Pale Moon 28.1.0 Release Information

Martin Brinkmann
Sep 20, 2018
Internet, Pale Moon
|
63

Pale Moon 28.1.0 was released on September 20, 2018 to the release channel. The new version of the web browser is a performance and security update. It replaces Pale Moon 28.0 which the developers released in August 2018 and other older versions of the browser.

Pale Moon 28.0 was a major release for the browser as it was the first version of the web browser build on the Unified XUL Platform. The Unified XUL Platform is based on a fork of Mozilla code before Mozilla started to integrate Rust and Quantum components in the browser.

Pale Moon users can download the new version of the web browser from the official project website or use built-in updating functionality by selecting Pale Moon > Help > About Pale Moon to run checks for updates.

Installation of Pale Moon 28.1.0 was intercepted by Windows SmartScreen. The most likely explanation for this is that the release is brand new; it is likely that SmartScreen prompts will go away in the coming hours or days. Select "More Info" and then "run anyway" to install Pale Moon 28.1.0 or upgrade an existing copy of the browser on the system.

Pale Moon 28.1.0

pale moon 28.1.0

The development team ported all security fixes that Mozilla released for Firefox 62 to Pale Moon 28.1.0. Other security improvements/changes include an update of NSS (Network Security Services) to 3.38, reinstatement of the weak RC4 encryption cipher, support for TLS session caches in TLSServerSocket, and the removal of Telemetry accumulation calls.

The reinstatement of the weak cipher requires some explanation. Pale Moon won't use it during the first handshake and will only use it as a fallback option when enabled explicitly. The reasoning behind the reinstatement is that local devices that are very old may only support RC4 and not newer encryption ciphers that are not considered weak.

Pale Moon users may notice that session restore is faster in the new version; the developers improved the performance of the process.

The browser's local search option changes as well in the release. Pale Moon 27.x displayed the find bar on all tabs open in the browser window when it was launched by the user (using Ctrl-F or by tapping on Alt and selecting Edit > Find). Pale Moon 28.0 changed that to a tab-only display of the find bar and the update to Pale Moon 28.1.0 reverts the change so that the find bar is displayed in all tabs of the browser window when it is open.

Pale Moon users who like the per-tab find bar approach better can restore it in the following way:

  1. Load about:config in the browser's address bar.
  2. Confirm that you are careful.
  3. Search for findbar.termPerTab.
  4. Double-click on the preference.

A value of TRUE restricts the find bar to the tab it was invoked on. FALSE is the default value; it means that the find bar is displayed in all tabs.

pale moon scroll menu

Another new preference, ui.menu.allow_content_scroll, determines whether pages can be scrolled when a menu is open. Set the preference to TRUE to allow it or to FALSE to disallow it. The default value is false.

Pale Moon 28.1.0 include a number of regression and bug fixes next to all that:

  1. Viewing the source of the selection.
  2. Toolbar styling in toolkit themes.
  3. Handling of content language if locale changes.
  4. Re-added horizontal scroll action option for the mouse wheel.
  5. Fixed tab previews on Windows for devices it is enabled on.

You can check out the entire change log on the Pale Moon website.

Now You: Did you update to Pale Moon 28.1.0? What's your experience?

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Pale Moon 28.1.0 Release Information
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Pale Moon 28.1.0 Release Information
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Pale Moon 28.1.0 was released on September 20, 2018 to the release channel. The new version of the web browser is a performance and security update.
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Comments

  1. Alex said on September 25, 2018 at 2:19 pm
    Reply

    Funny how every single gHacks article on Pale Moon is riddled with useless comments from the usual trolls, whereas the Firefox articles -a browser with a lot more users- are relatively clutter-free.

  2. Anonymous said on September 21, 2018 at 2:03 pm
    Reply

    Hey Martin, your site recently got very troublesome when viewing on smartphones. It first gives an orange themed mobile page that has hard to read fonts, doesn’t display comments and also is generally slow. Then I try to get desktop version which struggles to decide between the orange and black theme. After reloading again, I get the black themed mobile version that’s easy to read, fast and also displays comments. All this is happening on latest stable Chrome v69 on Android phones with lots of ram… 3GB and up.
    Please look into this.

  3. LTL said on September 21, 2018 at 11:42 am
    Reply

    I’m back on version 27.9.4 because when I updated to 28.0 it ruined all my fast dial links. They were gone and I couldn’t get them back.
    Hope this version won’t do that….

    1. Alex said on September 21, 2018 at 1:50 pm
      Reply

      @LTL sounds like you are using an extension which you don’t name. If the version you use is not compatible with 28, the browser cannot fix it for you. For any problems, the place to post is the PM forum, not gHacks. You can also check the Pale Moon Add-ons site for alternatives. I like “Speed Start”.

