Pale Moon: Technical DetailsSo, you want more details about the browser? I'll be more than happy toexplain:
Features/disabledfeaturesThis browser aims to strike a balance between features andspeed/resource use. Assuch, a choice has been made to consciously disable a few featuresfound in other browsers that are not commonly used by the largest groupof users. If you require any of the disabled features, then themain-line build of Pale Moon is not for you! You may find a suitableversion on the third partycontributedbuilds page instead.
The Pale Moon browser has, among other things, the following features:
- Optimized for current processors.This browserwill not run on museum-grade systems.
- Increased stability: experience fewer crashes.
- Support for JPEG-XL, the next-generation image format, aswell as the commonly-used web formats (JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF).
We do not support AVIF as it falls technically short in all importantareas.
- Support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Canvasdrawing.
- Compatibility with many Legacy Firefox Extensions (add-ons)although we do not provide support for them unless actively supportedin our community.
- Offering low-level API access to extension developers totruly extend browser features.
- Support for Personas ("lightweight" themes).
- Support for Complete Themes.
- CSS Downloadable Font support.
- Extended HTML5, CSS3 and advanced DOM support.
- Full and ongoing support for NPAPI plugins (Java,Flash, Silverlight, etc.)
- Speedy scripting and page rendering.
- Superior gradients and fonts.
- Optimized, secure networking. We explicitly try to avoidless secure or questionable networking features like 0-RTT and QUIC.
- Graphical tab switching with quick-search (user-selectable).
- More customization options for navigation controls and thetab strip than other modern browsers.
- Enhanced security indicators (padlock/styling/domain/IDNdisplay).
- More options for recovery (safe mode/recovery dialog withvariousrepair options).
The following features have beendisabled or removedby design:
- Support for specific accessibilityhardware. Mostpeople don't have a need for specialized accessibility features forcustom input or display devices. This cuts down on the inputcomplexity and internal processing of input and display, but will,obviously, not be suitablefor people who need these features. The browser does support moregeneric accessibility concepts like caret browsing and high-contrastsupport, and its UI design attempts to follow WCAG guidelines.
- Parental controls. Pale Moon aimsto be a fast browser for general use, not a "secured family browser".The design impact of operating system integrated parental controls asintroduced in Mozilla code is significant, and has had seriousimplications for building the browser. As such, parental controls havebeen disabled. Extensions-based parental controls are, of course, ajust-as viable alternative (and may in many cases work better!).
- WebRTC. Apart from opening up awhole can of worms security/privacy-wise, "Web Real Time Chat"(comparable with Skype video calls and the likes) is not considereduseful or desired functionality for Pale Moon (both according to thedevelopers and the users of the browser at large). This is best left todedicated programs or at most a browser plug-in.
- Maintenance service. Pale Moondoes not use a Windows maintenance service and does not update silentlyin the background.
- Integrated PDF reader. You arealways recommended to use a separate, up-to-date document reader forPDF files (as an external program, not as a browser plugin) for yourown security, and to have documents displayed in their fully intendedformat instead of a stripped-down display in an in-browser reader.
- In-browser DRM.Digital Rights Management using "black box" content-decryption modulesto serve a self-imposed DRM-encumbered media market that punishes thewrong parties has no place in Pale Moon. If you wish to use such media,you can use plugins with DRM features like Microsoft Silverlight.
SupportedprocessorsThe Pale Moon browser is specifically optimized for relatively-recentprocessors and uses instructions exclusively available in more modernprocessors. This means it will not run on PCs that are particularly oldby today's standards, and is likely to display errors or refuse tostart on systems with unsupported or poorly supported CPUs. Even if youmeet the minimum CPU requirements for the browser, you should notexpect wonders from your hardware if it is dated. Modern web browsersare very much alike full-fledged 3D games in the resources andprocessing power/graphics power they require.
Requirements for the regular Pale Moon browser are, in short:a CPU with AVX support. This support has beenpresent in all mainstream CPUs in the last decade. The only exceptionfor official binaries is the 32-bit version we are still building forWindows, which will support much older CPUs.
If your CPU does notsupport the required instruction set, your choice will be to use eithera buildfrom source for your specific system, use 32-bit (on Windows), upgradeyour CPU to something more modern, or switch to a different browser.While you mayalso choose to use the last SSE2 version (33.2.1), it is notrecommended to dothis long-term due to security concerns of using an outdated browser.Our community alsoprovidesspecific SSE2 builds if none of these options are to your liking,but keep in mind these community builds are not as thoroughly tested asour official distributions.
Howdifferent is this browser from Mozilla products?While Pale Moon has its ancestral roots inMozilla Firefox, it should beconsidered a "true fork" and a totally independent product.
- PaleMoon is based on a derivative of the Gecko rendering engine (Goanna)and builds on a hard fork of the Mozilla code (mozilla-central) calledUXP, a XUL-focused application platform that provides the underpinningsof severalXUL applications including Pale Moon.This means that the core rendering functions for Pale Moon differfrom Firefox(and other browsers) and websites may display slightly different inthis browser.
- PaleMoon may behave differently when certain advancedconfiguration preferences are changed. Never assume that what appliesto Firefox also applies to Pale Moon; in many cases it does not.
Notethat "internetspeed boosters" and general "tweak guides" written for Firefox canactuallyharm Pale Moon's speed as theconfiguration defaults are made with in-depth knowledge of the browserback-end and "a higher number" or "bigger buffer" isn't always better.You are strongly advised to always use defaults assupplied in Pale Moon. - Changes were made to the user interface and feature set, toincorporate functionality and visual elements in different locationsthan what waschosen by the Mozilla team, as well asretaining orre-introducing useful elements that were removed in Firefox, andeither removing or disabling (by default) components that would not beused by the average user. In addition, some other user interfacechanges were made to provide an as consistent and intuitive interfaceas possible while still staying close to what Firefox's goals havealways been.This means the "Australis" or "Photon"interfaceswill never be used in Pale Moon.
- Pale Moon offers more configurability for features, likeadditional tab preferences, preferences for image loading or tabpositions, additional security preferences, and full control oversmooth scrolling, to name a few.
- Pale Moon uses a different "Sync" client and its own serverto synchronize data between different instances of the browser. This isnot compatible with Firefox Sync as used in Firefox 29 or later.Mozilla's change to "Firefox Accounts" is a different and less secureapproach to synchronizing data and focuses more on future commercialendeavours and services of the Mozilla Corporation and, after carefulconsideration,has been rejected for use in Pale Moon (for quite the list of reasons,to be fair).
How PaleMoon has been testedPale Moon builds are tested for stability before being released byhaving it used for day-to-day browsing by a number of communitymembers. Of course,specific functional changes are always tested when they are implementedduring development. Pale Moon does not rely on CI systems or rigidautomated testing methodologies.
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