Pale Moon 28.0 Major Update released
Pale Moon 28.0.0 is the first version of version 28.x and as such a major upgrade from the previously used version 27.x which the team released in 2016.
The new release is special for a number of reasons, one being that it is based on the Unified XUL Platform, a forked and modified version of the Mozilla Code Repository.
It was not clear back in 2017 when the forking happened if Pale Moon would use the Unified XUL Platform or what the release would mean for the Basilisk Browser which the Pale Moon team released in 2017 as well as it used the Unified XUL Platform as well.
As far as getting the new version is concerned. You can select Pale Moon > Help > About Pale Moon and click on "Check for Updates" to run a manual check in the browser. The new version should get picked up automatically so that Pale Moon is updated to it automatically. Downloads are also available on the official site for users who prefer it that way.
Pale Moon 28.0
Pale Moon 28.0 offers major under the hood improvements thanks to its new base:
- Significant JavaScript engine improvements such as support for "all landmark features from the ECMAScript standards" which should reduce JavaScript related rendering issues significantly.
- Update to the rendering and layout engine Goanna.
- Enhancements to the Document Object Model (DOM) with updated APIs.
- WebGL2 Support.
- Media enhancements, e.g. playback of FLAC audio or MSE media streaming.
- Refreshed Developer Tools.
Probably more interesting to existing users of Pale Moon is whether the Pale Moon development team kept its promises in regards to support for features that Mozilla dropped in Firefox.
Pale Moon 28.0 continues to support NPAPI plugins, complete themes and other interface customizations, classic XUL, bootstrapped and Jetpack extensions (legacy add-ons), and does not include DRM in the browser.
Pale Moon 28 supports Windows 7 or newer versions on the Windows platform only officially. The new Pale Moon version should run on Windows Vista as well (but not on Windows XP) but the operating system is not supported officially anymore.
The team's primarily goal was to migrate Pale Moon to the new platform. Pale Moon 28.0 should work just like previous versions for the most part but there will be some changes, for instance to extensions support as some extensions may need modifications to work properly in the new version of the browser.
Closing Words
Pale Moon is one of the few browsers that still supports browser plugins. If you need to run Java in the browser, Pale Moon is one of the few options that you have to do so as major browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, or Microsoft Edge don't support these plugins anymore.
Pale Moon should work with many of the classic Firefox extensions as well. Some may not work properly on the other hand as the two platforms are not identical.
Pale Moon is not my main browser but a quick test run showed that it worked fine on the sites that I tried it on. It would be great if existing Pale Moon users would share their experience in the comment section below.
Generally speaking, Pale Moon users should experience fewer compatibility issues while using the new version of the browser. There may be regressions, however, but the team hopes to address those in future releases.
Now You: What is your take on Pale Moon 28.0?
I have used Pale Moon as my primary browser since 2011 and have been completely satisfied. As with any browser there may be a glitch now and then. I find it to be much faster and that’s significant since I have 112 extensions installed. There are many people on the forums more than willing to help with problems. This is and always will be the one of a few browsers left that will remain totally customizable.
“112 extensions installed”
Wow
My browser, my way, my daily driver since June. Long live Pale Moon!
I used it earlier and loved it, but the day when they dropped the support of XP i dropped my use of Pale Moon ! (I know there was another dev that kept it alive on XP but i even didn’t try it.)
The dev of PM is also quite rude to people in his forum….another thing that makes me stay away from both PM and Basilisk.
There was someone that wanted to port PM and/or Basilisk to XP but he ended up in a fight with the dev of them, he wasn’t allowed to use a similar name…. Idiocy !
I’m satisfied with Firefox ESR (before that Quantom crap).
@Stefann, you might try the New Moon v28, which will run on Vista and XP (both x86 and x64 builds)
https://msfn.org/board/topic/177125-my-build-of-new-moon-temp-name-aka-pale-moon-for-xp/
It’s not reasonable or ideal to be rude. Nor is it overly reasonable to consistently assume old software should be deprecated just because certain corporations say so. However …
… there is a significant burden for software developers when it comes to supporting a wide breadth of systems and APIs. From simply needing to maintain virtual machines and tests to ensure compatibility to the wider security footprint involved.
When it comes to an independant, possibly one-man-band software project, that burden is quite substantial. Whilst it’s more than possible for the developer of “New Moon” to continue supporting older systems, it’s possible Pale Moon would be a more reliable browser if the time taken to support those systems was spent ironing out compatibility issues with Pale Moon. Arguably therefore, the majority of users may suffer so that the minority can keep using their relatively antiquated, though often tried and tested at the same time, systems.
In short, there’s only so many developer resources to go around. Users would ideally think about how much time developers need to put into software projects they then supply for no cost except the potential cost to the developer’s careers if they release a terrible product.
Software is never free to create. It takes time and resources and somewhere, somehow, that needs to paid for one way or another as humans write software, not machines. We all gotta eat, sleep and stay healthy!
In the case of Pale Moon, they would still be triaging git repositorities night and day looking to merge patches from Mozilla. Yes, there’s so much history in the Unified XUL code, it likely will never be truly indepedant from Mozilla.
There’s a reason they call projects like Pale Moon a “fork”. It’s short for a fork in the road. One project takes one direction, another takes a different direction. But there’s never a fresh start. They share the same history of good and bad code and always will unless the code (and functionality it supports) is removed and/or re-written. This is why features are deprecated. It’s not nice for users, but software developers have a responsibility to ‘drive’ their projects in the most effective direction possible.
Alas, the fork analogy fails to recognise the cross-pollination of code written after the split. All code still shared between the projects will get updated, where there is a benefit, in all forked projects. You can be certain all but one of the improvements Martin listed above are actually based on Mozilla-written code.
Only the “Goanna” engine is likely to be distinctly different to Firefox’s engine and that may not be much more than branding.