  4. Russ said on September 21, 2018 at 4:31 am
    Reply

    Hello Martin. Regarding Windows SmartScreen intercepting Pale Moon’s installation: The developer posted on the Pale Moon Forum Announcement page on 26 Dec 2017 that they no longer have any code-signing (digital signatures) options to verify windows executables with an authenticode certificate. They do provide both secure hashes for downloads (SHA256 checksums) and PGP/GnuPG cryptographic signatures (.sig) for all binaries on their download page.

  5. John Il said on September 21, 2018 at 3:05 am
    Reply

    Pale Moon reminds me of using a older Internet Explorer UI. Just so outdated and slow in my opinion. Maybe for some it still has some sense of purpose but I just don’t get it?? I think Firefox is doing so much more to remain a viable option for a modern browser. Even so, it doesn’t seem to have much for Chrome which means even Firefox may end up just another niche browser.

    1. MdN said on September 21, 2018 at 4:50 pm
      Reply

      If you have an older machine with 2-4 GB of RAM, PM is the only browser that you can use without worries. On my Linux computer with 2 GB I’m still using it normally, with as many open tabs as I want, quickly starting and switching tabs, without my browser trying to take over my memory and slowing everything else down. Firefox is worse than Chrome nowadays. Recommended PM to a friend with Windows in a similar situation after the FF update, and he’s happy with it too.

    2. lehnerus2000 said on September 21, 2018 at 1:18 pm
      Reply

      “I think Firefox is doing so much more to remain a viable option for a modern browser.”
      I assume you mean Mozilla has done a great job of alienating FF’s long time user base (just like MS has with W10).

      1. Jody Thornton said on September 21, 2018 at 2:43 pm
        Reply

        @lehnerus2000
        (first off, are you the same person from the DM Forums? Hello, by the way)

        But yes, Mozilla is “alienating” its long time user base, and rightly so in the eyes of its stakeholders, because the mobility crowd is the one to go after. They probably want a similar interface for it Android, Mac and PC based browsers, so they can at least compete in the Google space. Mozilla may lose, but they have to be seen as trying.

        Back in 2004, the geek and power user crowds were viable, but now the “average joe/joelle” has embraced technology, and Mozilla is trying to follow that crowd.

      2. Spartacus said on September 23, 2018 at 10:06 pm
        Reply

        @JodyThornton you are more than clueless – that is more than visible – Mozilla wants just us Chrome users to switch over to Firefox.

        Towards Chrome users their goals are clearly visible. Who has the highest market share, money and influence? Mozilla? No! It is Google and Chrome. And who is the one who gets jealous and want to be so badly at the position Google is sitting? Mozilla of course!

        Mozilla actually has gone trough 2 separate stages:

        1) The IE-battle times, where they tried to outsmart Microsoft with features, customization and choice
        2) The Google battle times, where they try to outsmart Google with simplicity minimalism and limited stock features and design

        The big difference between Mozilla and Google and Microsoft? Google and Microsoft are loyal to their own user-base. Mozilla discards their users without thinking twice now where the enemy has changed – without mercy, without respect for own add-on/theme developers.

        Poor Mozilla, with big eyes and gritting their teeth in anger and jealousy and despair! Mobile has nothing to do with it. Desktop machines will never die. Mozilla just wants to try to ride the Google wave of simplicity and minimalism – getting at the same time rid of every single feature which is not Chrome-like to become a better version of Chrome :D

        Alone that idea is just highly amusing, and seeing them so much respect-less towards their own (power)users and developers of add-ons/themes makes it highly tragic at the same time.

        No one like sell-out companies. As said… poor Mozilla!

      3. Jody Thornton said on September 24, 2018 at 1:29 pm
        Reply

        @Spartacus:

        Listen you twit – I said Mozilla stakeholders need to see them trying to do something to follow the mobility crowd, because that’s where the business is. I said that they might INDEED lose, but they have to be seen as trying. If they stay with power users they will certainly die. PC use is declining. So why don’t you get a clue?

        Besides at the end of the day, I’m now on Quantum v60 ESR, and I will tell you, it outpaces Pale Moon v27 and v28 by a visible amount. And yes, although you Moonies say speed never matters, it does, otherwise why buy a high performance workstation? Oh that’s right, you need to get a clue?

        And moreover, I have Quantum customized to look how I want, so the XUL-magaeddon hasn’t affected me. So stop with your stupid ChromeFox characterizations and Mozilla bashing. Up until now, I stayed off this thread to spare you all the Moon bashing. So why don’t you do the same?

      4. Spartacus said on September 24, 2018 at 7:18 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton oh CSS – Enjoy it while it still lasts Chrome has no expanded customization like that and… oh what miracle… they plan to remove it because of that reason.

        Also… why do you need a pc with a lot of speed? Let me think about it… video editing – doing extended and complex graphic works, gaming, emulation reasons… running your own home based server applications… application programming…

        As said… and that is not mocking you at all… you really do not appear as the most brightest person. But if i would be you… i really would think how i am going to present myself to the public. Right now.. you are making a totally retarded appearance. And i am pretty sure if i would be in your situation… i would not want to see that happen.

