Pale Moon Project announces change of direction
Pale Moon development will see a course direction in 2022 according to a new post by project owner Moonchild on the official Pale Moon forum. Pale Moon, an open source web browser that started as a fork of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, is based on the Goanna rendering engine and the Unified XUL Platform (UXP).
The decision was based on the results of a November 2021 survey, feedback and other considerations. The survey asked users of the browser to select what they wanted from the Pale Moon project. Options included matching Google Chrome 100%, being a Firefox clone but without the Telemetry and data gathering, a browser that supported classic Firefox extensions, or to focus on what Pale Moon always aimed for. The last two options received 39% and 34% of all votes in the survey.
Other considerations included the following main points:
- Pale Moon's extension ecosystem was struggling due to a lack of participation.
- The user base is relatively small.
- The project does not have enough core developers.
- Users are struggling with web compatibility issues and extension compatibility issues.
Based on these findings, Moonchild announced plans to change the direction of development. The following changes are mentioned in the announcement:
- Restoration of FUEL to improve extension compatibility.
- Restoration of the Firefox GUID to improve extension compatibility.
With these two in place, the development team can focus on improving the web browser's compatibility and tackle major compatibility issues. These changes will take time but should improve compatibility significantly.
With less pressure on us to mould and feed the extension ecosystem, we will continue our efforts to work on implementing the major blockers that have caused increasing web compatibility issues (primarily issues in JavaScript, Google frameworks, Google WebComponents, and a few persistent yet difficult to implement specs. We are aware that without further outside help, this will still take considerable time and web compatibility will remain less than desired/optimal while we work on improving the adherence to current trends in web "design" (mind the quotes).
Basilisk browser may be discontinued as a consequence, or it may be split off. The decision has not been made in this regard yet.
Now You: do you use Pale Moon? What is your take on the decision?
I stopped paying attention to Pale Moon when Moonchild went on his rant against Australis (long, long ago). Pale Moon has been going downhill ever since. The new default theme that came in with Australis was the smallest part of what it involved. There was major code cleanup done, making it so much easier to work with (for those of us who created and supported add-ons). The tabs that so much complaint was made about weren’t even a small drop in the bucket of Australis.
XUL is all you need.
“Total votes: 133”
Are these all PaleMoon’s users? Will this hundred decide the fate of the project?
Zed’s dead baby, Zed’s dead.
“Zed’s dead baby, Zed’s dead.”
I guess this is supposed to be clever/an inside joke (what movie did I miss?), but I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
Also, I’m guessing you need a comma after the first “dead,” otherwise I’m wondering what Zed’s baby being dead has to do with anything. Better punctuation, please.
Been a good browser for me for the many years i have used it.Still allows me to play flash content online and yes there are some sites which will not work properly but thankfully they are a small minority.
No complaints here.
People care about their browser more than they care about their physical and mental health.
People live for their apps. Not the other way around.
People need to reset .
+1000.
I used Pale Moon after Fx dropped XUL extensions and it was my default browser until Basilisk. Basilisk has been default ever since Moonchild offered it about 4 years ago. I LOVE Basilisk. In 22 years of having personal computers it has been the best browser of all. I have very few problems with Basilisk…unlike all other browsers. I don’t particularly care what happens with Pale Moon as it is inferior to Basilisk IMO but I care greatly about Basilisk’s future.
This thread has been a shock as I seldom read Pale Moon forums as I so rarely have a problem with Basilisk so I didn’t know any of this. This news is a horrible Christmas present if Basilisk disappears. I have Brave and it is ok but I can’t imagine it as my default browser. I’ve had Vivaldi since its inception but it never held a candle to Opera which I also loved as my all time second favorite browser. Vivalidi morphed into a gigantic unwieldy mess. Older Fx 60.9 ESR is still a fine browser as long as you don’t bank on it. (It is what am using to post this). More recent Fx lacks so much because it cannot utilize the older, powerful and wonderful extensions. Basilisk can and I will be devastated if we loose it.
>> Older Fx 60.9 ESR is still a fine browser as long as you don’t bank on it. (It is what am using to post this). More recent Fx lacks so much because it cannot utilize the older, powerful and wonderful extensions. <<
@Mele: Neither can Firefox 60 ESR. It only supports WebExtensions. Firefox 52 ESR was the last Firefox version that supported legacy extensions.
From the release notes:
"Firefox now exclusively supports extensions built using the WebExtension API. Unsupported legacy extensions will no longer work in Firefox 60 ESR, but they will continue to work in Firefox 52 ESR, which will be supported until September 2018."
1. When is the problem of replies not being put in the right place going to be fixed?
2. For about a week these pages jump around, and I continually have to scroll around and find where I
was. Why does somebody think that’s a good idea?
They should ditch firefox crap and be Chromium based, that way they will be relevant, what they can do is something like Vivaldi but not closed source and not with dumb technology like html5+js+css.
So they only use the render engine but develop the whole UI, people will like that, or they could fork brave and remove the whole BAT rewards so if the whole manifestv3 happens, there won’t be a problem.
Anything is better than firefox, and anything is better than even older firefox crap
@Anonymous
That is way too sane a proposal for the Pale Moon community (and also the typical gHacks reader, btw) to accept.
@ULBoom
> browser based user ad data collection software
Literally who cares, no major browser prevents data collection by default, most are doing the data collection themselves (not just Chrome). Despite the wording, Google is hardly unique with this – yet Chromium is not per se hostile to privacy (see for example: Bromite).
Yeah, except open source doesn’t necessarily mean Chromium can be dismantled or that would have been done many times.
I mean, in their financials, Google calls Chrome, paraphrased, browser based user ad data collection software. Primary purpose as a browser was ditched long, long ago. It’s an ad server.
