Pale Moon Browser

[Anupam]

Anyone tried Pale Moon Browser yet?

It is based totally on Firefox, but it claims to have been optimized. Some portions of Firefox that are not needed have been disabled, like automatic updater, crash reporting, parental controls, accessibility feature, java debugging, activeX scripting etc. That makes Firefox faster and efficient, it is claimed.

It has even got a list of processors that it will work on. Looks very interesting.

Check it out at :

http://www.palemoon.org/

Here are the technical details :

http://www.palemoon.org/technical.html

[vasa1]

Originally Posted by Anupam

...Some portions of Firefox that are not needed have been disabled, like ... activeX scripting etc. ...

Anupam, please clarify whether this means that the original Firefox was activeX enabled the way Internet Explorer is?

I was always under the impression that MS Internet Explorer (and clones) were the only browsers implementing ActiveX. The rest regarded it as a hazardous piece of programming.

Please ignore: got the details in your second link

ActiveX and ActiveX scripting. ActiveX is specific to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and is not natively supported by (any) Firefox builds. There are some extensions that enable ActiveX components and scripts to run in Firefox on Windows, which will, therefore, not run in Pale Moon. This is a security consideration more than a speed consideration.

[vasa1]

Anyway, I like the concept and will give it a try. Got some spare bandwidth which I don't want to give back to BSNL, my ISP.

The only extension I use is Adblock Plus and one feature of FF that I simply must have is this one:
Tools > Options > Colors> and here there's the option to uncheck "Allow pages to use their own colors, instead of my colors above".

[Anupam]

Great! Would be waiting to hear your experience .

[vasa1]

Originally Posted by Anupam

Great! Would be waiting to hear your experience .

Absolutely no difference except for the improved speed. Which is great. All my settings, Adblock, etc. have been carried forward. I'm happy. Thank You, Anupam!

I'm sure the experts here will be able to verify / quantify the speed improvements.

[MidnightCowboy]

I like this too, but just wonder at the security implications considering it won't be updated with the same regularity as Firefox. It actually seems pretty aggressive because I've not set it as my "default" browser, yet when I try to open Firefox as well, I only end up with two instances of Pale Moon running instead.

[Anupam]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

MC has a good point about the security. Mozilla release patches for security soon enough... I don't know if that is the case with Pale Moon.

I might try it out though, and see how it goes... just for fun . I will still stick to Firefox.

Since news of vulnerability in Firefox was confirmed, I have been using SRWare Iron, and I find it to be good. It feels lightweight and is fast. On the downside, I cannot use WOT with it, nor does it detect the Orbit Downloader. I miss some of the extensions of Firefox. Also, there have been instances, while using Meebo, when Iron started taking too much of memory, and half of the CPU . Made everything so slow.

[Anupam]

Got an important information about Pale Moon installation from the download page. Please have a look at this :

Note about side-by-side installations of Pale Moon and Firefox:
Pale Moon shares its profile with any existing firefox installation.
If you want to "test drive" Pale Moon first, installing it side-by-side with Firefox, please use the ZIP packed version, as the uninstaller of the browser, in case you don't like to use Pale Moon and uninstall it with the supplied uninstaller, may in some cases remove your Firefox profile (bookmarks, plugins) when used (specifically if you select not to keep your existing information with the checkbox in the uninstaller)!
Similarly, be very careful using the Firefox uninstaller when you want to permanently switch to Pale Moon after having tested it side-by-side, as the Firefox uninstaller may do the same thing.
I recommend using MozBackup to make a backup of your profile data before you uninstall either in a side-by-side setup. Just in case

This does not look good. They should have used entirely different profile system for Pale Moon, when it is a different browser. Why mix it with Firefox? That would be a mess. That explains how the extensions of vasa1 got carried to Pale Moon.

MC, and vasa1, take backup of Firefox... in case you decide to uninstall Pale Moon, and find that all your bookmarks, and other things are gone . FEBE is very good for backup. I have scheduled it for a daily backup.

I think I will pass with Pale Moon... I do not want to mess with my Firefox installation.

[vasa1]

Originally Posted by Anupam

... I have been using SRWare Iron, and I find it to be good. It feels lightweight and is fast. On the downside, I cannot use WOT with it, nor does it detect the Orbit Downloader. I miss some of the extensions of Firefox ...

Anupam, can you please confirm whether Chrome and its clones or derivatives have the equivalent of AdBlock Plus? I understand that someone has made an AdBlock-lookalike that only prevents the display onscreen but doesn't block the actual download. Hence the broadband usage is not saved.

I will search the forum for FEBE but if you haven't already please provide a link

So far no complaints but I have the same experience as MC in that clicking on FF loads Pale Moon.

[Anupam]

I came across two ad blocking extensions for Google Chrome in the extension list. One is AdBlock, and the other is AdThwart. I installed AdBlock on Iron, and it installed successfully. Now, I don't know about the internals of these extensions, so you will have to research yourself about them.

And wow, I didn't know that there were now so many extensions available for Chrome. I am really surprised. There are over 3,000 extensions available. I even got the WOT extension, and it works great, just as in Firefox. That's one more reason for me to keep using Iron. I will be checking out more extensions.

Here is the link for FEBE :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2109

You didn't had to search the forum, you could have searched on Google for its link .

About Pale Moon, I am disappointed with what you and MC told. If they were developing a different browser than Firefox, they should have kept things different. The mix up is just not good. Why would anyone want to see Pale Moon starting when they want to start Firefox. That is a glitch they should remove.