Pale Moon, an alternative browser that forked from Firefox around the time that Firefox went to the "Australis" interface and is a favorite of many Soylentils, has released version 25.6.0 as of today. So what's new in Pale Moon? Let's check the changelog (I'll abbreviate to give you a quick runthrough):
- Canvas anti-fingerprinting option: Pale Moon now includes the option to make canvas fingerprinting much more difficult.
- Added a feature to allow icon fonts to be used even when users disallow the use of document-specified fonts (no more dreaded "boxes" with hex codes).
- Added a feature to prevent screen savers from kicking in when playing full-screen HTML5 video. (Windows only for now)
- The "autocomplete=off" parameter for signon forms is now completely ignored by default, to keep the user in control of their browser's behavior
- Added the option to use Chrome://../skin/ overrides, in effect allowing the use of "Icon themes"
- Added a count for the number of matches in the find bar
Plus many others that seems less significant to me (but click through for the full list if you'd like to make your own decisions about what's "significant").
There's also a number of security fixes, which I won't quote here but can be found after the list of non-security-related changes.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Alternative Browser Pale Moon Releases Version 25.6.0 With Privacy, Security Fixes
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 35 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by number6 on Monday July 27 2015, @08:45PM
Pale Moon
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @08:47PM
*golf clap*
(Score: 1, Redundant) by djh2400 on Monday July 27 2015, @09:43PM
an alternative browser that forked from Firefox around the time that Firefox went to the "Australis" interface
At the risk of being pedantic, I'll point out that Pale Moon's Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] says that initial release was October 2009. Indeed, looking at the full release notes page [palemoon.org] on the browser's website, it's been around since version 4.0. IIRC, PM's version numbers have more or less matched those of Mozilla Firefox until 24.x; it has been around for a bit longer than merely the [fairly recent] introduction of Australis.
(Score: 5, Touché) by tempest on Monday July 27 2015, @11:31PM
I think it's technically accurate, as Pale Moon was intended as an "optimized" version of Firefox until the Australis interface was introduced, THEN it became a fork.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @08:48PM
They've already got the .tar.bz2 file for Linux. Downloading now! No installation necessary, of course - just unpack, and click the executable. For best results, rename or remove the existing Palemoon directory first.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Monday July 27 2015, @08:49PM
You aren't going to audit the source code to look for backdoors?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @08:58PM
I've already browsed through the old version. As I've said before, I'm not competent to read the source, but I do like to scroll down through it. No, I'm not auditing the new version - not now. It's to late in the day, even if I felt like it.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @08:51PM
And, I'm back! *bows*
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Monday July 27 2015, @09:08PM
They have a Linux installer as well - which includes an automatic updater. Which reminds me, I found out about the update at work, need to apply it here at home as well.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Monday July 27 2015, @09:09PM
Correction: The Linux version via the installer does NOT have an auto-updater. I thought it did, but now that I'm looking for....it's not there.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @09:23PM
If I shared my computer with anyone, I'd probably have to install the browser properly. I got used to just unpacking the archive a long time ago, with Firefox. That way, I could run the release, or the beta, or the alpha/nightly, at will. It was a lot simpler that way.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:54AM
It's not an automatic updater, but you can use it to update semi-manually (it pulls down the newest version when you update).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:11PM
I switched over to Pale Moon a few weeks ago and this was my first update experiance. It appears no buttons or options have been moved around or lost, no weird unwanted "sharing" features added, and everything still works the same. It really is amazing how unnecessarily dreaded the firefox update experience had become.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:38AM
The "changeUiOften==good" disease has infested FireFox. Maybe some competition will wake them up. Maybe I'm a fogey, but I hate shit shifting around for no rhyme or reason.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday July 27 2015, @09:12PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday July 27 2015, @10:08PM
$ strace -p `pidof palemoon`
to see what kinds of things the process is doing. Filter out noise using some -e options. It's almost certainly as you suggest a polling loop, or two components playing ping-pong with each other.