The JS improvements will almost certainly be pulled from updated to Firefox’s *Monkey engine. WebGL2 will most definitely be Mozilla code. I mean, really, can you imagine the handful of Pale Moon guys (if it’s not actually just a one-man-band) testing all those graphics cards and drivers for compatibility with WebGL2 ? Highly unlikely. All they will be doing is changing the code compilation flags and debugging what breaks between their older Mozilla code and the newer, WebGL2 Mozilla code. The development and testing of that software would require server farms of resources that only the likes of game development companies and browser vendors pulling in tens of millions of dollars a year can likely implement.
Basically, read every line of the changelog like this:
– Pale Moon guys tried merged X present-day Firefox code commits / branches for Y feature updates to Z component and tried compiling Unified XUL to see if it breaks … on platform A in scenarios B with variations C.
If not, boom, you’ve still got usable browser. If compilation did fail or passed and the software still crashes or misbehaves during use, that’s it, no updated iteration of that component unless that code can be relatively easily modified to work again.
If the Pale Moon developer is rude, it’s not excusable but it is explainable by the size of the codebase he’s trying to wrangle versus the probability and reality of issues he’s seeing when trying to continue to integrate code that Firefox developers would be writing under the assumption that the ‘legacy’ codebase they have deprecated, but which Unified XUL is trying to keep alive, is no longer a constraint.
In essence, that’s two forces acting against each other and the Pale Moon developer is trying to iron out the friction. The less constraints he has to process, such as unfortunately antiquated systems, the easier his life will be.
Users of alternate browsers really need to take the above picture into account. Unless there’s a seismic shift in the way software is developed, or forked projects get a lot more funding or volunteers, the breadth of systems supported will generally have to limited to current gen systems and a reasonable number of superceded systems.
After all, does anyone really expect Pale Moon to run on Windows 98?
PM user since 2010. In the last year or so been having trouble with scripts on some sites, like phys.org. Still, I’d rather deal with the occasional issue. Looking forward to trying v28.
Two more smooth, stress free updates to Pale Moon 64 bit on a W7 Pro, 64 bit PC & Pale Moon 32 bit on a 64 bit W7 Home PC.
Don’t see the update offered to Pale Moon running on Mint19 Cinnamon.
Thank you Moonchild and Company.
The x64 version DOES NOT work on Vista Martin (see, to me in 2018, the x64 build is all that should matter)
Just a heads up. Thanks for the article.
And it now comes as true Portable using winPenPack’s X-launcher!
Since about 4 years I switched from Firefox to Pale Moon because of incessant changes always occasioning incompatibilities. Now with Pale Moon at each major release same problem so bye.
There is also a Linux build: https://linux.palemoon.org/
I’m glad it still has support for x86, ALSA, GTK2. Quite pleased.
Kudos to Moonchild Productions!
“The new Pale Moon version should run on Windows Vista as well”
Unfortunately, that looks like a no go. Tested both the zip and portable downloads.
Another similar report on Palemoon’s forum.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19524&p=147630&hilit=vista&sid=41ed203b575c3511f6479b2e6a832a19#p147616
A significant update for a fully customizable browser – for power users, frustrated Firefox ones and all those that take their privacy and security seriously. I’d urge anyone to give it a try and slowly make it your own. It’s a great experience.
A few websites (out of millions) will not play nice, mostly because this is not a mainstream product, but nothing to worry about.
You say, “The new Pale Moon version should run on Windows Vista as well,” and I’m sorry to say that is not true. As of Pale Moon 28, Windows Vista is no longer supported, period. The Unified XUL Platform no longer supports Windows Vista.
Vista is a failed OS from 2007. Why on earth would you still use it?
ask a user named “VistaLover” from MSFN forums, Darren (heehee):
https://msfn.org/board/forum/67-windows-vista/
you tell him why Vista is a “failed OS”, which he’ll point out otherwise
The last standing true Mozilla User’s browser with the most customization support from the real legacy XUL extensions. The most dedicated developers looking only at for how long they kept supporting the Firefox platform before Australis with Palemoon 27, great support from them on forums with real technical detailed explanations underlining the problems reported there. Very trustfully announcement! Palemoon 27 is still running absolutely great! Early v28 might suffer from some regressions as all new software projects, but long live Palemoon 28! At least for the same as long 27 was developed and fine tuned into a real gem of browsers!
“The new Pale Moon version should run on Windows Vista as well”
It actually doesn’t run on Vista, says it’s not a valid Win32 application.
It’s fast and stable for the most part, but I did notice that when maximized, youtube videos went a little too far across the screen. Otherwise, seems fairly sturdy.
I love Pale Moon… It’s the only browser for a serious porn lover.
After trying out Pale Moon 28 – guess what, i switched from Otter now towards Pale Moon. Nice to have customization in old Firefox style back.
Towards the question how long Pale Moon stays an alternative as they can not port forward to another engine from now on… and they run for sure again into big Javascript and HTML5 and other general future key-web-technology issues again – perhaps not too long, but for the time it stays compatible i keep on using Pale Moon for now.
At least for 1-2 years it is safe to use before the question arrives whats next to pick in the browser market.
Which Firefox version is this based upon?
There’s no single-number answer to that any more. It’s a full fork and an independent browser that uses both Firefox (various versions) and own code. If you are still looking for a Firefox number (you shouldn’t) I think 52-53 should be close the mark but don’t take my word for it and again: this question is not really valid so the answer cannot be either.
@???
As far as i know – ESR 52 something
Explains the incomplete webextensions support in Basiliks – But as the Pale Moon team has no intention to bring Mozilla’s in the meantime developed we-API’s it would be best to remove we-support as a whole, as sooner or later only the most simple webextensions would be compatible with Basilisk.
Pale Moon itself has no webextensions support. Which is actually a good thing. As it has – as said anyway no future in either Pale Moon or Basilisk because of too much maintenance work and development complexity.