        Of course i could let you stumbling in your own shallow moral pool of water like many other people here are watching you doing that, but i have certain standards which make me mention this point. I would say worth to spend thinking about it for a hour or two, wouldn’t you agree?

      5. Jody Thornton said on September 25, 2018 at 3:10 am
        Reply

        @Spartacus wrote:

        [ ….. oh CSS – Enjoy it while it still lasts Chrome has no expanded customization like that and… oh what miracle… they plan to remove it because of that reason. ….]

        That’s why I shifted to the ESR release v60. For now, I have Quantum the way I want it to be. In eighteen months, I will review the situation. If I want to switch to another browser (and who knows – maybe I won’t), I’ll decide then.

        —————————————————————————————————-
        @Spartacus wrote:

        [ ….. why do you need a pc with a lot of speed? Let me think about it… video editing – doing extended and complex graphic works, gaming, emulation reasons… running your own home based server applications… application programming. ….]

        I mostly do audio editing, so I don’t NEED the fastest PC, but I like the workstation I have, and I enjoy its speed over its predecessor. But like how you think I assumed you were a Pale Moon user, you assumed I was just discussing my own needs.

        —————————————————————————————————-

        @Spartacus wrote:

        [ ….. As said… and that is not mocking you at all… you really do not appear as the most brightest person. But if i would be you… i really would think how i am going to present myself to the public. Right now.. you are making a totally retarded appearance. And i am pretty sure if i would be in your situation… i would not want to see that happen.. ….]

        I think many would find you being rather offensive with your choice of words, quite frankly. I particularly don’t care. But you really seem to want to make this personal. Besides, this all started when I was speaking to @lehnerus2000 on the topic, and you chimed in with a definite attitude in your response. And now, I’m the one acting not brightly and foolish? OK yes, I did make a crude reference to you doing something, but you were already two comments deep in basically telling what you thought, with a definite bullying tone.

        —————————————————————————————————-

        @Spartacus wrote:
        [….Of course i could let you stumbling in your own shallow moral pool of water like many other people here are watching you doing that, but i have certain standards which make me mention this point. I would say worth to spend thinking about it for a hour or two, wouldn’t you agree? ….]

        I doubt most people here care as much as you do. Some don’t like me, I’m sure, and some do. But your level of being in my face about it all, seems just a tad over-evaluative, and again overly personal. It appears a tad scary in fact.
        ————————————————————————————————–

        @Sparacus wrote:
        […. Also – aren’t you the one who is using Quantum and dumped Pale Moon? Why are you then still hang around with people you can’t stand? Anyway, keep your illusions. Desktop is never going to die. But if you want that illusion that Mozilla “removed all for mobile” to feel better or more stable.. Hell, who i am that i would blame you for your small cloud in the sky where you feel protected and taken care of Mozilla’s capable team of arch-angels!….]

        Ah but see Spartacus, I’m not a cloud user or a mobile OS user (see you assumed again, all the while accusing me of doing just that). I’m a PC user through and through – but I recognize the environment around me for what is is. And aside from PC tech fans and power users, PC use is absolutely dwindling. That doesn’t mean they’re extinct, but since 2011, the slide has been pretty constant. All I see are people abandoning PCs to collect dust, and they’re using Samsung Galaxy’s instead. Most of my friends think it’s odd to see me using a PC. So you may delude yourself that the PC is still a runaway sucess. It has a place in corporate environments, but that’s changing. Even tablets, which saw some brief growth in corporate field work, had similarly dissipated.

        ————————————————————————————————–

        @Sparacus wrote:

        […. Also, people do bash Mozilla because they make it utterly easy with their decisions to get bashed. It is Mozilla who is causing issue after issue – not the people – as they do just react. I hope that was understandable enough to comprehend. If not, let me know so i can make another attempt to find a language which approaches your capability levels perhaps in a bit of a more successful way. ….]

        So see again, you make it personal by making me out to be an oaf. And secondly, if it’s OK under any circumstances to criticize Mozilla or Google, then Moonies need to face the music too. And I’m sorry but the arrogance of that Pale Moon team is beyond nauseating. One should always repeatedly call that behaviour out when they see it or nothing changes. I always do that when I see someone mistreat someone else, in any capacity.

      6. Spartacus said on September 25, 2018 at 12:25 pm
        Reply

        @jody Thornton

        And please – Don’t worry – the sun is not rotating around you, neither the galaxies. You see, no need to be paranoid. :)

        On a more serious note…. Based on your answers you seem to suffer of some kind of slight Princ(ess) Syndrome. What that means… let me enlighten you:

        ————————————–
        This is an attitude and behaviour pattern which is demonstrated by certain persons. It’s usually the ones who are narcissistic and who have an overrated opinion of their own intelligence, sense of fashion, taste in music and so on. They are so self-centred and egotistical that they apparently believe that the world revolves around them, and the only purpose of others is to gratify their every wish
        ————————————–

      7. Stan said on September 25, 2018 at 4:48 pm
        Reply

        Like we don’t know who the infamous ‘Spartacus’ is !