At least the UI is sane unlike CopyFox, which looks like a hooker that tries to impress with gigantic filler lips, tits the size of unripened half-rotten melons, almost black artificially tanned legs, and the nails painted evil red with a silve sprinkled polish, hich gives the effect of compromised usability that wants to pick your eyes out.
If you enjoy the compromised hooker, that’s your affair but don’t bring the stench tobthe rest of us.
WTF are you talking about? Metaphors obscure enough become incomprehensible.
Looks more like an oddly specific fantasy of a sexually repressed person than a comment on a technical blog.
Outdated fork for thousand furries who cannot get used to new versions is changing Direction in the void, what a dramatic event, LOL
Your new versions look like they were designed by blind retarded spider monkeys high on meth and wood alcohol, don’t go blind using them.
That Iron Heart uses Pale Moon tells us everything you need to know
For us stoopid people, what would that be? Thanks.
> That Iron Heart uses Pale Moon tells us everything you need to know
Yeah, it tells you that no current browser has capable tab management and that one thus has to rely on an ancient codebase just to run Tab Mix Plus.
Using a web-browser based on a long dead code because of an indeed great but long time pased extension… And still giving corroded in-down sides of what coward web-browser is the greatest full of bloat, wallet and a kitchen sink included…
https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus/releases
TMP is alive and well, friend
@plusminus: sure TMP is alive and well, for FF 78, Waterfox G3, and PM, but not for FF95 and WF-G4. So yeah, everything is hunky dory.
I have used it in Waterfox G4 (just to try it out – there are so many features!) and the last release mentions a fix for FF95, so it’s pretty up to date!
@FurryPeacock365
Yeah, it’s like as if John Wayne Gacy had an unusual kink.
Surprisingly, in this case, for some reason, he’s not very worried about security or fingerprinting of his unique hackware. Maybe because Mr. Madaidan hasn’t written an article about it yet.
Is that true? Anyone can read that forum, I do occasionally, althought I only used PaleMoon for a short time years ago.
I agree with the decision to back off on intentional extension breaking. The purpose was to prevent unintentional breaking of some old, unsupported extensions by intentionally breaking them all. It didn’t make much sense. Unfortunately this won’t solve the issue of web compatibility which is far more important to the browser’s usability and is its primary purpose. If they aren’t able to work this out and it gets much worse, they may have to rip the band-aid off and rebase. I think they should do that already, but Moonchild doesn’t want to give up on XUL and it’s understandable. Why just be another fork of Firefox when you can be something unique? I don’t have much hope this will work out, but I’m rooting for Pale Moon to succeed, anyway.
Web compatibility involves more than just the browser itself unfortunately. The vision of the web was supposed to be an open, collaborative effort, but entrenched players like Google will have none of that. For example, after seeing how Firefox and Edge were getting better performance loading Youtube than Chrome, Google intentionally made Youtube rely on a deprecated API only available in Chrome so other browsers will perform 5x slower on Youtube than Chrome:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/
Just one of many examples of a hidden war between Google and the open web.
Can they just stay put and leave that outdated lamezilla code they’re still spinning around to rot… And move they’re Win7 servers malware spreading to Linux!!! Linux is not “communist” as per paradigm-head!
Moonchild may have some good ideas but he is completely lost as to what he wants and needs to do. He made a clone of Thunderbird called Fossamail, then just dropped it because he did not have the time for it. Something he obviously miscalculated completely.
He wanted to focus on Pale Moon, but at the same time launched another one of his projects, Basilik.
Now he says he is changing course, much to the chagrin of many, not the least of whom is his (former?) henchman Tobin. And Basilik may be dropped (sound familiar?) or hived off, or whatever ……
This guy is turning out to be a clown who won’t last in the hyper-competitive browser business. He is certainly not someone who can be trusted nor taken seriously. Did I say he is completely lost as to what he wants and needs to do?
@Klaas Vaak: While I agree with some of your other points, I think in all fairness to MoonChild, one has to admit that he already *has* lasted in “the hyper-competitive browser business”.
Pale Moon’s first release was in 2009, 12 years ago. Very few browser forks not backed by major corporations make it that long.
For someone who doesn’t use Palemoon you sure seem intent on bad mouthing it, why would you care if people use it or what Moonchild does for that matter?
@razor: you obviously have not read my comments properly otherwise you would know I am not bad mouthing PM, I don’t know enough about the browser to have an opinion about it one way or the other. I only bad mouth Moonchild because I do have an opinion about him. You may not agree with my opinion, that is your right, as it is my right to voice my opinion. Take it or leave it.
And you are right, I don’t care if others use the browser
@razor: I used Pale Moon once upon a time but when Mozilla announced the move to web extensions and Moonchild’s refusal to follow suit, the writing was on the wall. Since I did not want to be faced with another one of his unpleasant drastic course changes/decisions, like with Fossamail, I bailed out.
Now it turns out it was the right decision because he is doing it again.
I am not criticizing the product, I have no view about it, but I do have a view about his business practices, which consist of knee-jerk reactions because he gets caught out by events. Even that can happen to the best, but the cat does not learn.
So, since you seem to be obsessed with defending PM, you have not even realized I have not badmouthed PM, I have merely badmouthed Moonchild. Next time, try to read properly and understand.
Don’t like it, don’t use it, shut up and get lost. PaleMoon is useful to a lot of us, do better if you can.
@Rick: if I am not mistaken, this is a public forum, which means anyone can place their comments here. Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, you neither own nor moderate this forum.
So, dear Rick, if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen because I most certainly will not and will keep placing my comments here, and will most certainly keep criticizing the clown that has put out a browser or 2 that he does not know what to do with. Take it or leave it ? And be grateful I replied to you politely because you deserve harsh censure.
@Klaas Vaak
I have been a Palemoon user since 2016. I replaced Firefox the moment it became clear that Mozilla was going to drop “legacy add-ons” (i.e. XUL). I currently use 87 add-ons, which make my internet experience very enjoyable. 67 of these are programmed by me (programming add-ons is a hobby – not just a useful activity).