Also it is highly unlikely that the task to bring latest we-development into Basilisk would be successful, as the browser code-bases are not compatible to each other anymore.
about:support
Application basic information
Pale Moon 28.0.0 (64-bit)
build ID : 20180807123623
User Agent : Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:52.9) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/4.1 Firefox/52.9 PaleMoon/28.0.0
However, in fact it seems to be Firefox / 37.0.
Also to be fair, it has to be said, that only a minority of the so-called improvemences have been developed by the PM-team.
What they did was port over their old UI into the new code-base and remove stuff they did not want and adding stuff they have been wanting.
But MSE, Ecmascript, HTML5 improvemences and most other work was done by Mozilla itself while creating Firefox ESR 52. So, Mozilla should be credited for the majority of the work.
And.. it was the last time to have a safety-web – there is no going back forward anymore without danger to losing everything which is available right now.
I would like to know where PM users find all their addons that work with PM. I tried to install Noscript in PM, not compatible. Same with Ublock origin. I don’t believe older versions would do the trick since they are not under developement anymore. Soit may be an security issue. Does anybody have some advice ? Thanks.
Did you try on their add-ons site?
https://addons.palemoon.org
This page is interesting:
https://addons.palemoon.org/incompatible
For someone who wants to keep using classic extensions for a while longer, once FF 52 ESR goes EOL, is Pale Moon really the best answer given the ramifications of that page? Or is there some other browser without those complications?
@Addontrouble: https://addons.palemoon.org/
uBlock Origin works, you probably got the wrong version. Get the “firefox-legacy” version, currently 1.16.4.4: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases
As for NoScript, it works too but be warned: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=17619
For your Pale Moon questions please visit the PM forum, gHacks is not meant for that.
From:
https://noscript.net/getit :
You can still download NoScript “Classic” (5.1.8.6) for Firefox 52 ESR at https://secure.informaction.com/download/releases/noscript-5.1.8.6.xpi
It will be updated until September 2018, when ESR and the Tor Browser based on it will switch to 60.
I won’t stop working after that.
The legacy version of uBlock Origin ( as mentioned by Alex above) can be kept up to date with the Pale Moon extension uBlock Origin Updater:
http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/ublock0-updater/
Thank you, guys. I will give it a try. Happy about the fast response.
Sorry; I meant:
It won’t stop working after that. :)
TIL Pale Moon won’t support TLS 1.3 because we still have to support XUL/XPCOM worthless extensions because muuuuh customization!
TLS 1.3 is supported. Stop spreading shit.
@webdev spoken like a true Google-Chrome/(Google-)Mozilla-Firefox enthusiast. Pale Moon does support TLS 1.3
Get your facts straight. Also “muuuuh customization” is for me and many other users – no matter if they are using Pale Moon, or Vivaldi, or Qutebrowser or Otter-Browser or Falcon or whatever for another feature rich browser more of value than some speedy but featureless bare-bone software like Google-Chrome is and Firefox has become.
@webdev
Also, if you do not mind. As we speak about “worthless” – worthless is always the lesser capable and lesser feature rich tool in general.
Spoken in add-on/extensions category – XUL is way above webextension Google technology – Many people do not like at all that Mozilla has become so much Google addicted that they implement whatever Google considers as hip and shiny.
Also – as Google dominates the web up and down, why implementing some Google stuff anyway instead of doing one’s own thing.
Google=bad – Google technology=bad
This is quite simply not true.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=19881#p147377
Check the date TLS 1.3 was finalized. One does not simply integrate new protocols “overnight”.
Spoke too soon: https://github.com/MoonchildProductions/UXP/commit/788c588bf6f8907dc57b01cd1c86239215d3c661/
pref(“security.tls.version.max”, 4);
PaleMoon fanbois: Does PaleMoon have an updated HSTSPreload list? If not then it’s literally worthless from the security point of view since HSTSPreload list is a basic minimum (on the official https://hstspreload.org PaleMoon isn’t even mentioned).
@big Mozilla fanboi
https://github.com/MoonchildProductions/UXP/issues/447
Any more questions? :D
> https://github.com/MoonchildProductions/UXP/issues/447
June 2018, that’s very rough but gets a pass even though that means that pre-June 2018 PaleMoon was a catastrophe with not even HSTS Preload list.
> Any more questions? :D
Thanks for answering! Yes, can you merge those memory improvements in mozilla-central and possibly adapt them to PaleMoon (excluding the bugzillas that remove XPcom stuff to get better memory)? https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/firefox-dev/BuhZJseW2kA
Over the years, many users moved away from Chrome to FF. Now, a lot of users are becoming disenchanted with the where FF is heading.
Pale-moon has a real opportunity here, to develop a user friendly, privacy oriented, add-on happy browser, that users will decide to deploy in droves. A larger market share is there for the taking, they just have to have the vision minus the greed, to do it right.
I would love, at some point to day,” Thank-you Pale-moon, now take-THAT google,
take-THAT Fire-Fox.”
Here’s to hope.
Long time fan of Palemoon but 28.0.0 messed up all my quick dial page entrees.
After reverting to 27.x (and putting back my profile) all quick dial entrees were gone.
Had to install PM’s quick dial add on to get them back.
What’s up Palemoon?
@LTL Pale Moon 28 is not fully compatible with the old profile earlier versions of the Firefox code base have used.
If you downgrade from 28 to 27 (version 52 back to 38) you run into compatibility issues as the new state is not backwards compatible.
And depending on the general profile health state of yours in 27 – switching over to 28 is either a hit or miss. I suggest – create a new profile in 28 and put your old one to rest.
Thanks for the explanation Farid, but ditching my current profile is NOT an option.
I will wait for a 28.x version that corrects earlier bugs.
@LTL There is nothing to fix. That is a plain and simple effect of the Firefox 52 code-base usage. There is a big difference since the Firefox 38 code-base and the 52 code-base – that possible chance of incompatibility is inevitable and was unable to prevent.
