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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday March 09 2017, @05:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-no-battlestation dept.

In Feb/March 2017, we opened a usage survey for anyone to fill out, which was a public request to users, past and present alike, to indicate which parts of Pale Moon should have focus, and to decide in part on development direction. This was done in the spirit of "Your Browser, Your Way"™ -- you, the user, should have a say in what your browser will be shaped like!

This page provides an analysis of the results, and provides our (dev) response to some of the comments our survey respondents left.

[...]

About 80% of the respondents use Pale Moon as their primary web browser to surf the web. The other 20% uses either a different browser or multiple (other) browsers to varying degrees. Of course it is fantastic to see so many users using Pale Moon as their main (or only) web browser of note.

Among our users responding to the survey, the main reasons for not using Pale Moon as their primary browser have been:

      1. Extension compatibility with Firefox extensions. Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to provide exact compatibility with Firefox extensions because we are not Firefox. Because of our different application code, we are also not able to provide compatibility with WebExtensions at this time, because those use HTML for user interface elements instead of XUL. We are, however, working on providing an as broad as possible support for the three main extension formats in use: XUL, bootstrapped and SDK (in the form of PMkit); the technologies that Mozilla is going to completely abandon in November 2017 with Firefox 57.

      2. Website compatibility. As long as websites keep specifically checking for and catering to (specific versions of) only 3 or 4 "mainstream" browsers, you will always have some sites that will not cooperate with using an independent alternative. On the browser side, there is very little we can do to prevent this. As a user, however, you have the power to convince websites to give this attention by contacting webmasters of troublesome sites and making them aware of their restrictions.

      3. "Firefox is more secure". There is still a percentage of people that take arbitrary version numbers as a criterion at face value to determine what is, in their opinion, "outdated" or "insecure". Once more here the affirmation that Pale Moon is most definitely as secure, if not more so, than the current mainstream browsers. Our versioning is also independent of the versioning used by Mozilla. Security vulnerabilities that become known in the Mozilla platform code ar evaluated regularly and ported across if applicable.

      4. "Chrome is faster". This may be, depending on what you use to measure "speed"; in our experience though, there is no significant difference between any of the modern browsers when it comes to real-world speed. In fact, Pale Moon has regularly shown to perform very well in comparison on lower-end computers. Your Mileage May Vary in this respect.

[...]

Pretty much a unanimous vote here (even among the 20% who don't use Pale Moon as their main browser) that extensions are essential to the browser. Totally expected, and maybe Mozilla can draw a lesson from this.

This also underwrites the need for what we've been working on to restore: as much compatibility with Jetpack-style extensions as possible through PMkit.

http://www.palemoon.org/survey2017/


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by jdccdevel on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:28PM (2 children)

    by jdccdevel (1329) on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:28PM (#477109) Journal

    Palemoon is what Firefox should be, I started switching our work PCs today and I won't be going back.

    I need to get real work done, and I can't be constantly having to worry about my browser breaking!

    There are three things that Firefox broke recently (or will be breaking) that I cannot work without:

    1) SSLv3 support
    I have old equipment on my network that uses SSLv3. Firmware updates are not available. IP Cameras, Management interfaces, all kinds of tech that uses SSLv3 cannot be accessed with Firefox. SSLv3 support isn't even an option with Firefox, and cannot be re-enabled without compiling a custom version. Palemoon has the support. Yay! (If they had a IP Whitelist for SSLv3 support, I would be even happier. I need access for some equipment, but I'd rather not have it enabled everywhere!)

    2) NPAPI Plugin support
    Work has a Video recorder with custom plugins for the web gui, and I have a TON of equipment that uses Java Applets for their web interface. The latest Firefox (Version 52 and Up, new this week!) Doesn't support those plugins any more [mozilla.org]. (Except Flash? WTF! I could not care less about Flash!) I need support for this to keep my network running. Chrome doesn't have support for these plugins, so I can't switch to it, and I refuse to use IE. For this reason alone, Palemoon will be my work browser of choice.

    3) Extensions
    Firefox is planning on deprecating their extension API, and replacing it with a new one. I've been installing extensions to keep Firefox usable for a while, and now they're breaking the extension API in a way that cannot be fixed. (Functionality the extensions I use require to function is not available in the new API, so the extension authors can't update to the new API even if they want to.) Most of the extensions I use are either Unnecessary (They kept the GUI the way I like it.) or compatible! YAY!.

    Firefox has lost all credibility with me by breaking things that I need to get work done.

    I understand some of the changes Firefox has made (The SSLv3 thing makes sense for most people on the Internet, it's a big security issue.) but some of the others are just too much, and there needs to be an option to re-enable things. (Seriously, how hard would it have been to create a IP whitelist for SSLv3 ??? WTF!)

    You'd think that Mozilla, with all the money they have now (vs when they were called Phoenix 15 years ago), would have matured to the point where they don't pull crap like this, and provide a backwards-compatibility option. The fact they haven't done so, and don't recognize or acknowledge the need to, speaks to a lack of respect for their user base that I cannot tolerate.

    Combined with essentially abandoning Thunderbird, I hope they die quickly enough (Like netscape did) that the pieces are salvageable by someone with some vision.

    They've lost their way, just like Netscape did. It's time for them to die.

    Long live Palemoon!

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=2, Underrated=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by acharax on Thursday March 09 2017, @09:11PM

    by acharax (4264) on Thursday March 09 2017, @09:11PM (#477135)

    You'd think that Mozilla, with all the money they have now (vs when they were called Phoenix 15 years ago), would have matured to the point where they don't pull crap like this (...)

    Oh, they have matured... That's why they're acting like every other large, wretched corporation now and shit all over user choice while having their marketing drones advertise the contrary.

  • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday March 10 2017, @06:32AM

    by dry (223) on Friday March 10 2017, @06:32AM (#477276) Journal

    52ESR (32bit) still supports NPAPI plugins and extensions and will for 16+ months. A reverse proxy is one way around the SSLv3 thing. In a work environment perhaps you should have already been using the ESR channel anyways.
    Still the writing is on the wall, good bye Mozilla.