Some of these add-ons I also used in Firefox, more than five years ago. Since I’ve been using Palemoon, I’ve only had two incompatibility problems with add-ons. One with “Custom Button2”, which I replaced with “Custom Buttons 0.0.5.8.9-fixed8” – and another with an add-on I programmed, where I had to replace the Javascript code where the keyword “let” appeared.
I also programmed two add-ons in Google Chrome, due to the fact that Palemoon wasn’t working correctly on a website I needed. This unpleasant experience made me appreciate even more the XUL-based add-on system, i.e. the one used by Palemoon and abandoned by Firefox.
Pale Moon does indeed have web compatibility issues. This is why it is a good idea that Moonchild aims to focus on this issue in the future. This decision is contradictory to your statement: “Moonchild is completely lost as to what it wants and what it should do”. If the web compatibility issue does not become impossible to ignore, Palemoon will remain an incomparably friendlier and more useful browser than any other browser I have tested so far. As Moonchild says: “the base premise behind Pale Moon will not change and it will not go Quantum. XUL is too powerful and versatile of a concept to abandon. It has so much potential and if nothing else I want to bring that potential to our users”.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27682&start=60#p222463
I pretty much switched from Firefox ESR to PaleMoon for TabKit2. Nothing like that exists on other browsers (anymore).
Multirow tabs, colored tabs by child or domain and tab grouping. Nothing helped me more in web research than this AddOn.
Were TabKit goes, i follow. If PaleMoon does not supports it, bb PaleMoon. ;)
I *loved* having coloured child tabs (both in IE, then in Cyberfox/Waterfox with Tab Mix Lite), perhaps the feature of yesteryear that I miss the most!
As the number of tabs I used increased and I switched to Tree Style Tab, I got used to the tree structure in lieu of colours… then one day I found some CSS that modified the indicator for containers to cover the whole tab (within the tree), which is _almost_ the same as having coloured tabs – though it only applies to the ones I have within containers. If I could get it to apply to every tab with children, that would be brilliant.
I too have been a longtime Palemoon user for similar reasons (display customization, efficient code, flexibility in configuration) but stopped at Palemoon v29.1.1 when critical addons (extensions) no longer worked in v29.2.0. I’ll stay at v29.1.1.
The first post on the forum is worth reading. But then on the fourth page one can find more explanation by Mr Straver himself. It’s not only about PM, but again – about opensource, community.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27682&start=60#p222463
Using Palemoon? I will give it a try once more.
Does this come with change of attitude towards users or it remains same?
Like many others I use Pale Moon because of old FF extensions and because I have more visual control.
As for some websites not rendering properly, I expect that anyways as I use NoScript.
When I run into this problem, I use the addon “Open With Edge, IE, Chrome, and More” – so with a click of a button it opens the website I’m on with another browser of my choice.
I have been a diehard Pale Moon user for a long time, ever since Firefox changed in ways I couldn’t live with in 2014 (starting with Australis). All those Firefox extensions “I couldn’t live without” still worked in Pale Moon and it was the only browser that I could control visually just the way I wanted.
But I have run into two problems: 1) more and more websites will not render properly and so I have more and more been using a backup browser; and 2) Pale Moon v29.2.0 inactivated several of my key extensions; so I have frozen Pale Moon to v29.1.1.
I cannot tell if this Change in Direction will help my particular situation or not.
The new direction will definitely not make it worse for your extension situation and may help a bit, but as for general web compatibility this is more a problem with Google slowly and systematically taking over W3C and remaking the web in their image. Any website that adheres to (non-Google-fied) spec will always work with Pale Moon, but the thing is a lot (most?) of the web is already slipshod to begin with with most web-devs not bothering to care about well-formed pages and sane use of javascript.
It’s not that browsers are just using more and more RAM, it’s the web itself that is getting increasingly bloated. Turn off javascript and most of the web ceases to work. The current trend is header further towards “websites as apps” and it’s just plain terrible. WebAssembly for example is a terrible idea and shouldn’t exist but I digress. The point is if you were to compile a program in say, C++, while it’s running it doesn’t use that much RAM because it’s already compiled code, but with javascript and the “web as an app” philosophy there are more and more websites that basically act as apps that compile on-the-fly or “just-in-time” (JIT compiler) and this is terribly inefficient for doing even simple things hence the large RAM usage of today’s web. But memory-usage ballooning is just a side-effect, the key issue is the complexity of maintaining compatibility basically means more and more devs are just testing against V8 or SpiderMonkey (Chrome and Firefox’s javascript engines respectively) which leaves Pale Moon in the lurch.
Pale Moon is focused on adhering to established web standards, so anything that works with Pale Moon will work with Chrome or Firefox, but the reverse is not true, and unfortunately this is not likely to change any time soon so long as Google has this stranglehold over web development, the opposite of the philosophy of an open web.
The latest version reimplimented those extentions.
I have been on Palemoon since Opera sold out.
And the drama is already unfolding, that escalated rather quickly…
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27682&p=222400#p222400
Came for a mediocre vessel for Tab Mix Plus, stayed for the drama queen.
Tobin is almost single-handedly responsible for the toxicity behind Pale Moon.
Booting him off might be better for the long term. On one hand, there are few interested developers as it is so losing one isn’t good, but on the other hand, new developers might be put off from joining due to Tobin.
@beemeup5: nonsense. Yes, Tobin is a particularly toxic character, no doubt about it, but Moonchild is no choir boy by a long shot. In fact, the way the man answers to others is nothing short of rude, to put it mildly.
Funny how you prefer to live in a fairy tale bubble and refuse to see reality.
@Klaas Vaak
Relax. I haven’t forgotten that the evil Moonchild took away your FossaMail.
@beemeup5: nice deflection. Meanwhile, enjoy PM, and give my warmest regards to Moonchild.