If you are not willing to start a fresh profile or copy over parts of your old profile in a fresh profile – the only reasonable move you can do is to move to another browser. Or keep on using the old Pale Moon version.
That are your options. Bluntly spoken.
Pale Moon, I’ve missed you. During our two year separation I was truly heartbroken and never forgot about you. And I was thankful for our occasional visits to get reacquainted. I kept hoping that you would find a way to come back with at least a little of the panache you showed in our glory days. And I’m surprised and very happy to see that you’re now all buffed up, looking for a fight and ready to prove that you are once again a contender! LoL. Wishful thinking?
Video playback looks to be working like it should. I was concerned about my previous video playback issues lingering after this update and it looks like they have been resolved. On YouTube, for whatever weird reason, I couldn’t get the the Old UI Layout to work properly by changing the PREF cookie value. Changing the cookie value worked in six other browsers so my not being able to get it to work in Pale Moon was frustrating. The video player was too wide and covering up the “Up next” column on the right when using the default view size. I couldn’t figure out if it was a useragent problem or what the deal was and ended up having to use the “Youtube – Restore Classic” userscript. With that said, 1080p 60fps video is working very well with zero dropped frames and cpu/gpu usage looks fine. Firefox and Waterfox also do very well with video playback.
Graphics rendering on most websites is okay. On a few graphics heavy websites that I spend a lot of time on it’s obviously not at FF’s performance level and can easily be seen when scrolling the page. I visit feedly a few times each day and go through a few hundred articles and the scrolling and rendering performance still needs some work. On flickr I’m always looking for landscapes and cityscapes to add to my screensaver slide show which starts after 5 minutes of inactivity, and scrolling though youtube videos is often a bumpy ride. And I don’t see it being a bandwidth problem. I just looked on speedtest.net and saw 127.59 Mbps down and 6.12 Mbps up. On my desktop even Chrome could use some improvement to match the rendering speed and smoothness of FF on flickr and feedly. And Pale Moon has further to go than Chrome. Waterfox is very close to the rendering performance of FF.
Browser startup is slightly slower after the update but still very good. I’m now seeing a 2.5 second startup time. Truly shameful (just kidding) when I only have 24 extensions installed in Pale Moon. FF is at 2 seconds, Waterfox is at 2.8.
Page load times are always faster in FF and I would say Pale Moon is about equal to what I see in Waterfox with PM often faster, not always but often. Without the dev tools open, on most websites, it would be hard to tell which one was faster. A few sites like thechive.com and bleacherreport.com are obviously slower in PM and WF when compared to FF.
Smoothscroll performance is improved with this update but I’m still seeing some micro-stutter on the about:addons page and just plain stutter, jank, nastiness on Feedly and a couple other sites. On most websites smoothscroll feels fine but if the number of elements that are cached for a site is low or non-existent the more likely I will be to see some stu stutter. Feedly is by far the hardest test for all browsers that I’m aware of when it comes to smoothscroll performance. FF does exceptionally well on Feedly with Waterfox a very close second and everything else (Chrome Dev-Stable, Vivaldi and Pale Moon) aren’t even in the rankings, on Feedly. Feedly should be on every browser developers list of test sites for rendering, scrolling and memory use.
The amount of memory used by Pale Moon is still reliably small. I wonder if that’s actually a good thing? I just saw 188 MB with one tab open and 644 MB with 12 tabs open. My FF test profile with 4 content processes used 1.09GB. My “default” FF profile using 6 content processes (default is 4) and configured to use more media and memory cache used 1.33 GB. Waterfox with 4 content processes (default is 1) used 1.38GB. The memory used is “system” memory and doesn’t include what’s used by the gpu. GPU memory used with 12 tabs open was also significantly higher in FF and WF, does that partially explain the performance difference I’m seeing?
And the pièce de résistance… I was able to get the floating scrollbar to work in Pale Moon! I put a js file and some css in my chrome folder for the floating scrollbar and I finally figured out that the YesScript addon that works as a js blacklist for websites was for some rude reason keeping the scrollbar from working. Because I can’t find an addon that works in PM as a js whitelist I thought about trying the last legacy version of uMatrix but don’t know if I’m feeling that ambitious. And webext is not an option or I would use No-Script which is very light on resources. Is addon compatibility improving or getting worse?
All in all I’m seeing some progress being made. My first priority for a browser is performance which is the reason I started using Pale Moon 9 years ago but to use PM now as my primary would be a downgrade for me in every way except for memory use which I don’t care about because I have plenty and customization is better in PM but I can change everything I want to in FF with css and I have. Right now, I can’t help but think that PM’s days are numbered, sorry. If it works for you that’s great. Last comment ever by me focusing on Pale Moon. I feel like I’m putting spurs to a lame horse. ;)
I’m using: Win7 x64, a 4 core 4 thread cpu @ 3.2-3.4GHz, fast ssd and a small graphics card.
@Richard Allen You do know that CSS customization is also on the future chopping-block of Mozilla – do you?
CSS customization is also not mainstream users compatible – Chrome does not have it… so Mozilla will remove it too. After all, they only care for the Chrome crowd today.
Hi, thank you for the new Martin but a good small info to see is how much it scored on html5test.com ;)
Perhaps this isn’t the place for it but I’ve been running Waterfox and would like to solicit some views re Waterfox vs Pale Moon.
Also, can I overwrite the installed Pale Moon profile directory with my current Waterfox profile directory and expect it to work?
Thanks
@Don Gateley, about profile overwriting: no, I wouldn’t try that at all. Different browsers so definitively expect things to go wrong. Starting with a clean profile is the only reasonable way to go.
@Don Gateley,
Origin is Gecko, but it is a completely different browser (subspecies: another species).
Pale Moon being that it is based on the Unified XUL Platform, a forked and modified version of the Mozilla Code Repository.
