Pale Moon

Last updated

Pale Moon
Developer(s) M.C. Straver [1]
Moonchild Productions [2]
Initial release4 October 2009;15 years ago (2009-10-04)
Stable release
33.6.1 [3]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 11 March 2025;2 days ago (11 March 2025)
Repository https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Pale-Moon
Written in C , C++ , Cascading Style Sheets , JavaScript , XML User Interface Language
Engines Goanna, SpiderMonkey
Operating system Windows 7 SP1 or later
FreeBSD 13.0 or later
OS X Lion or later
Linux
Contributed builds for various platforms [4]
Platform IA-32, x86-64, ARM64 [5]
Available in37 languages [6]
List of languages
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)
Type Web browser
News aggregator
License
Website www.palemoon.org   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

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

Contents

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.

Its motto is "Your browser, Your way."

Features

Pale Moon's default user interface is the one that was used by Firefox from versions 4 to 28, known as Strata. [8] It always runs in single process mode and uses a rendering engine known as Goanna. [9] The browser has its own set of extensions [10] and supports legacy Firefox add-ons built with XUL and XPCOM, [11] [12] which Firefox dropped support for in 2017 with version 57. [13] NPAPI plugins, such as Adobe Flash Player, are also supported. The browser's entire user interface can be customized by complete themes and lightweight themes are also available. [14] Pale Moon's default search engine is DuckDuckGo and it uses the IP-API service instead of Google for geolocation. [15] The browser is known to be lightweight on resource usage. [16] [17]

Pale Moon has no telemetry or data collection. [10] [9]

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. [18] [19] 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. [20] It includes the Goanna layout and rendering engine, a fork of Mozilla's Gecko engine. [21] Moonchild Productions develops UXP independently alongside Pale Moon. [22]

Pale Moon running on Ubuntu Linux, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 Pale Moon 29 Tabs on Top Mode Multi-OS.png
Pale Moon running on Ubuntu Linux, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7

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. [10] OS X Lion and above on Apple–Intel architecture and macOS Big Sur and above on Apple silicon processors are supported. [23] FreeBSD 13.0 and above are also supported.

Previously, Windows XP and Vista were supported, but are no longer supported from versions 27 [24] [25] and 28 [26] [27] onward, respectively.

An Android build was developed in 2014 [28] but was cancelled by the developer due to lack of community involvement a year later. [29]

History

Pale Moon was created and is primarily maintained by one developer, M.C. Straver. [30] 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. [21] [31] 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. [19]

In 2019, hackers breached a Pale Moon archive server and infected the older installers with malware; then-current Pale Moon releases were not affected. [32] The breach took place between April and June, and the affected server was taken down on July 9 when it was discovered. [33] [34]

In 2022, a change in direction for Pale Moon was announced to improve website and add-on capability. [35] 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. [36] 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. [37]

Pale Moon 8 Pale Moon 8 Screenshoot.png
Pale Moon 8

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. [38] [39] Versions of MyPal afterwards are a fork of the Firefox 68-78 codebase. [40]

New Moon is another fork of Pale Moon which supports Windows XP. [39]