Aren’t there are too many Firefox forks and derivatives? Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea if Pale Moon, Waterfox and LibreWolf (and whatever others exist) would combine their expertise and creativity and produce one really excellent browser based on Firefox code. Or if Mozilla would implement these developers’ best and most useful ideas. Of course, none of this will happen. So there will remain one winner in browserland: Google.
Up until the point I read your post I’d never heard of LibreWolf. Does it support WebEx or XUL addons? Can’t find anything about either of those in the documentation on their site.
Ghacks doesn’t appear to have ever reviewed the browser, or at least all I can see in the search results is a blank page (tried with Waterfox Classic and latest Firefox 95.0.2).
I’ve been using Waterfox Classic for many years, but it increasingly doesn’t work with a large number of sites anymore unfortunately.
I’ve already tried Pale Moon in the past, but didn’t like it very much due to its lack of support for WebEx extensions in general and in particular one which can be used to turn pale grey fonts used all over the web these days (including Ghacks) to black. I use Legibility for that purpose with all three settings set at 100% and would want an alternative browser to be able to support that addon.
Those forks are just mods that can be done in FF by knowledgeable users. I guess they exist to sell privacy in an easy to implement form (Like, you just install the thing.) They do give additional privacy but not all that can be acheived.
They are way ahead of FF OOB, though.
I meant Waterfox and LibreWolf, not PaleMoon.
@Gerard
Moonchild did address the matter of collaboration in the main post. To quote:
[ Unfortunately, and I’ll have to say pretty much a trend in FOSS, developers would rather splinter off and segregate themselves to have their own, often failing long term, spin-off projects rather than cooperating on something everyone could be proud of achieving. Competition often wins over cooperation, because a lot of developers do not want to compromise in any way and just “want their thing.”, sometimes even completely ignoring the very core of Open Source and its principles and licenses – So we’ve ended up with a good handful of things that could have been unified, but instead are strictly segregated and fiercely defended, even if they are one-man spin-offs or slipshod hackjobs. ]
That basically sums it up. In an ideal world people would work together with a united goal and make compromises where necessary, but sadly we’re not in that timeline. But who knows? Maybe one day Google will take things one step too far while Mozilla gives up and falls in line, forcing a larger united front to form behind Pale Moon. One can dream.
@Klaas Vaak
As this post has shown (with more details in the original forum post) Moonchild has clearly known what he’s wanted the browser to be for years. Only now it has become evident that what Moonchild wants Pale Moon to be isn’t what most users want in a browser. About 40% just want old Firefox with XUL addon support, and another 20% basically wants LibreWolf. Only about 35% of users are aligned with what Moonchild wants for Pale Moon. So facing reality means changing with the times, which means relinquishing the ideal vision for Pale Moon becoming its own entity in regards to addons and extensions. All hurdles for installing old unmaintained Firefox addons will be removed and the Firefox addon GUID will be reinstated since there’s no longer much point in Pale Moon having its own GUID anymore if old Firefox addons are to be accepted again anyway. The Pale Moon GUID will still exist but will be secondary to the Firefox GUID. Its main purpose now will simply be to denote which addons explicitly support Pale Moon and which don’t.
@beemeup5: While the comments you quote from MoonChild are insightful and reasonably accurate as far as they go, I do think there is another problem that relates to that which he understandably doesn’t mention given who he is. The other problem is developers with prickly personabilites, which Pale Moon has had a ton of over the years. It isn’t clear to me whether the main reason people don’t want to, say, collaborate with Pale Moon on their Unified XUL Platform, is because they want to solely focus on their own thing, or because they can’t get along with MoonChild or Tobin (Tobin in particular, his sometimes #2, is infamous for getting into flame wars and running off users, but MoonChild definitely does get into his own battles with people [albeit less often] and takes stances like [paraphrasing] “Users who do not contribute financially to the project are free loaders.”. That’s not the way to win friends and influence people, who no other browser maker is publicly accusing of being freeloaders just for using a product that is openly offered for free, for free.).
The PM devs also tend to want things the way they want things, with some very implacable opinions on the way things should be. That can be a plus in some respects, and they do bend occasionally in the face of mass user revolts, but I am not sure that other devs are eager to put the future of their own projects in the hands of a joint venture with those guys in particular, given the need to agree on workflows, how to document, and so on and so forth, even though the PM crew clearly have technical skills and a lot of perseverance, and don’t mind hard work.
Something like Waterfox Classic (Or Whatever they are calling their old pre-Photon based version of Waterfox- there are two branches of Waterfox, the more modern one, and what I’m calling the classic one) would actually probably be much better off basing off Unified UXL, where they could just occasionally make a security commit and otherwise base what they do off the work already being done for Pale Moon, but how long before a serious disagreement develops and they have to fork code they may not be as familiar with as whatever it is they are doing now? What happens when MoonChild or Tobin publicly call them out for not contributing enough commits? How about when MoonChild or Tobin pull their open-source code from the web and require Waterfox to request it and decide whether or not to send it on delay based on wehther they think it will be used in accordance with their take on the project’s licensing (This already happened to one developer- and when I say “their take”, I do mean “their take”, in the sense that they inherited most of the project’s licensing from Mozilla when they forked, and aren’t authors of licenses who could offer a more definitive definitions of what they allow and don’t allow than anyone else.)?
So, it isn’t necessarily as simple as people just not wanting to collaborate with anyone else in general, although I have to say that MoonChild is probably correct that tthat *is* a factor, because if they just didn’t want to work with the Pale Moon guys, they could still be working with each other, and they aren’t.
@beemeup5: you’re making out as if this is a minor change when it is a change of direction. I have not come across any browser devs making a drastic change of direction like this. And it is not the 1st time he does it, see Fossamail. And the guy does not even know what he wants to do with Basilik !!