Waterfox and Firefox are not compatible because Pale Moon renders by its proprietary “Goanna Engine”.
Simply put,
Pale Moon is “XUL” limited Browser.
https://www.palemoon.org/
https://addons.palemoon.org/
https://addons.palemoon.org/extensions/
Firefox is a browser limited to “WebExtension”.
Waterfox is a browser that can use “WebExtension” and “XUL” together (with operating conditions).
The Waterfox source code is a specialised modification of the Mozilla platform, designed for privacy and user choice in mind. You should be able to install it and compile Waterfox without any issues. Other modifications and patches that are more upstream have been implemented as well to fix any compatibility/security issues that Mozilla may lag behind in implementing (usually due to not being high priority). High request features removed by Mozilla but wanted by users are retained (if they aren’t removed due to security).
https://github.com/MrAlex94/Waterfox
Goanna is not proprietary.
Exactly. Goanna is just reworked Gecko. Moon-Matt will have you believe it’s completely different, and Tobin always says, “It’s not Firefox and will never be Firefox again”.
But it’s still just Gecko reworked.
@Nightfall,
@Don Gateley,
Certainly, it was short of words.
Forked what Mozilla developed, LayoutEngine which Moonchild Productions made unique.
Goanna
https://www.moonchildproductions.info/goanna.shtml
https://www.palemoon.org/history.shtml
With the 26.0 milestone, we changed to our own layout and rendering engine called Goanna, which has been forked off from Gecko, debuting in the Pale Moon 26 milestone release after more than 6 months in pre-release development.
https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml
＞Layout and Rendering
・The current layout and rendering engine (Goanna) is Pale Moon’s independent implementation derived from Gecko. This engine debuted in v26 of the browser, and aims to improve upon the previous Pale Moon engine by steadily adopting more desired HTML and CSS features as well as improving rendering techniques. Some implementations will be significantly different than those found in other browsers, even Gecko-based ones, and aim to provide the best-of-class solutions to web design problems.
・Version 28 of the browser carries the engine and subsequently platform version 4 of Goanna. This adds, among other things, support for WebGL2, CSS Grid, and other recent additions to the layout and rendering landscape for browsers – further improvements will be made over time, as required.
＞Front-end
・Pale Moon’s front-end features are well-established, tried-and-tested features that work well in terms of flexibility and customizability for users. The front-end is and will remain XUL-based and fully extensible by the user and browser extensions, regardless of what platform is in use.
＞User Interface
・The User Interface in Pale Moon is stable, based on the Firefox 4-28 browser era UI and will not be changed in any major way as far as how the UI operates. “Australis”, the UI rework done by Mozilla in Firefox 29-56 or “Photon” as seen in Firefox 57 and later which completely removed many customization features, will not be adopted. This also means Pale Moon will retain full and ongoing support for total restyling (complete themes).
About the Pale Moon user interface layout
https://www.palemoon.org/layout-differences.shtml
Information about the project
https://www.palemoon.org/info.shtml
Pale Moon future roadmap
Last update: 2018-08-14
https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml
Just updated to version 28 AND ALL MY ADD-ONS and BOOKMARKS WERE LOST!!!
Uninstalled and reinstalled version 27.9 that I now have to customize.
Is this a nasty way to get rid of add-ons Mozilla does not want us to have?
Or is t here a way to update to 28 and keep the add-ons?
@Jan Erik:
I always have negative to say about the Pale Moon team, but I have to tell you, Pale Moon v28 is a good deal more stable than it’s predecessor. There are bookmark backups. Did you try restoring one of them? Which add-ons aren’t working? Did you look for updates?
It can’t be everything that was lost. If that’s the case, something is VERY wrong!
Pale Moon: Release notes
v28.0.0 (2018-08-16)
https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml
Our primary goal has been to lift Pale Moon up to the new platform and as such most changes are “under the hood” and won’t be seen in casual use (aside from more things “just working”). We aim to keep your user experience consistent and logical; but some things will have changed, of course. Browser extensions may need updating or may need a different version, for example.
Of course with such a big change of platform, there are some things that have regressed (worked before but no longer work), and we will work on fixing these regressions over time (hopefully with your help).
Reality check: Even though we have extensively tested the browser in daily use for a few months (also thanks to the brave souls on our unstable channel) we don’t expect that the browser will be flawless or bug-free. If you find bugs, regressions or issues with the new release, please discuss them on the forum ( https://forum.palemoon.org/ ). Let’s work together as a community of users to make this the best browser yet!
Dear Jody,
it seems that I got your reply in the e-mail before it appears here?
Yes, ALL was gone, but I have backups.
It, however, took me a lot of time to reinstall all …
A lot …
I may have to dump Palemoon. v 28 refuses to launch on a 32 bit Windows 7 computer. After troubleshooting help from people NOT at the Palemoon forum, I discovered that I have to turn off malwarebytes exploit protection to get it to run. This is not acceptable.
Note: on a 64 bit Windows 7 computer, it runs with mbam exploit protection on.
@plodr,
Pale Moon has been in use for three years. (also use Firefox beta, Waterfox, SeaMonkey, Brave, Vivaldi)
Pale Moon 28.0.0 (64-bit) starts using immediately after release (Overwrite update).
Security solutions that are currently using : Malwarebytes free, simplewall, Windows Firewall Control, Heimdal PRO, Reason Core Security free, AppCheck free.
Windows 10 Home (64 bit)
There is no problem at all. Everything is operating normally.
(There is no problem in the past as well)
The Free version of MBAM has no exploit protection function, so it is not the same condition …
However, Perhaps it seems to be a false positive Block.
If downloaded from the official site, there should not be any problem.
https://www.palemoon.org/
@owl the issue is that if you have Windows 32 Bit some Antivirus solutions are running into an issue with Pale Moon and render it function-less
This issue is not present in Windows versions with 64 Bit in combination with 64 Bit Pale Moon. Not sure if the issue would happen with Windows 64 Bit and Pale Moon 32 Bit versions.