See also

References

  1. ↑ M.C. Straver. "About Moonchild Productions". Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  2. ↑ M.C. Straver. "About Moonchild Productions". Archived from the original on 9 April 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  3. ↑ https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ "Contributed builds of Pale Moon". Pale Moon. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  5. ↑ "Pale Moon - Technical Details". www.palemoon.org.
  6. ↑ "Pale Moon language packs". Moonchild Productions. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  7. ↑ "Pale Moon redistribution", Official website, retrieved 10 February 2017
  8. ↑ Proven, Liam. "Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson". The Register. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  9. 1 2 Ganguly, Suparna (24 March 2022). "5 Lesser-Known Open Source Web Browsers for Linux in 2022 | Linux Journal". www.linuxjournal.com. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  10. 1 2 3 "Review: Is Pale Moon a viable privacy browser?". Avoid the Hack (avoidthehack!). 19 September 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  11. ↑ Sanchez-Rola, Iskander; Santos, Igor; Balzarotti, Davide (16 August 2017), "Extension Breakdown: Security Analysis of Browsers Extension Resources Control Policies", USENIX Security Symposium (26): 680–682, ISBN   978-1-931971-40-9
  12. ↑ "Avoid The Hack: 6 Best Privacy Browser Picks for Windows | Avoid the Hack (avoidthehack!)". avoidthehack!. 1 June 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  13. ↑ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven (21 September 2015). "Mozilla drops XUL, changes Firefox APIs; developers unhappy". ZDNET. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  14. ↑ Serea, Razvan (21 September 2023). "Pale Moon 29.4.0.2". Neowin. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  15. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (11 August 2016). "Pale Moon to remove Google Search completely - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  16. ↑ Abdul, Shan (13 November 2023). "7 Lightweight Windows Browsers Tested for RAM Usage: Which Is the Best?". MUO. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  17. ↑ Siyal, Gaurav (8 February 2022). "The 7 Best Lightweight Web Browsers for Linux". MUO. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  18. ↑ Richardson, John (2018). Introductory XUL (7th ed.). Lulu.com. p. 4. ISBN   978-1-304-60870-3.
  19. 1 2 Larabel, Michael (17 November 2017). "Pale Moon Project Rolls Out The Basilisk Browser Project". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  20. ↑ Meiert, Jens (7 April 2020). The Web Development Glossary. Frontend Dogma.
  21. 1 2 Brinkmann, Martin (22 June 2015). "Pale Moon to switch from Gecko to Goanna rendering engine - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
  22. ↑ Abdul, Shan (13 November 2023). "7 Lightweight Windows Browsers Tested for RAM Usage: Which Is the Best?". MUO. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
  23. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (22 March 2023). "Pale Moon 32.1.0 launches with major web compatibility improvements - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  24. ↑ "End of Windows XP support in Pale Moon". 29 September 2017. Archived from the original on 29 September 2017. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  25. ↑ "Pale Moon - Release Notes". 27 November 2016. Archived from the original on 27 November 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  26. ↑ "Pale Moon 28.0.0 released!". 16 August 2018. Archived from the original on 2 July 2019.
  27. ↑ "Pale Moon - Release Notes". 24 August 2018. Archived from the original on 24 August 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  28. ↑ Kondrat, Tomek (22 July 2014). "Pale Moon Browser Ported to Android". XDA Developers. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  29. ↑ "I may have to let Pale Moon for Android go. :(". 16 April 2015.
  30. ↑ Hoffman, Chris (22 February 2018). "Why You Shouldn't Use Firefox Forks Like Waterfox, Pale Moon, or Basilisk". How-To Geek. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  31. ↑ Peers, Nick (26 January 2016). "Pale Moon adopts new Goanna browser engine, fine-tunes interface". BetaNews. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  32. ↑ Cimpanu, Catalin (19 July 2019). "Pale Moon says hackers added malware to older browser versions". ZDNET. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  33. ↑ Gatlan, Sergiu (10 July 2019). "Hackers Infect Pale Moon Archive Server With a Malware Dropper". Bleeping Computer. Bleeping Computer LLC. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  34. ↑ Kovacs, Eduard (11 July 2019). "Archive Server of Pale Moon Open Source Browser Hacked". securityweek.com. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
  35. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (17 December 2021). "Pale Moon Project announces change of direction - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  36. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (18 March 2022). "Pale Moon 30.0 out with important changes - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  37. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (10 May 2022). "Pale Moon 31 is out now - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  38. ↑ Pardo, Lisandro (2022). "MyPal: Un navegador para Windows XP en 2022 – NeoTeo". www.neoteo.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  39. 1 2 Bolaji, Ola-Hassan (7 February 2023). "10 Best Browsers for Windows XP That Still Work in 2024". Windows Report. Archived from the original on 15 May 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  40. ↑ Proven, Liam (24 July 2023). "Want to live dangerously? Try running Windows XP in 2023". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
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