        Rolls eyes.

      8. Spartacus said on September 25, 2018 at 10:48 pm
        Reply

        @Stan i really would be interested who you think i am.

        But rest be assured you are already losing without even trying. Never threaten with a weapon if you know you are already without bullets.

        But now really enough of that.

      9. Jody Thornton said on September 25, 2018 at 1:50 pm
        Reply

        @Spartacus:

        Well thank you for your analysis. I can tell you that you have me wrong, I assure you. But thanks oh so much for caring. Anyway, back to Ghacks for tech talk, and less of this crap.

      10. Spartacus said on September 25, 2018 at 4:41 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton I am all in for this. But tell that also to the idiot crowd who seem to register at the Pale Moon board, try to stir up trouble to get banned and then report here back at Ghacks for fake-reports. To which Dr. Know belongs, to which Appster belonged or http://www.com – perhaps you too?

        Even as Google Chrome user i am allowed to say that is more than retarded. Doing so in our Google community and getting spot would earn such idiots a perma-ban. That is what i miss on Ghacks. More strict commenting rules for ALL topics.

      11. Spartacus said on September 25, 2018 at 11:25 am
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        Just a couple of things should be enough for your… attempt of communication.

        1)
        I guess you are the one who has written your own postings and you are not using some Ghost-writer or something similar?

        In that case, YOU are to blame or to be praised for your material, as you are your own quality/end-control – and YOU are responsible for the answers you get because of it.

        2)
        “But you really seem to want to make this personal”
        “and again overly personal”
        “So see again, you make it personal by making me out to be an oaf”

        See point 1 please and do not make me responsible for answers you get because of YOUR writing style.

        3) Arrogance
        Well, if hte Pale Moon team is arrogant, then i guess they had in Mozilla the perfect teacher, because for everything you learn in life you must have a paragon/role-model first.

        Any more questions?

      12. Jody Thornton said on September 25, 2018 at 12:19 pm
        Reply

        Um yeah @Spaartacus. What is it about my writing style that leads you to think I’m using Ghost Writer or something? Or worse yet, that I can’t write? Just because you probably have the literacy of a grade one student, doesn’t mean you have to pick on my writing.

        You’re the first person who seems to have had an issue with it, which really makes me just think you’re being a bully now. I start to wonder, “Do I know you from somewhere before, and you have a bone to pick with me?” It sure sounds like it.

        By the way, my repeating that you’re making it personal (as you pointed out in point # 1 of your response) was me emphasizing that fact, because it seems so apparent from your writing that you have an issue with me, that is BEYOND Pale Moon. I’m not sure though, but it has a scary almost stalker-like tone to it.

        Anyway, you’re a waste of time and my energy, so go away and bug the other people here.

      13. Spartacus said on September 25, 2018 at 3:06 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        So easily scared? What for a disappointment… If this would be actually of any value for my personal self-esteem!

        And to the point of knowing you… Well, i would say that depends on time and moniker usage? So… theoretically i could have some unresolved beef with you if i would actually care for this.

        But i don’t. And you know why? Because you are not that important for me.

      14. Jody Thornton said on September 25, 2018 at 2:01 am
        Reply

        I would like you to demonstrate how I am making an appearance of not being bright @Spartacus. You really seem to be the jerk who is bullying me, so I’ll respond in kind (and that is to not be kind – see how I pulled a clever comment Spartacus? That takes brightness)

        And just what is my situation? Could you elaborate on what that is? I’d like to see what you mean?

      15. Spartacus said on September 24, 2018 at 7:01 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton You know, with what you are writing you clearly do not make the impression that you are one of the brightest people around. Did i ever say i actually use Pale Moon? I am using Chrome/Chromium based browsers. Otherwise i would have written something like that: “Towards Pale Moon users their goals are clearly visible”

        On the other side – what i DO – is feeling for the people who had to leave Firefox because Mozilla’s Chrome addiction hits a scale “… over 9000” – For me as Chrome user Mozilla is a just a big joke – and in this i am not alone – because seeing them struggle but not reaching their dream goal while openly alienating their own user base is just… as said… amusing. Not every critic is a Pale Moon user. I hope that you get that, do you? Just asking in case and making you aware of the fact if you don’t for whatever for.. well… reasons!

        Also – aren’t you the one who is using Quantum and dumped Pale Moon? Why are you then still hang around with people you can’t stand? Anyway, keep your illusions. Desktop is never going to die. But if you want that illusion that Mozilla “removed all for mobile” to feel better or more stable.. Hell, who i am that i would blame you for your small cloud in the sky where you feel protected and taken care of Mozilla’s capable team of arch-angels!