And you tell me “Moonchild has clearly known what he’s wanted the browser to be for years”? If that were the case he would not have had to make a drastic course change but would have done it in a more gradual, logical, understandable, non-controversial, acceptable way, as behooves sound business practice. This guy is a clown.
@Klaas Vaak
Again, the change in direction is to adapt to what USERS want, not what Moonchild thinks is ideal for Pale Moon.
No one knows the future, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Yes Fossamail didn’t succeed but think about how many projects Google started and then killed.
Speaking of Google killing projects, the usefulness of Basilisk was ended primarily due to Google (explained in the forum post). Basilisk’s main purpose was to be a somewhat closer analog to Firefox for developing the UXP platform but has now become mostly redundant.
@beemeup5: I do not dispute that a product is there for the users and should fulfill their expectations. Nevertheless, if what users want means a drastic change of direction for Pale Moon then Moonchild grossly mis-assessed the market for his product. And that means he is unable to exercise sound business practices: 2 products were/are a failure, and the flagship product is floating around like a rudderless ship.
Surely you won’t try to argue that Moonchild did a thorough market assessment before he started Pale Moon, and that his users since then changed their expectation so drastically that he is now forced to make a drastic change of course? Boy oh boy, what a nuisance are users, is what you’d imply with that argument.
Yes, Google has had many a project failure, but if I am not mistaken, Google is slightly bigger and has slightly deeper pockets than Pale Moon/Moonchild. So comparing Google with Pale Moon/Moonchild is a completely meaningless, false comparison.
As for Basilik’s demise being due to Google, that is a joke, right? Google never pushed out any browser, and in any case a company the size of Google does not have the time nor the interest to worry about a little, insignificant browser with a virtually nil market share. Come on now, don’t make bunk statements.
@Klaas Vaak
The comparison with Google’s failed ventures is not a false comparison, you’ve simply missed the point. The point is even a company with near limitless resources can still “fail to read the market” let alone a single individual. No one is omniscient so you expecting Moonchild to be so in regards to user sentiment for a browser that wasn’t fully realized from day one is disingenuous at best. What “market assessment” nonsense are you on about? Pale Moon started as a side hobby and only gradually became a full-time job much later. Over the past 12 or so years the world and the web have changed a great deal (and continues to change), so expecting someone to be able to predict what users want in a browser today from all the way back in 2009 is ludicrous. How pray tell, is one supposed to know that what users want in a browser that isn’t in its final form, is not in line with what you envision is ideal for the browser, unless you actually steer development in the direction you think is best while gradually assessing user sentiment as you go? You clearly don’t understand markets very well since you seem to believe markets to be static entities.
You keep talking about “sound business” and how you’ve never seen any other browser devs making such drastic changes in direction. Seriously? Perhaps you’ve heard of this company called “Mozilla”. They develop a browser called “Firefox” where they insist on making compatibility breaking changes without any logic behind it again and again. First there was Australis (breaking many addons for no reason), then there was dropping XUL (despite intense user backlash), then they dropped NPAPI plugin support (ignoring the “small” number of users and companies that relied on it extensively), and now there’s Proton (more change for the sake of change). They’re sure doing a fantastic job reading the market and they have the market share to prove it! An exemplar of sound business according to you no doubt.
Lastly, you not understanding how Google is involved in undermining Basilisk means that you didn’t bother to read. You’re a Pale Moon hater, I get it. Your mind is already rigid, so facts have little chance of changing that.
Right on!
@beemeup5: if your argument is that PM started as a hobby, then, like I said in one of my replies higher up, “Whether it started as a hobby or not is also irrelevant.” – quoting myself.
You said “something is a hobby if it doesn’t receive remuneration of _ANY_ kind”, which, in this context, implies that all other free browsers are a hobby. Clearly that is baloney.
Correct, Fossamail was dropped because Moonchild did not have the time anymore to devote to it, which is a confirmation the guy operates in a knee-jerk fashion and does not know what he is doing. And the same applies to Basilik, which is another one of his project that’ll have to fall by the wayside.
So, many thanks for reconfirming in just about every one of your replies that Moonchild does not employ sensible business practices, and he is forced by reality to admit that, not in words but in deeds.
@Klaas Vaak
“if your argument is that PM started as a hobby, then, like I said in one of my replies higher up, “Whether it started as a hobby or not is also irrelevant.”
You can’t even bother to restate my argument correctly, small wonder you still have difficulties following the dialogue sequence.
“PM started as a hobby” is not an argument, that’s just a clause.
My _argument_ is: “PM started as a hobby, THEREFORE it is excusable for Moonchild to not have a fully comprehensive understanding of user habits and preferences right from the beginning, as understanding what users want from your browser, which itself is constantly changing and improving, is a dynamic process involving many variables not least of which is the rapidly changing landscape of the web itself”.
This argument counters your statement saying: “if what users want means a drastic change of direction for Pale Moon then Moonchild grossly mis-assessed the market for his product.” For this to hold any weight, Pale Moon would’ve needed to have started as a business right from the beginning, but that is not the case.
Regardless, what your assertion boils down to is “Moonchild can’t accurately predict the future years in advance, therefore he doesn’t know what he wants! Just look at him changing direction to accommodate what most users from [current year] want!”
As I’ve already said previously, expecting something akin to omniscience from anyone is ludicrous.
In the process of Pale Moon going from a hobby to a business, Moonchild already had a fairly concrete roadmap planned out for Pale Moon in line with what he thought was the prevailing user sentiment _AT THAT TIME_. However since that time many years have passed, leading up to the most recent couple of years where the majority of current user preferences have greatly shifted, combined with far fewer extension developers chipping in than hoped for, a significant change in direction became necessary to ensure the continuing survival of Pale Moon. Which brings us to the present day.
@beemeup5: hey kiddo, I don’t know if you read your own drivel, but it appears you have now “done a Moonchild”: you did an about-face by suddenly admitting PM went from a hobby to a business. So, you finally come around to the fact that he IS running a business.
