Pale Moon Explained

Pale Moon
Screenshot Size:250px
Developer:M.C. Straver[1]
Moonchild Productions[2]
Latest Preview Date:-->
Repo:https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Pale-Moon
Operating System:Windows 7 SP1 or later
FreeBSD 13.0 or later
OS X 10.7 or later
Linux
Contributed builds for various platforms[3]
Engines:Goanna, SpiderMonkey
Platform:IA-32, x86-64, ARM64[4]
Language:Arabic (ar), Bulgarian (bg), Traditional Chinese (zh-TW), Simplified Chinese (zh-CN), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), American English (en-US), British English (en-GB), Filipino (tl), Finnish (fi), French (fr), Galician (gl), Greek (el), Hungarian (hu), Indonesian (id), Italian (it), Icelandic (is), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Polish (pl), Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR), European Portuguese (pt-PT), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru) Argentine Spanish (es-AR), Mexican Spanish (es-M), Serbian [cyrillic] (sr), Castilian Spanish (es-ES), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Swedish (sv-SE), Thai (th), Turkish (tr), Ukrainian (uk)
Language Count:37
Language Footnote:[5]
Genre:Web browser
News aggregator

Pale Moon is a free and open-source web browser licensed under the MPL-2.0 with an emphasis on customization. Its motto is "Your browser, Your way." There are official releases for Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, macOS, and Linux.

Pale Moon originated as a fork of Firefox, but has subsequently diverged. The main differences are the user interface, add-on support, and running in single-process mode. Pale Moon retains the user interface of Firefox from versions 4 to 28 and supports legacy Firefox add-ons.

Features

Pale Moon's default user interface is the one that was used by Firefox from versions 4 to 28, known as Strata.[6] It always runs in single process mode and uses a rendering engine known as Goanna.[7] The browser has its own set of extensions[8] and supports legacy Firefox add-ons built with XUL and XPCOM,[9] which Firefox dropped support for.[10] NPAPI plugins are also supported. The browser's entire user interface can be customized by complete themes and lightweight themes are also available.[11] Pale Moon's default search engine is DuckDuckGo and it uses the IP-API service instead of Google for geolocation.[12] The browser is known to be lightweight on resource usage.[13] [14]

Pale Moon has no telemetry or data collection.

Unified XUL Platform (UXP)

Pale Moon is built upon the Unified XUL Platform (UXP), a cross-platform, multimedia application base that was forked from Mozilla code prior to the introduction of Firefox Quantum.[15] [16] UXP is a fork of the Firefox 52 ESR platform that was created in 2017 due to XUL/XPCOM support being removed from the Firefox codebase.[17] It includes the Goanna layout and rendering engine, a fork of Mozilla's Gecko engine.[18] Moonchild Productions develops UXP independently alongside Pale Moon.[19]

Supported platforms

Windows 7 SP1 and above are supported, along with any modern Linux distribution as long as the processors support SSE2 and there is at least 1 GB of RAM. macOS on Intel and ARM processors is supported.[20] FreeBSD is also supported.

Previously, Windows XP and Vista were supported, but are no longer supported from versions 27[21] [22] and 28[23] [24] onward, respectively.

An Android build was developed in 2014[25] but was cancelled by the developer due to lack of community involvement a year later.[26]

History

Pale Moon was created and is primarily maintained by one developer, M.C. Straver.[27] Prior to version 26, Pale Moon used the same rendering engine as Firefox, known as Gecko. With version 26 in 2016, Pale Moon switched to using the Goanna rendering engine, a fork of Gecko.[28] In 2017, the Pale Moon team began the Unified XUL Platform due to upcoming changes in the Mozilla codebase. The Basilisk web browser was developed to serve as a "reference application" for development before Pale Moon switched over to using it.

In 2019, hackers breached a Pale Moon archive server and infected the older installers with malware; then-current Pale Moon releases were not affected.[29] The breach took place between April and June, and the affected server was taken down on July 9 when it was discovered. [30] [31]

In 2022, a change in direction for Pale Moon was announced to improve website and add-on capability.[32] This resulted in version 30, which used the Firefox GUID to improve compatibility with legacy Firefox extensions and started increased development of UXP and Goanna.[33] A few days later, version 30 had to be recalled due to one of the developers causing issues before exiting the project, such as messing up the add-ons server. Version 31 was issued in response to fix these issues.[34]

Notable forks

MyPal was formerly a fork of Pale Moon that supported Windows XP, but after issues with the lead developer of Pale Moon regarding licensing, it was rebased on Firefox Quantum.[35] [36] Versions of MyPal afterwards are a fork of the Firefox 68 codebase.[37]

New Moon is another fork of Pale Moon which supports Windows XP.