        Anyway, what is still a fact – which in the meantime a lot of people realize today – numbers growing…. and many of them also not being the most smartest guys around in space perhaps – that it is no secret to realize that Mozilla is jealous. And what they do is not “because mobile rocks” – but “what is making Chrome great helps us make Firefox great again” – At least they believe that. Every normal company would have gone in the meantime a couple of steps backwards instead of collecting even more collateral damage.

        Also, people do bash Mozilla because they make it utterly easy with their decisions to get bashed. It is Mozilla who is causing issue after issue – not the people – as they do just react. I hope that was understandable enough to comprehend. If not, let me know so i can make another attempt to find a language which approaches your capability levels perhaps in a bit of a more successful way.

    3. Alex said on September 21, 2018 at 12:42 pm
      Reply

      @John II, how can a UI be “slow”? Unless you meant “unresponsive” i.e. clicking on something and getting a reaction one second later which is not the case here. By the way, Firefox is doing everything it can not to remain viable, but to commit suicide.

      About “modern”, and everything being “niche” or “outdated” unless looking like Chrome, that’s just highly subjective, if not biased. It’s much more “modern” being able to change something at will, as opposed to swallowing ready-made solutions that can only be minimally altered, or not at all.

  6. google.co.m said on September 21, 2018 at 2:29 am
    Reply

    Safari is a top priority though

  7. Mark Hazard said on September 21, 2018 at 12:08 am
    Reply

    It is still slow to start; but before I was unsure whether it would start at all – it took at least 15 seconds, now it takes about 5. I haven’t had time to test further,

  8. hacksg said on September 20, 2018 at 10:07 pm
    Reply

    ” reinstatement of the weak RC4 encryption cipher”
    LOL
    So they just make the browser even more vulnerabl if a server try to use this cipher

    1. Lord Lestat said on September 26, 2018 at 11:59 am
      Reply

      @hacksg

      You just cherrypick what you need to bash and flame – Here what you are missing to tell:

      “Reinstated RC4 as an optional encryption cypher for non-standard environments (e.g. old routing/peripheral networked hardware on LAN). RC4 and 3DES are marked weak and disabled, and will never be used in the first handshake with a site, only as last-ditch fallback when specifically enabled (meaning they won’t show up on ssllabs’ test, for example).”

      Or isn’t it more the way you can’t read? :P

    2. Money said on September 21, 2018 at 5:53 am
      Reply

      It’s not enabled by default.

  9. Anonymous said on September 20, 2018 at 9:41 pm
    Reply

    findbar.termPerTab don’t work even in safe mode

  10. Anonymous said on September 20, 2018 at 9:26 pm
    Reply

    Pale Moon portable 28.1.0 32 bit. Control+F to open the search bar no longer working and when I change the value of “findbar.termPerTab” to true it does nothing, now I can have only the search bar for all tabs only clicking on a custom button :(

    1. rickmv said on September 21, 2018 at 11:15 pm
      Reply

      Reset your profile. Ctrl+F is perfectly working Pale Moon 28.1.0 32bit.

  11. trends said on September 20, 2018 at 9:04 pm
    Reply

    I wonder which addons ,
    (all of which used to work ok before this new version)
    are still working…

    Anybody
    has any experience that they care sharing?

    thanks!

    1. Peterc said on September 25, 2018 at 6:20 am
      Reply

      @trends:

      In my Pale Moon profile I now have around 30 active Firefox legacy extensions, 30 active Pale Moon extensions, and around 20 inactive extensions (also around 50% Firefox, 50% Pale Moon). In the upgrade from 27.x to 28.x, I lost two extensions.

      One was Moon PDF Viewer, whose incompatibility was announced in advance. (It’s the only extension in my list officially flagged as incompatible. I voluntarily disabled the other 20 or so inactive ones because I don’t currently want them running for various reasons). Moon PDF Viewer’s developer *may* (or may not) be working on making it compatible with PM28. In the interim, he has suggested trying an alternative from GitHub (PDF Viewer by IsaacSchemm). I haven’t bothered, since I’m fine loading PDFs externally, in PDF X-Change Viewer.

      The second extension I lost was NetVideoHunter, which is *not* recognized as incompatible and whose toolbar button still flashes when a downloadable video is detected. However, the interface no longer loads when you click on the button, so it’s broken. Actually, based on what I’ve read here and there, I’m not sure *any* video-downloading extensions still work in Pale Moon 28.x, and I’m not sure that supporting video-downloading is much of a priority to Pale Moon’s developers. (In a forum thread on the topic, one developer suggested that video-downloading amounted to stealing other people’s content, forgetting that there are *millions* of videos in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses, and that making “fair use” of *excerpts* of even copyrighted videos, without permission or payment, is legal, legitimate, and even encouraged in some jurisdictions.) I *think* NetVideoHunter still works in Firefox ESR 52.9.0, but I don’t use that browser or that extension all that often, so I’m not sure.