Furthermore, you also state that “what he thought was the prevailing user sentiment _AT THAT TIME_” (your own words) and that “since that time many years have passed” (your own words).
In other words, he started off on a spurious assumption, let many years go by without doing any sort of reality check, then unavoidably getting hit by reality and having to make a drastic change in his course.
A classic case of resorting to a knee jerk reaction caused by not knowing what one is doing.
Again, thanks for your umpteenth confirmation the guy is flailing, proof of poor business practice.
@Klaas Vaak
You seem to like imagining yourself as someone who is a generation (or several) older than I am, and yet your memory of not so distant events is hilariously bad. 10 or so years isn’t even that long ago and yet you seem to have completely forgotten what the web was like back then. Around 2010 Firefox and Internet Explorer had a combined market share of roughly 75% while Chrome had only about 10%. User sentiment on browsers definitely centered on Firefox with everyone sick of Microsoft and Mozilla was still largely in users’ good graces with big changes like Australis not coming until two years later.
Pale Moon at this time was barely a year old and was a very niche browser catering more towards enthusiasts who wanted a more optimized 64-bit version of Firefox (which Mozilla didn’t officially make available until basically 2016). At this point Pale Moon was essentially just a recompile of Firefox, the two were functionally the same. User sentiment towards Pale Moon was basically “Pale Moon is Firefox, but better”. But between 2010 and now we see how Mozilla has shot themselves in the foot again and again becoming ever more out-of-touch with what made them great in the first place as they kept trying in vain to claw back market share being continually lost to Chrome.
Over the past decade Firefox users slowly split in two with one side preferring what originally made Firefox great (the Pale Moon side) and the other side preferring to stick with whatever Mozilla decides is the next fresh look for Firefox. Emphasis on the “slowly” part. This change in user sentiment that interlinked Firefox and Pale Moon didn’t happen overnight, and naturally hindsight is always 20/20, but no matter what you’ll always believe every decision Moonchild makes is a “knee jerk reaction”. You keep that hate burning man. I’m out.
@beemeup5: yet another one of your irrelevant deflections – yep, I use that tautology on purpose.
Whatever happened in the past is academic. I have no quarrels with people preferring PM over Firefox, calling it better than FF, or whatever other praise they choose to heap on the app. I am not here to try to dissuade them not to use PM.
Nevertheless, Moonchild is clearly flailing, and clearly needs a steady hand for guiding him. Yes, he may well be a fantastic programmer, I am in no position to judge that, but he is a lousy business man who is obviously at a loss as to what paradigm he wants to follow. He is probably too arrogant and self-assured to allow anyone near him to guide him, as his toxic personality radiates. But that is his problem.
Meanwhile, it is good you’re bailing out of this discussion because your increasingly irrelevant comments and nonsense show you have lost the plot, just like your main man.
@Klaas Vaak
>> [ if your argument is that PM started as a hobby, then, like I said in one of my replies higher up, “Whether it started as a hobby or not is also irrelevant.” – quoting myself. } <> [ You said “something is a hobby if it doesn’t receive remuneration of _ANY_ kind”, which, in this context, implies that all other free browsers are a hobby. Clearly that is baloney. } <<
Oh man. All this time I was being charitable in ASSUMING that you were smart enough to at least understand how most browser companies obtain their revenue, but it seems I overestimated you. Chrome for example, is a free browser but Chrome sends tons of user metadata to Google, which Google then uses to better monetize their ad network which is the core of Google's business. Firefox is a free browser, but its developer Mozilla Corporation earns revenue from its search engine deal with Google. Brave is another free browser but has its own ad and affiliate network in addition to its builtin crypto functions to generate revenue.
In what universe are all these examples of generated revenue NOT considered a type of remuneration?! Oh right, in the fantasy bubble universe inside your mind where words suddenly mean only what is convenient to you!
@beemeup5: oh I see, jow you are argui9ng that good ol’ Moonchild is such an altruistic person that he provides a free browser to the world without getting paid for it – Father Christmas and Mother Theresa rolled into one. Wow.
Unfortunately for you, it is not quite like that. Of course, I don’t know if he has has a Warren Buffett type sugar daddy, but what I do know is that he accepts donations. No corporate donations, which is an honorable attitude, but donations from individuals.
That means he IS running a business, albeit with not very smart business practices, as I pointed out. His user customers still don’t know what he will come up with from 1 day to the next, as he has proved with Fossamail and Basilik, and now his PM drastic course change. He knows, tomorrow he may decide to jack in PM, he may not, but knee jerk reactions are his hallmark.
@Klaas Vaak
I don’t know why you’re trying to convince me that Moonchild is running a business (present tense) when we both already agree on that.
Your short-term memory must be slipping. Might want to look into that.
@beemeup5: the comparison with Google IS a false one for the simple reason that Google with its deep pockets can afford projects that fail, whereas a little guy like Moonchild cannot.
As for misreading the market, he has not only done that with PM but also with Fossamail and Basilik, so your argument is just an excuse for his knee-jerk business practice. No, the markets are not static, I agree with you, and that is the nature of markets, and the players in it are subject to that. But Moonchild’s f*ck-up of projects demonstrates he is like a rudderless ship on the waves of the market, unable to make sense of them.
No, I am not a PM hater, I even used a few years ago. But in my modest set-up the writing was on the wall when Mozilla announced the change to web extensions so I bailed out, after having got caught short by Moonchild’s knee-jerk decision to drop Fossamail.
And for you to argue Google undermined piddly little Basilik shows you haven’t got a clue of how big corporations operate, esp. w.r.t. companies and products that do not pose a threat.
@Klaas Vaak
I don’t know why this point keeps going over your head: It’s not about being able to AFFORD failure, the point is about being SUBJECT to failure. No one WANTS their endeavors to fail, but it happens to the best of us. It could happen to anyone.