Anyway, that issues should be reported to the Antivirus solutions as they have the modules which interfere with Pale Moon and render it useless.
@plodr you do understand that’s a problem 100% caused by your antivirus, right? Unless you expect from free software to fix the many known problems of paid antivirus suites in which case, yes, it’s horrible and unacceptable…
@plodr i am personally using Pale Moon with Panda Antivirus.
No issue on my 32 Bit Windows 7 system.
I would say that you should report that bug to Malwarebytes – as that issue results clearly from an overzealous malware protection software. And as there are many other antivirus solutions who work fine also with 32 Bit Windows in combination with Pale Moon, reporting this issue to Malwarebytes is your best bet.
Warning: if you have a 32 Bit Windows and are forced to use the Pale Moon 32 Bit software, be aware that some Antivirus solutions have issues with that.
If Pale Moon runs into issues on your Windows 32 Bit system, you should report that issue to the Antivirus company.
Just thinking that warning is useful for some people.
@Farid Le Fleur,
“some Antivirus solutions have issues”
Thank you for comments reinforcing the situation on this matter.
It was very helpful.
It is a very important issue so I will post it on the Japanese portal site.
Thanks.
I installed/updated Pale Moon 28 with the downloaded win installer and everything worked, except 2 or 3 fails in add-on settings and a minor themes glitch.
I’ve seen several posts now, also on pm forum, where people reportedly “lost all add-ons, bookmarks,…”, even their profiles seems to be “gone” – I really don’t know what happened there, but for such worst cases and the option to downgrade I back up my profiles folder and also use the pmbackup tool before major upgrades. It takes around 20 minutes to do this, but spares a lot of time for worst case troubleshooting.
In his release announcements even Moonchild underlines in the first 28 release there still can be incompatibilities and misfunctions either with add-ons or just the multitude of different page designs. I’ve seen no problems with the well known major sites yet, youtube is even a tick faster for me and works better than before, few minor bugs with heavy media sites disappeared.
So, yea, apart from all other quite interesting discussions, who did the “real hard work”, if the pm devs and the whole forum are unfriendly people, unwilling to obey the so-called “modern web” and so on…, I’m still a happy Pale Moon user and would greatly appreciate if it survives the data-collection and monetizing mainstream.
That thread is also informal. Who has issues with Mozglue.dll “missing”:
Some Antivirus software are misjudging that file as infected and therefor force-removed, which explains why Pale Moon 28 not starting at all at some 32 Bit operating systems.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20076
“Pale Moon 28.0 continues to support NPAPI plugins, complete themes and other interface customizations, classic XUL, bootstrapped and Jetpack extensions”
Didn’t PM stop supporting Jetpack? That’s the main reason why I dropped the browser a couple of years ago… because they started “killing” useful addons even before Firefox did.
So I switched to ESR for a while and now I’m happy with Waterfox. It gets security updates and supports ALL my addons.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19727
“While the upcoming milestone release of Pale Moon 28 has lifted all restrictions in terms of version range and the further restriction on jetpack specifically for extensions that do not target Pale Moon specifically, they are not supported by us and there is no guarantee that they will work unaltered.”
Pale Moon still will not let me sign on to do internet banking or government agency stuff. There is either incompatibility OR these sites do not trust Pale Moon or its security what-evers.
Should this make me suspicious of Pale Moon? Possibly, especially as this is not an open-source program so who knows what is going on and maybe Pale Moon is data mining (or whatever it’s called) users.
Unfortunately, it is still my preferred browser for most of the things i do in a browser and how it does it (simply because it is still like Firefox used to be before Firefox turned into Chrome?) but pisses me off when i have to use another browser do do stuff Pale Moon will not (and it seems to be getting more incompatible), especially when i have to use a Microsoft product.
I will never use a Google browser or search engine.
I don’t know what the Pale Moon developer(s) are hoping to achieve with the direction they took post ver 26.5 but i may not be along for the ride much longer, which is quite disappointing.
@pAUL : “Pale Moon still will not let me sign on to do internet banking or government agency stuff. There is either incompatibility OR these sites do not trust Pale Moon or its security what-evers.”
The solution,
For those sites, the latest Browser or a specific Browser is required.
Therefore, it can be solved by camouflaging UserAgent.
Below, 2 cases
1) Change the UserAgent “default” of Pale Moon.
Menu > Preferences > Preferences > Advanced > General
Compatibility
User Agent Mode： Firefox Compatibility
2) to use the addons (Extension).
http://addons.palemoon.org/incompatible/
WORKAROUNDS
・User Agent Overrider：Use version 0.2.4.1
PM is open sourced though! :O
@pAUL Wrote: “… I don’t know what the Pale Moon developer(s) are hoping to achieve with the direction they took post ver 26.5 but i may not be along for the ride much longer, which is quite disappointing. …”
Well stay around long enough for the drama. Check out yet another thread where Matt and the Minions (there’s a cool band name) unleash on someone who wants to do testing.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20285
My favourite is when Sajadi gets all “big shot” towards the guy:
“… I give you instead a nice advice. Listen carefully boy: …. There are: Chrome Firefox Edge IE…. (yada yada yada) …. Now pick one, leave and enjoy your life without wasting anymore time at a place which is inhabitated by – by your own words – cultists. Simple, isn’t it? Oh, and when you are on your way out, please close the door in a silent way :wave:
Ooooooohhh you scare me Sajadi.
I love seeing all the drama there. I’m gonna miss it when I dump New Moon this month.
Jody Thornton has been dumping New/Pale Moon for years now – it sure seems to play a major role in his life. The closest thing we have to marriage between a human being and software.
@Alex:
Not on Pale Moon, but on it’s team – absolutely, and with career-like dedication.thank you very much. Anytime any one lacks good decorum, one should point it out. And I do that with glee.
