cleared (make sure cache is selected).
- Select Everything as the time range.
- Hit the clear now button.
The team has implemented all relevant security fixes for issues in Firefox 50 or earlier versions. This improves Pale Moon security. Several libraries have been updated to their latest version.
A new download option is available that lets you control whether to save zone information when downloading files.
Zone information mark the file as "downloaded from the Internet" when enabled (which it is by default. You can switch the setting in the options to never if you don't want that to happen anymore (Pale Moon > Options > General).
Removed features
Several features were removed from the latest Pale Moon version:
- The internal PDF reader is gone. You need to use a third-party tool or browser plugin to read PDF documents.
- Developer Tools are no longer included in Pale Moon. The team notes that they are available as a browser extension.
- Removed support for add-on SDK extensions (JetPack extensions). JetPack add-ons downloaded from Mozilla's addon site are not compatible anymore with Pale Moon.
Continued support
Pale Moon will continue to support several features that Firefox may not support for much longer or is not supporting anymore at all.
This includes NPAPI plugins, extensions that use binary/XPCOM components, full browser themes, unsigned and signed extensions, and sync 1.1.
Pale Moon 27.0.1
An update to Pale Moon 27, Pale Moon 27.0.1 was released on November 28, 2016. It is a bug fix release that fixes several issues of the new major release of the web browser:
- Fixed MSE playback on sites like Twitch.tv.
- Disabled pop-up network status in full screen by default.
- Netflix uses a more compatible Web UI in this version.
- Workaround for Amazon Prime videos which should play fine now in Pale Moon without enforcing Firefox Compatibility user agent mode.
- Fixed a bug that prevented the "reset profile" button to appear on about:support.
Pale Moon 27.0.2
Pale Moon 27.0.2 was released on December 2, 2016. The release fixes on security issue, brings back the Developer Tools (which were not part of the original Pale Moon 27.0 release, and only available as an add-on download), and enables Firefox Compatibility mode by default for the useragent string.
Check out the release notes for Pale Moon 27.0.2 for additional information.
Pale Moon 27.0.3
Pale Moon 27.0.3, released December 16, 2016, is a bugfix and security release. The update fixes a variety of bugs that address issues in the program's network and remote font handling, extension compatibility, and fixed the prompt that shows when sites want to save offline data.
The full list of changes of Pale Moon 27.0.3 is available on this page.
Pale Moon 27.1.0
Pale Moon 27.1.0 was released on February 9, 2017. It is a major update that introduces changes, improvements, fixes and security updates.
Apart from that, it is also the first version of Pale Moon that supports PMKit modules. It is an experimental library designed to offer a basic compatibility layer with Mozilla's Add-on SDK.
As far as changes are concerned, there are plenty. You can check them all out on the official release notes page on the Pale Moon website. Below is a short list of important or noteworthy changes:
- Media back-end reworked completely. FFmpeg and Pale Moon native MP4 parser are used on Linux instead of gstreamer.
- Fixed performance regression when many tabs were open.
- Improved permissions manager (about:permissions).
- Several crash fixes.
- Ability to turn off HSTS re-instated.
- Fixed several security issues in the web browser.
Pale Moon 27.1.1
Pale Moon 27.1.1, released on February 21, 2017 is a stability and bugfix release. The new version fixes stability issues on Windows that could result in hangs, how the Adobe Flash Plugin is detected, a media handling fix to prevent crashes.
Release notes are available on the official Pale Moon website.
Pale Moon 27.1.2
Pale Moon 27.1.2 was released on March 3, 2017. It fixes a single issue: This is a small update adding a workaround for potential deadlocks happening in media elements
Pale Moon 27.2
Pale Moon 27.2.0 was released on March 18, 2017. The new version is a major update in regards to security, compatibility, and back-end functionality.
The release notes list many changes, many of them not visible to users of the browser. This is for instance the case for library updates. Users benefit from those obviously in one way or another.
As far as features and changes are concerned that users may notice:
- DOM storage honors third-party cookie settings now (if disallowed, third-party data is not stored in DOM storage.
- Fixed an issue where desktop notifications appeared off-screen.
- Support for JPEG-XR images added.
- GStreamer use on Linux removed.
- Custom toolbars will remember their state now.
Pale Moon 27.2.0 ships with lots of security and privacy changes. This includes support for new algorithms, fixes for potential issues, and other proactive security adjustments to improve the browser's security.
Pale Moon 27.2.1
Pale Moon 27.2.1 was released on March 24th, 2017. The update brings stability and usability improvements to the browser. It includes several crash fixes, and other improvements. Check out the release notes for a full run down on what is new and changed.
Pale Moon 27.3
Pale Moon 27.3 was released on April, 28th, 2017. It is a "major development update" according to the release notes.
Apart from under-the-hood changes, Pale Moon 27.3 brings along with it performance improvements, a number of fixes and security updates.
The browser ships with a number of new preferences:
- browser.sessionstore.cache_behavior defines the source that the browser's tab restoration feature uses
- 0 = loaded from cache (default)
- 1 = refresh from network
- 2 = refresh from network, and bypass cache
- accessibility.typeaheadfind.highlightallbydefault -- a Boolean value of true highlights all found words of an on-page search, false does not.
- accessibility.typeaheadfind.highlightallremember - a Boolean value of true remembers the last state of the highlight all feature, one of false does not.
- browser.identity.display_punycode defines if and how punycode domains are represented in the browser's address bar
- 0 = displays IDN name (previous default, no longer)
- 1 = displays punycode name for domain validated HTTPS sites (default)
- 2 = displays punycode also for HTTP sites.
All changes are listed on the Pale Moon release notes page.
Pale Moon 27.4
Pale Moon 27.4 has been released. You can check out our review of the latest version here.
Now You: What's your take on the changes in Pale Moon 27?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.