      I suppose I should mention one additional, relatively minor extension issue. Tab Mix Plus stopped working correctly when PM28 hit. Reasonably promptly, the developer released a beta version that fixed most of the problems, and it was followed by an official-release update (0.5.5.0) not too long after that. The only thing I’ve found so far that doesn’t work is that the “Display Open Tabs List” toolbar button doesn’t actually display a list. If you’re still running Pale Moon 27.9.4, you’re probably better off sticking with Tab Mix Plus 0.5.0.4.

      I’m not aware of any extensions of mine that stopped working after the jump from 28.0.0 to 28.0.1, or from 28.0.1 to 28.1.0.

      1. Peterc said on September 28, 2018 at 12:16 am
        Reply

        @trends:

        I think there’s one more “broken” extension that I overlooked in my initial post. It looks like “Extended Copy Menu (fix version)” stopped working recently — I’m not sure exactly when — and that I had to replace it with “Copy Plain Text 2,” a Firefox add-on from AMO. (At some point in the past, I had an extension that hijacked Pale Moon’s and Firefox’s native control-shift-V hotkey for pasting unformatted text, so I got used to relying on an extension.)

      2. Alex said on September 25, 2018 at 10:40 am
        Reply

        @Peterc, since you use PDF X-Change Viewer why not take advantage of its browser plugin that allows what you wanted i.e. watch PDF’s inside the browser? (I discourage this btw, viewing externally is better for many reasons). Also check PDF-XChange Editor, the developers have discontinued the Viewer.

        About “supporting video-downloading”, the browser can of course download videos. Right-click/View Page Info/Media can also work in some cases. You are obviously talking about external downloaders and extensions, but that is not up to the browser developers to fix. The comment about legality, stealing etc. is irrelevant here. If for example, the (paid) IDM developers are unwilling to lift a finger to simply adjust their closed software (hardly any major work required), there’s not much anyone else can do. Some good solutions for now:

        1. Use one of the many video downloading websites
        2. Use youtube-dl directly – many of the above sites are just a UI for youtube-dl (http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html)
        3. Ask your favorite download manager developer(s) to support PM.

        Also check the lighter Tab Utilities Phoenix, a bit less functions than TMP but still very worthy. http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/tab-utilities-phoenix/

      3. Peterc said on September 25, 2018 at 4:22 pm
        Reply

        @Alex:

        Thanks for this thoughtful feedback.

        * Re PDFs *

        I actually don’t care about in-browser PDF support very much and was just mentioning Moon PDF Viewer for the sake of completeness. (PDFs have their place for archival purposes and for printing hard copies, but for reading, I avoid them as much as I can. I have poor eyesight, and if you zoom in on a PDF to make it more legible, the line breaks don’t adjust and you have to scroll back and forth horizontally to read it. I could use Windows 7’s Magnifier in lens mode, but that’s tedious, too.)

        Anyway, I was vaguely aware that PDF-XChange Viewer had been replaced by PDF-XChange Editor, but I’m fine with Viewer. I don’t think it’s been deprecated for security reasons, and I’ve received updates to it via the Tracker Updater utility since Editor replaced it. And I do have the PDF-XChange Viewer plug-in installed. I just haven’t bothered switching back to it as default, or using it when asked, after Moon PDF Viewer got disabled. As I said, I really *do* avoid reading PDFs to the extent possible, plus I’m now a Windows short-timer (I’m going to switch to Linux soon), so putting time into fine-tuning a Windows-only PDF solution is even less appealing! The feedback is still valuable for other readers.

        * Re Video-Downloading *

        NetVideoHunter was a super-convenient in-browser solution that required very few steps and generally (not always) “just worked.”

        I didn’t know about View Page Info > Media, and I have just changed the settings in my sidebar extension to make sure that Page Info opens in a window instead of the sidebar (so the media listings don’t get truncated). Thanks for this!

        I know it’s not Pale Moon’s responsibility to make sure that video-downloading extensions continue to work but rather the extension developers’. It’s nonetheless an unfortunate situation, since a lot of those developers apparently only cared about developing for *Firefox*, and once Firefox dropped support for legacy extensions entirely, that was the end of the road for XUL/XPCOM extension development.

        Boy, youtube-dl sure supports a *long* list of sites! I guess I’m going to have to get into it eventually, after I switch to Linux. I’m glad to see there’s a local front-end available for it (youtube-dl-gui). And it’s available for Windows, too. Maybe I’ll start getting into *before* I switch…

        * Re Tab Mix Plus *

        Tab Mix Plus is easily one of my most important extensions, and I rely on a lot of its features. One of the first things I do after installing a new Firefox-family browser (Waterfox, Basilisk) is to install Tab Mix Plus and import my settings. *Not* having Tab Mix Plus’s many functionalities is a *big* part of the reason I find using Firefox Quantum and Google Chrome so unenjoyable. Maybe Tab Utilities Phoenix would work for me, but for now, I can live without TMP’s “Display Opened Tabs List.” The developer is still active and has been alerted to the problem, so there’s hope. But it’s nice to know there’s a potential replacement waiting int he wings if TMP becomes unusable one day.