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: About Moonchild Productions . https://web.archive.org/web/20170313050503/http://www.moonchildproductions.info/about.shtml. M.C. Straver. 2017-03-13. 2018-04-19. live.
  2. Web site: About Moonchild Productions. https://web.archive.org/web/20200409052948/http://www.moonchildproductions.info/about.shtml. M.C. Straver. 2020-04-09. 2020-04-23. live.
  3. Web site: Contributed builds of Pale Moon. Pale Moon. 2017-02-12.
  4. Web site: Pale Moon - Technical Details. www.palemoon.org.
  5. Web site: Pale Moon language packs. Moonchild Productions. 2021-03-02.
  6. Web site: Proven . Liam . Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson . 2024-04-06 . The Register . en.
  7. Web site: Ganguly . Suparna . 2022-03-24 . 5 Lesser-Known Open Source Web Browsers for Linux in 2022 Linux Journal . 2024-04-06 . www.linuxjournal.com.
  8. Web site: 2021-09-19 . Review: Is Pale Moon a viable privacy browser? . 2024-04-06 . Avoid the Hack (avoidthehack!) . en.
  9. Web site: 2023-06-01 . Avoid The Hack: 6 Best Privacy Browser Picks for Windows Avoid the Hack (avoidthehack!) . 2024-04-06 . avoidthehack! . en.
  10. Web site: Vaughan-Nichols . Steven . 2015-09-21 . Mozilla drops XUL, changes Firefox APIs; developers unhappy . 2024-04-06 . ZDNET . en.
  11. Web site: Serea . Razvan . 2023-09-21 . Pale Moon 29.4.0.2 . 2024-04-06 . Neowin . en.
  12. Web site: Brinkmann . Martin . 2016-08-11 . Pale Moon to remove Google Search completely - gHacks Tech News . 2024-04-06 . gHacks Technology News . en-US.
  13. Web site: Abdul . Shan . 2023-11-13 . 7 Lightweight Windows Browsers Tested for RAM Usage: Which Is the Best? . 2024-04-06 . MUO . en.
  14. Web site: Siyal . Gaurav . 2022-02-08 . The 7 Best Lightweight Web Browsers for Linux . 2024-04-06 . MUO . en.
  15. Book: Richardson, John . Introductory XUL . 7th . 2018 . 4 . Lulu.com . English . 978-1-304-60870-3 .
  16. Web site: Larabel . Michael . 2017-11-17 . Pale Moon Project Rolls Out The Basilisk Browser Project . 2024-04-06 . www.phoronix.com . en.
  17. Book: Meiert, Jens . The Web Development Glossary . 7 April 2020 . Frontend Dogma . English.
  18. Web site: Brinkmann . Martin . 2015-06-22 . Pale Moon to switch from Gecko to Goanna rendering engine - gHacks Tech News . 2024-03-31 . gHacks Technology News . en-US.
  19. Web site: Abdul . Shan . 2023-11-13 . 7 Lightweight Windows Browsers Tested for RAM Usage: Which Is the Best? . 2024-03-31 . MUO . en.
  20. Web site: Brinkmann . Martin . 2023-03-22 . Pale Moon 32.1.0 launches with major web compatibility improvements - gHacks Tech News . 2024-04-06 . gHacks Technology News . en-US.
  21. Web site: 2017-09-29 . End of Windows XP support in Pale Moon . https://web.archive.org/web/20170929034645/http://www.palemoon.org:80/PM_end_of_WinXP_support.shtml . dead . 2017-09-29 . 2024-06-18 .
  22. Web site: 2016-11-27 . Pale Moon - Release Notes . https://web.archive.org/web/20161127125155/https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml . dead . 2016-11-27 . 2024-06-18 .
  23. Web site: 2018-08-16 . Pale Moon 28.0.0 released! . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20190702181700/https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19905 . 2019-07-02.
  24. Web site: 2018-08-24 . Pale Moon - Release Notes . https://web.archive.org/web/20180824094858/https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml . dead . 2018-08-24 . 2024-06-18 .
  25. Web site: Kondrat . Tomek . 2014-07-22 . Pale Moon Browser Ported to Android . 2024-04-06 . XDA Developers . en.
  26. Web site: 16 April 2015 . I may have to let Pale Moon for Android go. :(.
  27. Web site: Hoffman . Chris . 2018-02-22 . Why You Shouldn't Use Firefox Forks Like Waterfox, Pale Moon, or Basilisk . 2024-04-06 . How-To Geek . en.
  28. Web site: Peers . Nick . 2016-01-26 . Pale Moon adopts new Goanna browser engine, fine-tunes interface . 2024-04-06 . BetaNews . en.
  29. Web site: Cimpanu . Catalin . 2019-07-19 . Pale Moon says hackers added malware to older browser versions . 2024-04-06 . ZDNET . en.
  30. Web site: Gatlan . Sergiu . 10 July 2019 . Hackers Infect Pale Moon Archive Server With a Malware Dropper . 13 August 2022 . Bleeping Computer . Bleeping Computer LLC.
  31. Web site: Kovacs . Eduard . 2019-07-11 . Archive Server of Pale Moon Open Source Browser Hacked . 2024-04-05 . securityweek.com.
  32. Web site: Brinkmann . Martin . 2021-12-17 . Pale Moon Project announces change of direction - gHacks Tech News . 2024-04-06 . gHacks Technology News . en-US.
  33. Web site: Brinkmann . Martin . 2022-03-18 . Pale Moon 30.0 out with important changes - gHacks Tech News . 2024-04-06 . gHacks Technology News . en-US.
  34. Web site: Brinkmann . Martin . 2022-05-10 . Pale Moon 31 is out now - gHacks Tech News . 2024-04-06 . gHacks Technology News . en-US.
  35. Web site: Pardo . Lisandro . 2022 . MyPal: Un navegador para Windows XP en 2022 – NeoTeo . 2024-04-06 . www.neoteo.com . es.
  36. Web site: Bolaji . Ola-Hassan . 2023-02-07 . 10 Best Browsers for Windows XP That Still Work in 2024 . 2024-04-06 . Windows Report . en-US.
  37. Web site: Proven . Liam . 2023-07-24 . Want to live dangerously? Try running Windows XP in 2023 . 2024-04-06 . www.theregister.com . en.

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