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from the left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing dept.
Mozilla has sent mixed signals about the future of the Firefox Web browser:
The head of Mozilla's Firefox browser is looking to the future. And, for the moment at least, it seems to lie in rival Chrome. Senior VP Mark Mayo caused a storm by revealing that the Firefox team is working on a next-generation browser that will run on the same technology as Google's Chrome browser.
"Let's jump right in and say yes, the rumors are true, we're working on browser prototypes that look and feel almost nothing like the current Firefox," Mayo wrote in a blog post. "The premise for these experiments couldn't be simpler: what we need a browser to do for us – both on PCs and mobile devices – has changed a lot since Firefox 1.0, and we're long overdue for some fresh approaches."
The biggest surprise, however, was that the project, named Tofino, will not use Firefox's core technology – Gecko – but will instead plumb for Electron, which is built on the technology behind Google's rival Chrome browser, called Chromium.
However, Mayo updated his post to say that "I should have been clearer that Project Tofino is wholly focused on UX explorations and not the technology platform. We are working with the Platform team on technology platform futures too, and we're excited about the Gecko and Servo-based futures being discussed!" Mozilla's CTO also reaffirmed the company's commitment to the Gecko rendering engine:
Just two days after Mayo broke ranks, Mozilla's CTO jumped up and announced another new project – this one called Positron (geddit?) – which will take the Electron API and "wrap it around Gecko." Or, in other words, make it possible to take Mayo's new, better browser and pull it off Chromium and back into the safe hands of Gecko. And so the status quo seeks to reassert itself.
Also at CNET.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 13 2016, @07:59AM
If I wanted to use Chrome, I'd know where to get it.
However if I want to use Firefox, I'm no longer sure where to get it, as Mozilla currently is working hard on making Firefox into a browser that's Firefox only in name.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Funny) by MadTinfoilHatter on Wednesday April 13 2016, @08:29AM
if I want to use Firefox, I'm no longer sure where to get it
Here you go. [mozilla.org] After this they sadly slowly went crazy...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @09:01AM
I think he means http://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday April 13 2016, @09:35AM
Palemoon, FTW!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @01:16PM
And finally a repository for LinuxMint/Ubuntu to use:
deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/stevenpusser/xUbuntu_14.04/ [opensuse.org]
(at https://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home%3Astevenpusser&package=palemoon [opensuse.org]
linked from https://www.palemoon.org/contributed-builds.shtml [palemoon.org] "Pale Moon repositories for Debian and Ubuntu by Steve Pusser")
Any idea why they didn't just put it at a normal PPA?
(Score: 1) by WillR on Wednesday April 13 2016, @02:10PM
Debian doesn't speak PPA
(Score: 1) by Kawumpa on Wednesday April 13 2016, @03:37PM
Debian doesn't speak PPA
Debian doesn't need to "speak PPA", whatever that is supposed to mean. True, add-apt-repository isn't available on Debian, but since both systems work with apt, adding a repo is conveniently similar and described here: https://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home:stevenpusser&package=palemoon [opensuse.org]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday April 14 2016, @04:57AM
Note that the second link you're pointing to is actually an OpenSUSE user repository, so users of that distro are covered as well.
For the rest of the Linux kingdom, according to linux.palemoon.org [palemoon.org]:
Installation, uninstallation and upgrades are normally managed with the Pale Moon for Linux installer [palemoon.org]. However, you can also download Pale Moon for Linux as a bzipped tarball [palemoon.org] that can be extracted and run from anywhere. There is also a special build [palemoon.org] available that is specifically optimized to run on Intel Atom processors.
Additionally, Pale Moon is included in and can be installed directly from the default repositories of the following distros:
Manjaro (both the standard build and Atom builds)
PCLinuxOS
Puppy Linux "Tahrpup"
MEPIS/MX-15
Arch User Repository (AUR) (both standard and Atom builds)
Gentoo Overlays
Slackbuilds
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @10:56PM
Palemoon is not a suitable browser for anyone, because it is proprietary software.
From their license[1]:
No rights are given to copy, modify or create derivative works of this software.
That means that Debian/Ubuntu couldn't even put Palemoon in their proprietary sections, because the license prohibits copying.
[1] http://www.palemoon.org/freeware-license.shtml [palemoon.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2016, @01:20AM
as you can see there, that doesn't apply to the web browser (which is the part we are interested in...),
"note that this license does not apply to the Pale Moon browser, but to other specific (helper) applications released by Moonchild Productions. For licensing of the browser, please see the MPL (for the source) and redistribution license (for binary (re)distribution)"
MPL is the same open source that firefox use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License [wikipedia.org]
Looks like the special freeware license thing is for an firefox extension "Pale Moon Commander", a "Pale Moon profile migration tool" and a "Flash Protected Mode tool" just small tools for changing settings... nothing you or I would use :-)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @09:22AM
Seamonkey + noscript is another option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @12:35PM
But under the hood it has most or all of the problems of firefox now. Like all the crap you have to disable to even begin having a secure browsing experience (JS viewer, disabling telemetry, etc.)
While it still beats chrome, it is also much slower on security updates since they only tend to put out major reivions of seamonkey now (no esrs, meaning you get all the broken new crap every release too!)