For example, my my firefox is merily spinning:
...
read(9, "\372", 1) = 1
read(3, 0xf797105c, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=68, events=POLLIN}, {fd=9, events=POLLIN}], 4, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
read(3, 0xf797105c, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=68, events=POLLIN}, {fd=9, events=POLLIN}], 4, -1) = 1 ([{fd=9, revents=POLLIN}])
read(9, "\372", 1) = 1
read(3, 0xf797105c, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=68, events=POLLIN}, {fd=9, events=POLLIN}], 4, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
read(3, 0xf797105c, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=68, events=POLLIN}, {fd=9, events=POLLIN}], 4, -1^C <unfinished ...>
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:50PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday July 29 2015, @07:10PM
strace on firefox spits out a lot of lines (screenfulls) and then hits a poll and waits for several seconds, then repeats ... very noticeable to just casual observing. Palemoon never slows down, just screenfull after screenfull of output. There are poll commands, but it doesn't slow anything down.
When I run firefox, my idle % is over 99, i.e. firefox usage is well below 1%. Running palemoon, my idleness is 80-90%, palemoon never falls below 6% usage. So not as bad as my recollection made it, but not good enough to put into general use for me. :/
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday August 09 2015, @08:38PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:23PM
Good idea. I started in safe-mode and that seemed to cut down cpu usage. So I disabled extensions and reset options to default and restarted and the cpu usage remained low. I added adblock latitude back, noscript, flash block, ghostery, and nuke anything (IIRC) and the cpu usage seems like it is still ok.
I tried palemoon when it first came out so my old extensions were still installed; but I didn't switch to palemoon then b/c the cpu usage and I was using the same extensions as FF and it doesn't eat cpu cycles. It is very possible it was adblock plus, my first install was b/f the fork was deemed necessary. Hmmmmmm.
Thanks for the suggestion, I may finally make the switch.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Interesting) by number6 on Monday July 27 2015, @09:27PM
I like dragging URL's from the browser to my desktop.
This is an essential part of my workflow and the number one reason I never gave up on Firefox (and Pale Moon).
Conversely, this is the reason I never could fall in love with Opera as my everyday browser; it never allowed drag-drop of URL's to the desktop.
I have this annoying issue with URL's dragged to the desktop from Pale Moon
like this example:
Viewing this webpage with Pale Moon 20.3 (portable edition), I drag the address bar icon to my desktop, and I get this URL file:
looking at its contents with a text editor, I see this:
The URL on my desktop does not display the default icon for URL filetypes on my system; I just get the blank or unknown filetype icon.
If I use Firefox and conduct the same drag-drop operation as above, the contents look like this (which is correct and what I want and renders the default URL system icon):
The way Firefox outputs dragged URL's is the way I want URL's formatted.
Does anybody here know how I can hack or configure Pale Moon to do this? ....I've been looking for an answer to this issue for a long time and it's driving me crazy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:19AM
Does this file exist: "IconFile=C:\PortableApps\Pale Moon\User\Palemoon\Profiles\Default\shortcutCache\hwcg2bDSYtfi8kcUJhOizA==.ico" ?
(Score: 2) by number6 on Tuesday July 28 2015, @10:23AM
Yes the file is created at that location at the moment the URL file is created at the desktop (looking at the 'Date Created' attribute).
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday July 28 2015, @05:47AM
Funny. Never in a million years would I have even thought to try dragging a URL to the desktop (not to mention that my browser window fills the screen, leaving nowhere to drag it to).
You say Opera doesn't have it, but when I just tried it in Opera 9 it did in fact create a shortcut on the desktop. Perhaps it's yet another of the features they broke in subsequent versions.
(Score: 2) by number6 on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:00AM
I use two side-by-side monitors, left is the primary and is wide screen 1920x1080, right is 1600x1200.
The browser displays on the left monitor and fills the screen dimensions EXCEPT its left margin is narrowed to the right by 150pixels leaving a strip of desktop exposed at all times.
The right monitor is my drag-drop desktop area.
---
Just to confirm your results, I will try again creating a dragged desktop URL with Opera v9.62 on my system (Windows XP)......
- Run Opera 9.62, build 10467, Win32, (c) 2008
- Load page: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/07/27/1410258
- Drag URL to blank desktop space at right-monitor and let go of mouse....the URL has vanished !!
...Upon further investigation I see that the URL WAS CREATED but at monitor one and auto-arranged as the last icon !!