What you’re basically saying is: “I can’t afford to fail therefore I shall not try anything, unless it’s a sure thing”. Well newsflash, there’s no such thing as a “sure thing” in this world. No great gains come without risk.
And who do you think denied Basilisk licensing for EME? Guess who rejected Basilisk from WebRTC despite it passing the requisite tests? The answer will surprise you!
So you’re not a Pale Moon hater, you’re just a Moonchild hater. Tomato tomahto.
@beemeup5 It most certainly IS about being able to a afford to fail since failure costs money – it does not take an Einstein to figure that one out. I don’t understand why this is beyond your cognitive ability – well …… maybe I do understand.
Your paraphrasing of my statement is cute, but bunk. I never implied one should not try, but, unfortunately form you, there is more than just jumping to try out something. Since failure costs money, it is essential to investigate the potential market beforehand, if one does not want to go bankrupt.
Moonchild has proved beyond a shade of doubt that his pre-project launch market research leaves a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. And when the market shows him he was sloppy he resorts to a knee-jerk reaction: he either bails out from 1 day to the next (Fossamail) or makes a drastic change of direction (PM) or is at a loss and waits for inspiration for the next knee-jerk reaction (Basilik).
No, I don’t hate PM, I don’t know the product today enough to say something sensible about it. YES, I do dislike Moonchild intensely for his arrogance, his insolence, and his unwillingness to learn.
That said, I could not give a hoot whether you or the other enthusiastic PM supporters use the browser, but I will call you guys out when you spew nonsense.
@Klaas Vaak
Have you paid money for any of this software? Did any Disclaimers or Terms of Service leave any obligations unfulfilled? I already said before that Pale Moon was started as a hobby. What makes you so confident that any attempt at forking a program must be an EXPLICITLY pre-meditated profit-minded business decision? The quality of the evidence you can provide to support this assertion will determine whether it is I who has been “spewing nonsense”, or you.
@beemeup5: whether I have paid for PM or not is completely irrelevant. I have not criticized his commercial model or the absence thereof.
Whether it started as a hobby or not is also irrelevant. I never stated explicitly it should be a profit-minded business, nor did I imply it. Whether he charges for his product or not is his business decision. What’s more, that is irrelevant, unrelated, clearly a desperate attempt by you to protect your guru and his product. I suggest you stay on topic.
Moonchild decided to make it available to the public, therefore he accepted to be praised and criticized for his product. His decisions, therefore, affect the users of his product, and being unable to steer a steady course is poor business practice. That is all I am saying, I am merely stating a fact, although in your fairy tale bubble that may not be so.
@Klaas Vaak
It is impossible to argue with someone when words don’t mean anything. You apparently insist on defining words in a way that only you would agree with. Perhaps it is YOU, someone who thinks he can redefine words whenever it is convenient to him, who lives in a fairytale bubble.
You said, “I have not criticized his commercial model” but one’s commercial model is synonymous with his business model! No reasonably intelligent person would ever consider the two to be intrinsically separate. What is the purpose of business? Perhaps in your mind you are conflating the definition of “business” with the definition of “charity”. I hate to break it to you, but the two are very different things. In your fairytale mind bubble the word “commercial” and the word “business” are spelled differently so clearly they MUST mean different things right?
You said, “Whether it started as a hobby or not is also irrelevant”.
No, you see if something doesn’t involve money or remuneration of ANY kind, then it is not defined as a “business” it is defined as a “hobby”. Again, words mean things.
You said, “I never stated explicitly it should be a profit-minded business, nor did I imply it”.
Really? REALLY?!! Perhaps it is a small blessing that no one can edit their comments, because the whole world can see that this is how it went down:
1. You said: “Look at Moonchild’s failures. Terrible business practices.”
2. Then I said: “Even Google has failed many times.”
3. Then you said: “That’s a false comparison. Google has very deep pockets (lots of money).”
4. I disagreed, saying: “The point is even a company with near limitless resources can still “fail to read the market” let alone a single individual.”
5. You again disagreed saying: “the comparison with Google IS a false one for the simple reason that Google with its deep pockets can afford projects that fail, whereas a little guy like Moonchild cannot.”
6. I again reiterated the point, saying: “It’s not about being able to AFFORD failure, the point is about being SUBJECT to failure. No one WANTS their endeavors to fail, but it happens to the best of us. It could happen to anyone.”
7. Then you double downed, saying things like: [ It most certainly IS about being able to a afford to fail since failure costs _MONEY_ ] and [ Since failure costs money, it is essential to investigate the potential market beforehand, if one does not want to go _BANKRUPT_ ]
8. Also you (again) : “I never stated explicitly it should be a profit-minded business, nor did I _IMPLY_ it”. (Like, Alzheimers much?)
Oh wait, the word “imply” must also mean something else inside your head too! How very convenient.
If this isn’t a textbook case of someone being “hoisted by their own petard” on the internet I don’t know what is.
If you want to stay in your safe bubble where words only mean what you want them to mean and prior context can be completely ignored, well then you do you, but I will call you out when you spew nonsense.
@beemeup5: I hate to break it to you, but if someone makes his product available to the public, keeps it up-to-date, adds/subtracts features, and all the rest that the likes of Google, Mozilla, Brave, and others do to their respective browser, then it is NOT just a hobby anymore, it IS a business.
Your argument to the contrary implies that all browsers that are free of charge are not a business and are therefore a hobby. Yeah, sure, and pigs can fly too.
As for failure and the cost of failing, your argument suggests that since it is Moonchild’s hobby it does not cost him any money. Again, I hate to break it to you kiddo, but even if dear old Moonchild has a sugar daddy to support that hobby, it still costs money. I am pretty sure Moonchild’s sugar daddy, if there is one, does not exactly have the same deep pockets as Google, so, by definition, is able to afford far fewer f*ck ups than Google. Logically speaking it does not take a genius to figure that out, but it is obviously beyond you.
