Pale Moon team releases first version of Basilisk browser
The Pale Moon team has released the first version of the Basilisk web browser that is based largely on Firefox code.
Basilisk is a XUL-based web browser that uses Pale Moon's layout and rendering engine Goanna, which is a fork of Firefox's rendering engine Gecko. The browser itself is a fork of Mozilla's Firefox code base without the technology that went into the creation of Firefox 57 (but with the tech that Mozilla dropped in the process)
In short: Basilisk is based on recent Firefox code for the most part that supports legacy features such as XUL which Mozilla dropped with the release of Firefox 57.
The development team sees Basilisk "primarily as a vessel for development of the XUL platform", and as a "potential replacement for Firefox to retain the use of Firefox Extensions".
Basilisk Browser
The current development version of Basilisk is available for Windows and Linux. On Windows, all versions of Windows starting with Windows 7 are supported. The developers recommend 1 Gigabyte of RAM as a minimum (2 Gigabyte for heavy use scenarios), a modern processor and a dedicated GPU.
On Linux, any modern Linux Distribution should do but you should check out the requirements page on the Basilisk website for details on libraries that the browser requires.
It should not come as a surprise that Basilisk's interface looks pretty similar to that of Firefox pre-version 57. It features the same customization options and preferences as Firefox for the most part; and all of these open exactly as they do in Firefox.
The browser supports legacy extensions, and you can head over to Mozilla's AMO site to install them right away in the browser. But the web browser supports WebExtensions as well. Support is experimental right now, and some WebExtension APIs that are Mozilla-specific may not be supported yet.
Still, it appears as if Basilisk will support legacy add-ons for Firefox and WebExtensions, and not one or the other.
Extensions don't need to be signed to be installed in Basilisk.
Basilisk supports NPAPI plugins as well (just like Pale Moon does), which means that you can run Flash, Java and other plugins in the browser.
Other major features that the browser supports are WebAssembly, modern ciphers, HSTS, and basically any feature that modern Firefox supports as well apart from multi-process which it does not support.
The development team focuses on advancing the underlying architecture of the browser right now. This means that there won't be many changes to the browser's front end or interface.
Closing Words
The initial version of Basilisk works pretty well, and if you have used a recent version of Firefox, you will find yourself right at home. Extensions work, and web compatibility is probably a bit better than that of Pale Moon thanks to the Firefox codebase the browser is based on.
Now You: What's your take on the first version of the Basilisk browser?
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.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.