By the way it’s only been a year I’ve been crapping on the team, so it shows how lacking your sense of being informed is. Almost validates how PM fanboys see things the way they want to see them, doesn’t it.
By the way, the guy who started the post on the Pale Moon forum was getting the crap kicked outta him – not the other way around. So it’s the Pale Moon team showing the bad behaviour.
By the way, how many times have you PM fanboys crapped on Firefox Quantum, calling it ChromeFox or stupid shit like that? So you are the biggest of hypocrites. Mind your own manners before you point fingers.
@Jody Thornton
And towards Mozilla – they are to blame for the anti-fame they are getting these days.
Selling their own users and replacing everything to be attractive to Chrome users. That is the reason why it is legit to call Firefox Chromefox or Mozilla sell-out m*rons.
Because who is not faithful and loyal to the people who supported and have been vocal about a product.. has not earned anything better.
@Krixus:
But many more do like the changes in Quantum. All I’m saying is, if you folks can criticize the Quantum team, then no harm in me calling out the Moon team for their behaviour. You at least have to see the fairness in that. And for all those that say, “Jody has no life because he dwells on the PM team”, well there are pages and pages of you guys criticizing the Mozilla and Google team.
Anyway, let’s talk again when they rebase Pale Moon 29 on Quantum or something. :p (that should be soon)
@jody Thornton
I am pretty sure there will be no Quantum Pale Moon. Before Moonchild would do that, they would quit their project.
As opposed to Google concept sellout Mozilla – they have standards.
And additionally.. if they would make a Quantum ChromeMoon they would lose everything. And their user base – which wants the customization features would leave.
Which also would result in the death of Pale Moon.
Are you able to understand that?
It was a joke @Krixus – are you able to understand that?
But they will likely have to rebase again or die. They always say never again, but then keep going back to the well. Anyway, we’re done here. I’ll watch from afar and see how everything goes.
@Jody Thornton
You are babbling like a parrot… There will be no re-base. For the people with the disability to understand.. a lot… – play it one more time please, Joe!
Moonchild will never re-base to Quantum as that means zero customization long term wise. So, what will happen when Pale Moon starts again to fail..
The project will be put into the grave.
Understood now – Brainiac?
Uh @Krixus – Brainiac here!!! if you haven’t noticed – that was over a week ago I posted that. So like you, it’s all forgotten.
Typed from my Quantum browser.
:p
(oh and putting Pale Moon into the grave sounds like a real smart contingency plan. “Pretty Moronic” – hey maybe that’s what PM actually stands for)
@Jody Thornton still better than to just take the Quantum almost non-customizable Chrome-rip-off browser which was re-made for Chrome users in mind. Enjoy Fake-Mozilla’s Software-Corpse-robbery browser who steals from origin long gone REAL Mozilla’s legacy.
The construct which calls itself today Mozilla is nothing more than a Google Chrome follower who adopts more and more Chrome technology inside it’s own code-base. And that is – compared of keeping one’s vision and dignity intact, without bowing to Google and it’s simplicty concept – REAL worse.
Mozilla today has exactly as much in common with their origin as Opera new with Opera old.. And that means nothing at all!
And btw. it is good that you are no user of Pale Moon anymore, because it would have been a bit hard to call your actions trollish behaviour – as long as you have been using Pale Moon.
That’s why I’m not a trol @Krixus – I’m just calling out the behaviour of the fanboys of that forum and so are MANY others – see here for yourself.
https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/15/waterfox-56-2-3-security-update/
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Anonymous said on September 15, 2018 at 8:07 pm
Reply
Palemoon author made it harder to use the Ad Nauseam extension just because it was harmful to the ad business :
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=16504
This sort of things made Palemoon unacceptable for me. Also, he never considered Mozilla privacy problems as a motivation for his fork.
stefann said on September 16, 2018 at 7:12 pm
Reply
@ Anonymous : This sort of things made Palemoon unacceptable for me to + the creator is a rude ******* !
John Fenderson said on September 17, 2018 at 5:07 pm
Reply
“This sort of things made Palemoon unacceptable for meâ€
Me too. I don’t actually use AdNauseum, but this notion that an extension should be blocked just because the browser manufacturer deems it politically unacceptable is itself unacceptable.
————————————————————————————
…so not just me @Kirixus
And by the way, you’re the only one dragging on this conversation (just like you do your knuckles apparently) so we’re done.
@Jody Thornton
As developer you decide what you want to allow or not. And as user you can then decide to use or not use a software. But there is a difference between real fair critics and being just an ass for the sake of it. And you – do not have the moral jurisdiction nor the class to be seen as fair critic.
So yeah, this discussion is closed, because you are also not worth of my time. And thanks for showing me you are a Mozilla fanboy for bluntly dodging all the points i mentioned.
You ARE a troll. But one in favor of Fake-Mozilla’s fake products.
@krixus – so stubborn and trying to the last word in. Poor fella. You don’t know me at all. I’m the nicest and fairest guy in the world, however, one should never back away from calling out those and misinform and especially fanboys.
And the last thing is that I am is a Mozilla fanboy. If you read the new Waterfox thread, you’ll see I mentioned Pale Moon v28 was faster than v27. Also the new mail client is very interesting. Still, you read the comments in that thread about the Pale Moon forum (from other people), but oh no, you think I’m the troll.
I’ve not dodged your points; after all, I’m not slamming the Pale Moon product; I was only discussing the conduct of the Pale Moon team.
No one is “bowing to Google”. Mozilla is doing what EVERY OTHER company is doing. Their going after the mobile crowd, and that’s where the user base is. That’s why I’m staying with v60 ESR. There are going to be changes in Firefox Quantum that I may not like (such as usrChrome.css deprecation), so that’s not being a Mozilla fanboy.
@jody thornton Only a fool believes that.