        Once again, thanks for your feedback. The tips about View Page Info > Media and youtube-dl were especially valuable to me.

  12. CNN's KFILE said on September 20, 2018 at 8:18 pm
    Reply

    We now have processors with 32 cores and 64 threads and GTX 2080Ti s and stuff, which makes the best of these resources, Pale Moon or Firefox? I’m sorry, I want something that makes full use of my resources in a distributed fashion and not have it lag because it’s stuck processing on two cores and makes no advantage of the GPU power instead giving it to the CPU (just look at what motivated Mozilla to work on WebRender). Pale Moon devs, learn some Rust and go work for Mozilla that would be much better for you all!

    1. rickmv said on September 21, 2018 at 11:22 pm
      Reply

      Go get your pennies from Mozilla now. Palemmon is definitively not for you. Chromezilla or direct Gchrome have you as a target user.

  13. sirpaul2 said on September 20, 2018 at 8:03 pm
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    Here’s an oddity – running update from Pale Moon may not upgrade to v. 28.1.0.
    After reading your article, I clicked on Help, About Pale Moon, Check for updates and there was an update for v. 28.1.0. Applied it, restarted Pale Moon, but didn’t check to see which version was running.
    About an hour later, I get a popup to upgrade to v. 28.1.0. Checked the version again and it was still 28.0.1. Go figure.
    YMMV, but I had to wait for the popup. If you update Pale Moon’s with the update button, verify which version is running afterwards. You may be surprised as I was.

  14. methinks neither said on September 20, 2018 at 7:59 pm
    Reply

    Still no sandboxing, meaning a single exploit leads to remote code execution (RCE). Sad thing since if this effort went into making Firefox (or Tor Browser) better it would be more valuable methinks.

    1. Spartacus said on September 23, 2018 at 10:13 pm
      Reply

      @methinks neither

      Electrolysis is in need for sand-boxing. As it is just a rip-off of the already instated Google technology which was in place long before Mozilla stole from Google. Does not make much sense for single processed browsers.

      Get a grip of reality boy.

    2. Money said on September 21, 2018 at 5:04 pm
      Reply

      Ha, yet last month Mozilla removed a number of extensions that had RCE capabilities.

      1. Bruce said on September 24, 2018 at 12:56 am
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        That’s why you stick to Edge in Application Guard or Chrome in AppContainer if you’re paranoid over getting 0-dayed.

  15. James said on September 20, 2018 at 7:24 pm
    Reply

    Not a bad update so far. I like where this is going!

    1. Dr Know said on September 21, 2018 at 12:05 am
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      Don’t forget Palemoon isn’t tested by anyone other than the devs.
      There are no repeatable or checkable tests published (they don’t do them)!
      They get VERY upset if you ask how Palemoon is tested!

      So much for security.

      1. Money said on September 21, 2018 at 4:56 pm
        Reply

        Automated tests are largely useless. The 32 bits performance bug, now fixed in unstable builds, got uplifted by Mozilla from newer Fx versions to 52 ESR and no one noticed.

        The best testing is the real-world testing, done by people such as me, we run the unstable build and watch out for issue reports on GitHub and the forums.

      2. Dr Know said on September 22, 2018 at 8:59 pm
        Reply

        Tests aren’t documented. No-one double checks any coders work other than a code inspection (sometimes).

        Any real-world business developers would consider this totally unacceptable.

        Stating that a bug got missed doesn’t mean testing is worthless. Thousands of bugs are squashed by Mozilla before Palemoon gets its hands on the code.

      3. Spartacus said on September 23, 2018 at 10:10 pm
        Reply

        Dr. Know oh my… you must be pretty hurt because the Palemoon community must have done to you too…

        The same issue face Vivaldi and other Chromium browsers too… as they have to wait for the upstream first. Does this make them totally outdated and unreliable and horrible security risk issues facing?

        Not at all. Security holes are not equal with exploited already in a massive way online. And if a browser gets updated with the necessary fixes one day… 10 days or 14 days.. or in some Chromium for examples also in one month – means basically nothing at all.

        Update your name, it is incomplete.

      4. Jody Thornton said on September 24, 2018 at 1:32 pm
        Reply

        Uh @Spartacus – you might want to wipe your chin. You have a bit of Moon Mess on it.
        – a friend – :p

      5. Spartacus said on September 24, 2018 at 7:06 pm
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        @Jody Thornton

        You do you like to make a fool of yourself. Writing here is no evidence that i am a Pale Moon user. Which i am actually not. In fact i have many browsers installed on my machines. But my all-time favored browser is still Google Chrome.

        And friend? I am afraid you are not meeting my requirements of both – moral and intellectual level – No offense. But why hiding the obvious.

      6. Jody Thornton said on September 25, 2018 at 1:57 am
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        @Spartacus:

        Oh trust me, I meant it sarcastically. You are the one being the bully to me, Bruce, Dr. Know, … the list goes on. You are showing off your arrogance, when in each case you weren’t initially part of the conversations. They were friendly conversations (even if there was disagreement), but you’re just pushing buttons by getting involved.