So Opera v9 actually does create drag-dropped URL's to the desktop BUT completely ignores mouse tracking control !!
I can't remember another program on my system which chooses to completely ignore mouse tracking control........OPERA IS A FUCKING WIERD ECLECTIC PROGRAM !!
Anyhow, you are right, Opera v9 does allow URL drag-drop to desktop.
You know, all these years of using it I never noticed this phenomenon !!
(Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Tuesday July 28 2015, @08:27AM
Just upgraded my portable instance to test the new privacy features; canvas.poisondata set to true. Same addons as usual; ghostery, adblock latitude, requestpolicy, self-destructing cookies, flashblock, betterprivacy.
Panopticlick [eff.org]
Browser Leaks [browserleaks.com]
Results are unique but non-persistent; it seems to generate a random fingerprint each time I visit. Nice work Moonchild et al.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:46PM
can anyone explain the Canvas fingerprinting thing?
(When you set about:config canvas.poisondata true
any data read back from canvas surfaces will have "humanly-imperceptible" data changes.
default off because performance impact on routines reading this data)
But I suppose I have to read up about canvas use first.
(Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:08PM
Was just reading up on canvas myself - I'd read about fingerpriting some years back but never really figured out how it worked. This is all just from half an hours worth of reading bits so if there are any people with better knowledge please feel free to correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvas_fingerprinting [wikipedia.org]
Here's me paraphrasing how it works as I understand it - HTML5 canvas is a new-fangled HTML doohickey that allows drawing/rendering of geometry elements - something that apparently varies (minutely) depending on how it's drawn (e.g. things like the GPU and driver version will alter how objects are drawn on a system with GPU acceleration enabled, etc - e.g. nvidia GPUs will draw differently to intel which will draw differently to CPU-only for instance). Apparently there's enough variation there to add quite a few more bits of information to other fingerprinting techniques (cookies, LSO cookies, DOM storage etc). A hash can then be taken of that element (the browserleak example uses canvas to render a small PNG and shows you the SHA256 hash of it). It seems what PM is doing is artificially introducing its own, pseudo-random, bits of variation in these draw routines to ensure that the canvas-drawn elements are minutely different each time they're rendered. I suspect it's not on by default because, for things like maybe browser games or somesuch, generating all those random imperfections might add up to a large amount of CPU time - which is already at a premium in a single-threaded browser.
From the link above https://www.browserleaks.com/canvas, [browserleaks.com] with canvas.poisondata set back to false, browser detection started working again (it couldn't previously determine I was running PM via canvas alone) there are apparently 24 other people using the same configuration as me (I don't have HW acceleration turned on in this instance).
I really need to learn to tone down my use of brackets...
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Tuesday July 28 2015, @09:59AM
Is there a repository for Debian derivative OSs?
Downloading an installer is so 1990s.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:57PM
there is a ppa https://launchpad.net/~marian.kadanka/+archive/ubuntu/palemoon [launchpad.net]
but it only have version 25.3.1
should I wait until it gets 25.6 or try find another one?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @10:01AM
the download link:
https://linux.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org] gives cloud flare error.
i'd like to download via httpSSSS pls ..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @10:07AM
idiot! that's why the SHA is there.
nevermind that the dns look-up resolves to a nsa server that looks and feels exactly like the
pale moon website, and has its own pale moon version with the (for-it) correct SHA number : )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:13PM
For an older computer with AMD Athlon/800MHz and winXP sp2 would this one
http://www.romanstefko.com/pale-moon-sse/ [romanstefko.com]
be the version to get?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @12:52AM
Pretty much exactly what I've wanted to replace firefox with.
Transitioning is a bit difficult... while it offers to import from chrome, it's ironically difficult to migrate everything from firefox.
Theme support also seems a bit problematic, it doesn't offer a very good or large selection of its own and you have to go to rather old versions of firefox themes for compatibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:34PM
If you are not into add-ons or are happy with very few add-ons. Thanks to becoming a fork and not following the release train of Mozilla anymore sadly almost all recent Australis add-ons are 100% not compatible with the browser.
But if one is only interested in a sane browsing experience which has not forced UI customization features out of the browser, Pale Moon is god sent. No Chat, no DRM, no Pocket, no Chrome UI clone madness.