Pale Moon (web browser)
Pale Moon 26 displaying the Wikipedia's Home, on Windows 10.
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| Developer(s) | M.C. Straver |
|---|---|
| Initial release | October 4, 2009 |
| Stable release | 27.1.0 (February 9, 2017[1]) [±] |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C/C++, CSS, XUL |
| Operating system | Windows, Linux (plus a community build for macOS[2]) |
| Engine | Goanna |
| Platform | IA-32, x86-64[3] |
| Available in | 12 languages[4] |
| Type | Web browser Mobile web browser |
| License |
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| Website | www |
Pale Moon is an open-source web browser with an emphasis on customizability, as expressed by its motto "Your browser, Your way."[6] There are official releases for Microsoft Windows and Linux,[6] plus a community build for macOS.[2]
Pale Moon is a fork of Firefox with key differences, including add-ons and user interface. In particular, Pale Moon will continue to support the long-standing XUL and XPCOM add-on infrastructure that Firefox is in the process of deprecating.[7][8] Pale Moon has also retained the fully customizable user interface of the Firefox version 4–28 era,[7] while updating other parts of the browser with newer Firefox code.[9]
Contents
Features[edit]
Pale Moon has diverged from Firefox in a number of ways:
- replaces Gecko with a fork Goanna
- continues to support XUL and XPCOM add-ons
- uses the pre-Australis Firefox interface
- defaults to a customizable start page in cooperation with start.me[10]
- suports extensions and themes exclusive to Pale Moon such as Adblock Latitude[11]
- uses the IP-API service instead of Google's for geolocation[citation needed]
- defaults to DuckDuckGo as the search engine instead of Google or Yahoo!
Performance[edit]
Pale Moon uses a number of compiler optimizations in order to improve performance.[3] In synthetic benchmark tests, Firefox has slightly outperformed Pale Moon.[12][13] But both authors noted that this is not necessarily indicative of real-world browser performance, and a separate reviewer deemed Pale Moon to outperform Firefox in the course of his browsing.[14]
Platform support[edit]
Pale Moon does not support older processors without the SSE2 instruction set.[3] Also, 26.5 was the final version that supported Windows XP and Intel Atom processors.[15][16]
History[edit]
M.C. Straver's first official release of Pale Moon was in 2009, which was a rebuild of Firefox 3.5.2 with tweaked compiler settings.[17] Over time the scope of the project grew, and version 24 became a true fork of Firefox 24 ESR.[17] Starting with version 25, Pale Moon has had a completely independent versioning scheme.[18]
Pale Moon 27 was a major rebase of the core browser code to Firefox 38 ESR, which added a number of capabilities including DirectX 11, HTTP/2, MSE/DASH, and ES6 (JavaScript) enhancements.[19] XUL and XPCOM add-ons continue to be supported, including a subset of Jetpack.[7]
Pale Moon for Android was a separate project that is no longer maintained.[20] First released in 2014,[21] it was announced the following year that the project would likely be abandoned due to lack of community support.[22] The final release was 25.9.6.[23]
License[edit]
Pale Moon's source code is released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 except for parts relating to branding. Similarly, to ensure quality redistribution of officially branded Pale Moon binaries is only permissible under specific circumstances.[5] The project's name and logo are trademarked and copyrighted by M.C. Straver and cannot be used in without the author's prior permission.[24][25]
[edit]
According to StatCounter, Pale Moon has a 0.03% share of the desktop web browser market for January 2017.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Pale Moon Release Notes". Pale Moon. 2017-02-09. Retrieved 2017-02-09.
- ^ a b "Pale Moon 27.0.3 for macOS". Retrieved January 8, 2017.
- ^ a b c "Pale Moon - Technical Details".
- ^ "Pale Moon language packs". Moonchild Productions. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
- ^ a b "Pale Moon redistribution", Official website, retrieved 2012-02-16
- ^ a b "The Pale Moon Project homepage". Pale Moon. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
- ^ a b c "Pale Moon future roadmap". Pale Moon. 2016-05-09. Retrieved 2017-02-09.
- ^ Kev Needham (2015-08-21). "The Future of Developing Firefox Add-ons". blog.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2015-09-07.
- ^ "Pale Moon Release Notes".
- ^ "Browser Pale Moon Integrates New Personal Start Page" (Press release). Amsterdam: PRWeb. February 11, 2015.
- ^ "Adblock Latitude".
- ^ Matt Nawrocki. "Review: Pale Moon web browser for Windows". TechRepublic. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
- ^ Martin Brinkmann. "32-bit vs 64-bit browsers: which version has the edge?". GHacks. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
- ^ Firefox Optimized for Windows – Pale Moon Custom Built Browser, TECK.IN, 2011-04-08, retrieved 2012-02-16
- ^ "End of Windows XP support in Pale Moon".
- ^ "Intel Atom™ and Windows XP build". Moonchild Productions. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
- ^ a b "History of the Pale Moon project". Moonchild Productions. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
- ^ "Pale Moon forum". palemoon.org.
- ^ "The Future of Pale Moon". palemoon.org.
- ^ "Pale Moon for Android". Retrieved February 9, 2017.
- ^ "Pale Moon for Android 24.7.1". August 3, 2014.
- ^ "I may have to let Pale Moon for Android go. :(". April 16, 2015.
- ^ "Pale Moon for Android updated to 25.9.6!". Retrieved January 3, 2017.
- ^ "Pale Moon: Technical Details", Official website, retrieved 2012-02-16
- ^ Moonchild. "Pale Moon branding information". palemoon.org.
- ^ "Top 5 Desktop browser on Jan 2017". StatCounter.
External links[edit]
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