        But if I ever need an authority on being a fool, I’ll ask you for it – I know you got it wrong this time, but you might be good for another guess.

      7. Spartacus said on September 25, 2018 at 11:58 am
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        Well… You can only deliver appropriate responses quality-limited depending on the quality of the available origin-post-material!

        And your quality is not really top notch A+++ – so what do you expect? And bullying – I fear you have no understanding of this word and what it really means. If i actually WOULD attack someone, the one would know it right from the start, so please do not lecture me about harassment or offending language – as i delivered neither of these.

        But i can see you are not having the best nerves – You know, people who have the constant need to defend themselves are either knowing that what they do is not really pristine clean – or they just are not able to react in an appropriate way to critic – The term for this is snowflake.

        Inside which category you are fitting – i am still a bit unsure about. All i can say is that you are should get yourself some help – you know, talking about your issues is really relieving.

        And btw. that advice is for free.

      8. Alex said on September 23, 2018 at 1:46 pm
        Reply

        @Dr Know, you managed to “forget” Pale Moon is not a business but a small group of enthusiasts working for free. Firefox *is* a business, and we see how that is working out for user privacy and even security. All you post is rhetoric nonsense and bold claims (“so much for security”, “no one tests”) yet fail to provide a single shred of evidence, heck, even a plausible indication that Pale Moon is less secure than any other browser. I assume you tested and verified all browsers and their developers for comparison, right? Being a security expert and all.

        I am not claiming it is more secure than anything else, but I do know to keep my mouth shut when I have no real knowledge.

        Dr BS would be closer to the mark.

      9. Dr Know said on September 25, 2018 at 8:54 pm
        Reply

        @Alex Read the Pale Moon forums. There are threads about (lack of) testing and the devs state what I said above about it. In fact for the latest repositioning (ie getting a more recent codebase from Mozilla) they even stopped bug tracking for a while to ‘speed up’ development.

        Anyone using Pale Moon needs to be aware that they aren’t following safe practices for testing and that isn’t healthy for something like a browser.

  16. Stan said on September 20, 2018 at 7:05 pm
    Reply

    And already over at their ‘forum’ an inquisitive user asking a simple question is being berated by Straver’s designated heavy.
    I guess some folks like being abused.

    1. rickmv said on September 21, 2018 at 11:13 pm
      Reply

      No, only a dumb new user from this week / troll who doesn’t care to understand any basic technical terms as XUL or UXP about the browser from the Release Notes, but trolling to get why the Palemoon 28 was created…
      Main dev. and project owner there is spending quite a lot of time in the forum to post very detailed technicalities about his development, technologies, platform, etc.

    2. beemeup5 said on September 21, 2018 at 3:00 am
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      Did the user use the search function to check if the question hadn’t been asked many times already?

    3. satrow said on September 20, 2018 at 10:05 pm
      Reply

      ‘Stan’ … “abused” or “abusive” ;) ? Abused might imply that s/he was already aware of the likely results of ‘pushing certain buttons’.

      I’d guess it’s the ‘basic difference’ topic being referred to. If so, people are different, authors, respondents and readers, they/we all have different ways of expressing ourselves and no-one is perfect – never used Preview or done a quick Edit? Really?

      Pale Moon users generally gravitate towards it as it usually does pretty much what they require/expect from a browser, there are others who are ‘pushed’ towards it even though they may naturally prefer the quick hit from Google/Mozilla’s latest offering. And there are a few who have taken the offensive route who need to be rooted out :)

      1. Stan said on September 21, 2018 at 5:16 pm
        Reply

        Amusing, surely you know in the past he’s been BANNED from your own forum !
        Now he’s back with multiple edits of posts to cover his tracks.
        Guess ‘rooting out’ is selective.
        FWIW if the Firefox lead developer’s sidekick showed up insulting users at Mozilla help I wouldn’t use that browser either.

    4. Alex said on September 20, 2018 at 9:06 pm
      Reply

      @Stan your ‘logic’ and alarmingly instant reflexes easily apply to you as well. I guess some folks have a lot of time to waste. Monitoring forums on a daily basis and gossiping on others must feel great these days.

      As for the article in question and skipping the usual gossip tea party and Pale Moon Abuse Victims Group, this is indeed a very positive update that fixes performance problems appearing after the move from v27 to v28.

  17. Money said on September 20, 2018 at 4:33 pm
    Reply

    With this release, the about: telemetry page shows no data collection anymore so paranoid folks, rejoice!

    Last week, Ambassador, a modernized and made-standalone ChatZilla fork, joined the Unified XUL Platform with its 1.0.0 release. I’ve been using it since it came out https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=20426

    Remember, thereisonlyxul.org

  18. Richard Allen said on September 20, 2018 at 4:23 pm
    Reply

    Appreciate the info Martin, especially the about:config entries.

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