Mobile or not mobile is not the question – The point is Mozilla wants the Chrome users. So they get rid of everything customization as Chrome users are not going to use anything with customization.
While i am a proud Chrome user i actually DO get that Mozilla falls their own users into their backs – and for what – For a market share battle they will never win. Do you really believe.. Does Mozilla ACTUALLY believes that if they get rid of everything which made Firefox – well… Firefox – in the first place… that that gains themselves market share position number 1? *LOL*
The only gain they get is the rank of traitor. And that one is delivered by the most dedicated users of Firefox – who used Firefox because of its massive option set and never wanted that Mozilla tries to hunt down a competing project which is so WIDE out of reach :D Blind yourselves with mobile… The fact is Mozilla just wants Chrome users. That is the reason why all the features had to go and why yet many more features will leave the ship sooner or later.
Mozilla is a terrible mimicry company. Not only that, the decisions they make are totally retarded. Everyone who is not blind can see that. Mobile does not exclude a complex feature set. Minimalism and customization can work together – optionally – there is no need to rip it out.
“…it’s **only** been a year I’ve been crapping on the team…” – that belongs to a serious therapy session. If you can’t see that, no one can help you – certainly not any web browsing software.
@alex there are people around who just are bitter, miserable and feel themselves to have been treated in a way which is not honoring their existence as “honored supreme majesty of a kingdom of their own”.
Point is it sucks if you let your ego dominate your actions. Because it always backfires. And the laughing stick are not the one’s which that kind of persons are calling out, but themselves :D
And even worse, if you let your ego shut off brain AND intelligence.
And Ghacks had/has quite some examples of it.
Mr. A*
Mr. J*
Mr. www*
Pretty sure you know who you are. And sorry to those i have forgotten :)
@alex Soon it will be a love between man and worthless Chrome-Fox :)
@Jody Thornton
And i am pretty sure the Pale Moon crowd is more than happy to see you switch away, because people with your attitude..
…to humiliate people – in the way of calling them out in the public and shit-storm your way over them
… that is no user base a browser developer would want to call their own.
You, leaving will be a blessing for that guys, as people with your attitude are only a burden. You and your actions… sorry to say, but they are disgraceful.
And why all that? Because you have most likely been kicked out of their community and can not settle that issue once and for all.
That, sir – is a bad joke.
@Krixus:
I’m not mad because I was kicked out the PM Forum. Besides, it’s the PM team humiliating people, not me – I’m just calling out their behaviour.
You guys have to stop thinking it’s something I’m taking personally. I just call out BS when I see it. Sure, I love when drama erupts on that forum, no differently than on a good TV show, but it’s not like a marriage to software, or whatever. I just like watching from afar, and calling it out.
Truth is, none of you know me from a hill of beans – truth is we would probably get along superbly in person, but we’re here talking about Pale Moon. If I seem to be talking about it a lot, that because that happens to be the subject du jour!
At least you called me sir! :) Thank you!
@Jody Thornton
You do not know sarcasm do you? :P
Anyway, you are far away from being a sir, because a sir would have honor and has no lose mouth and would think first before writing.
You lack everything of that.
And no, we would not get along nicely because i despise people of doubtful character.
@Kirxus – you don’t know me at all. This show how completely judgmental you’re being. And of course I get sarcasm with the “sir” comment. That’s why I made. (Rolling my eyes)
@Jody Thornton
I am not at all judgmental. But i am able to spot a miserable being which is.. forgive me please the following term… b*tt-h*rt – when i see or read one. This is hardly Chinese language magic or rocket tech :)
As of 28.0.1 you should see a performance boost. Especially for 32bit clients on 32bit Windows. Some major problems were introduced early on in UXP Take 2 which originated from our pass for desireable upstream Mozilla patchs that basically ended up flooded IPC messaging or some shit.
According to our own tests and user reports the backout of these Mozilla sourced “upgrades” users are seeing an increase of performance that is the same or better across the board compared with the previous Tycho (27) codebase.
But hey, new codebase, new milestone, something or another was gonna fuck up right? But there is no where to go but up right? 27 wasn’t that great when it first launched and comparatively speaking 28 was far more successful at first release than 27 ever was.
New challenges and a bit of a repeat for some old challenges are ahead of us and we welcome them so I remain very positive about the future.
The Unified XUL Platform isn’t about JUST Pale Moon or some idealized interpretation of Firefox when it was good but about all the things Mozilla is trying to destroy that our true Mozilla and Netscape forefathers created.
The twenty-four point seventy-something thousand extensions and themes created over the past 13+ years and all the wonderful applications based on Mozilla technologies over the past 20 years.
Anything is possible, even for a ragtag band of crazy computer people with virtually no resources.
The future is now in all of our hands as it should be and kinda always was. All the tools and materials are there all we have to do is pick them up and start building it.
Thank you for your attention.
Might be worth noting that there is a forthcoming mail and news client, based on Thunderbird’s last XUL build. They’re taking up a collection for Tobin to build it.
v28 still will not work with on-line banking or Govt web sites and more and more sites do not even load for me.
The ‘scripts’ feature in the Add-on page is gone. I have some useful scripts i use.
By far the most tailorable browser there is imo but becoming more useless to a degree every update.
I thought updates were supposed to improve and add whereas PM updates of late do the opposite.
I am staying with v27.9.4 (even though this is not as good and useful as v26)
If this trend continues PM will eventually not be viable. Where PM is going & why is a mystery to me but i assume it make sense to the developer(s). If i was paying for PM, i would be looking to get my money back.
Porn sites still seem to work OK so it’s not all bad :)
@peter perhaps you can try and hunt down version 3.5.2, I hear it’s the best out there. Your money would be safe, too.
Updates today from pale moon 26.5 to 28.0. Missing now all bookmarks and its not possible to install the backups. Do have anyone a solution now?
I don’t have any other backup.