Therefore, dear beemeup5, even though maintaining PM costs money (do try to understand that), and even though PM may be Moonchild’s hobby, he IS running a business, but it does NOT necessarily mean it is profit-oriented. Ever hear about a not-for-profit business? No? Look it up, it’ll be good for your education because you have some serious gaps there.
@Klaas Vaak
You are wrong.
A not-for-profit is not a business; it’s an organization.
From Wikipedia:
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in contrast with an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a profit for its owners.
@beemeup5
You are wrong too, as you agreed with that false claim.
@Klaas Vaak
You clearly have difficulties following the order of dialogue. You’ve mismatched (and misinterpreted) my responses in a juvenile attempt at a strawman.
I never said Pale Moon was a hobby, I said that’s how it STARTED, and then gradually became a full-time job. This was specifically in response to you saying Moonchild doesn’t know what he wants, even though Pale Moon BEGAN as a hobby (not a business) and wasn’t a fully realized independent browser from the get-go, in addition to user sentiment being radically different now than in 2009. A change in user sentiment necessitates a change in direction. It does not mean Moonchild did not know what he wanted the Pale Moon ecosystem to ultimately become for the past several years.
I said something is a hobby if it doesn’t receive remuneration of _ANY_ kind. Don’t think I don’t see you trying to deflect by making me seem like someone who doesn’t understand how companies who offer free software make revenue from sources other than direct payment from users, or how nonprofits operate for that matter. I wasn’t born yesterday, but even a child can see how desperate you are to ignore how your own words contradict themselves.
For all your hate of Moonchild you don’t actually seem to be familiar with how his business actually operates. Revenue comes from donations or ads from the default startpage (if one didn’t like this they can just set the homepage to something else). The core of the business is Pale Moon, not Basilisk, and definitely not FossaMail.
Clearly if something doesn’t have enough demand to justify the time needed to maintain it (e.g. FossaMail) then it is logical to drop it and put more resources elsewhere. THAT is what a sound business decision looks like. That FossaMail’s loss affected you so personally that you carry this persistent grudge for a developer choosing to act within his means is just petty. I mean how dare he discontinue a niche mail client leaving you stranded with merely tens of alternative mail clients?! Come off it man.
@Gerard: let Pale Moon quietly fade away, Moonchild does not know what he wants.
Pale Moon is my default browser. I never saw or took part in a survey.
In fact with so much initial hesitation, Pale Moon became my default
browser post XUL.
I use Sleipner rarely, otherwise. (Only so when old ABP works for me
–like, when on YT.)
Chrome and any of its derivatives are pretty heavy, even with 64GB
memory.
Firefox has become an unwieldy poor copycat of Chrome, based on
my experience. Loaded too much with so little needed.
I never got a survey, either. My main reasons for using PaleMoon are privacy and advertising. Google is evil. I will never use their products and try to avoid all their snooping and tracking as much as possible. I blocked all these “bugs” from Twitter, Facebook, etc. so I won’t be tracked. Even though PaleMoon now doesn’t allow these addons I used (RIP) any more, my settings still are in the browser. It is the safest for me.
Nobody “got” a survey. If you go to the forum you should have seen the notice, otherwise not. Oh, and it’s “Pale Moon,” not “PaleMoon.” You’re right, of course, about Google being evil.
Sleipner browser + ABP and others of choice…
You’d only see an announcement for the survey (in the corner of your eye) if you use the default Pale Moon homepage, or if you frequent the Pale Moon forums.
For reference, the survey had one question and these were the original choices:
– I want it to be 100% compatible with the Chrome-heavy developed web, feature-for-feature, with minimal breakage of websites.
– I want it to give me a comfortable, unchanging web client on which I can run all my extensions I’ve used for years, that is kept up to date with security patches.
– I want it to be a sane, minimal-compromise, secure browser.
– I want it to be a target-specific browser that is specialised in some task.
– I want it to be modern Firefox but then without the telemetry, profiling, service pushing and political backdrop of Mozilla.
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27573
Wow! Ambitious undertakings, each one.
First choice seems like sarcasm, antithesis of PaleMoon’s mission.
Last choice can be done with FF about:config mods and an ad blocker.
The second and third choices are way out front in the survey. Interesting to see where they could take PaleMoon and have it mostly work.
Surprised this is still around. Definitely has a determined user base.
It wasn’t wise of them to block Firefox XUL extensions to begin with. Also, almost no XUL extensions are in development anymore, for Waterfox or Pale Moon.
Maintenance requirements for XUL addons (on Pale Moon) are far lower than for WebExtensions on Firefox because there’s no underlying entity (Mozilla) that insists on making compatibility-breaking changes just for the sake of change whenever they feel they need a “fresh” look (first Australis and now Proton).
The whole reason Pale Moon continues to exist is because of XUL and the near limitless potential it has. I think it’s great that there is at least one regularly maintained browser that allows you to do basically anything you’d want to do within a browser. For example, I consider multiple tab rows to be essential for a power user browser and XUL addons allow you to do this easily. The CSS hacks that used to allow you to do this in Firefox Proton are getting jankier with new releases and likely one day will stop working altogether. Naturally multiple tab rows is an “unsupported” mod to Firefox so obviously Mozilla will not care to fix it.
Google’s endgame is clearly no better. By now most of the tech-inclined are already aware of how Manifest V3 will break core functionality in uBlock Origin but does anyone believe that’s the worse that could happen? Google is always moving in a direction that enables more control over the user and how the user interacts with the web, whereas XUL is the freedom to do whatever. It’s a fundamental difference in philosophy.
As it stands, Pale Moon continues to hold the bastion as the last true “third option” in a web that is all but Blink and Quantum.
https://github.com/numirias/paxmod
This works well in recent versions of Firefox for multiple tab rows.