Pale Moon is an open-source, Mozilla-based web browser that can be used as an alternative to the most popular Internet browsers. It has a very attractive and useful startup page, with shortcuts to the most commonly used websites. Those shortcuts are sorted out by categories. For example, the social media category includes shortcuts to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and so on, while the E-mail category shows shortcuts to Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and others. This is a very convenient feature, and you can customize each category to include those sites most visited for you, or delete those that you don't use.
You can further customize the browser by adding extensions and add-ons. Although the program has many add-ons of its own, those of Firefox are also compatible with it, so if you can't find an add-on that suits your needs at the Pale Moon site, you can search it at Firefox's.
An advantage is that, unlike MS Edge and Chrome, this browser is compatible with Java, since there are many websites that still use this platform. Also, the program's default search engine is DuckDuckGo, a less-known engine whose advantage is that it does not track your searches.
To sum up, it is a good browser that can be used as an alternative to Firefox, Chrome, Explorer and other common programs. You may want to try it.
v25.4 [May 8, 2015]
25.4.1 (2015-05-10)
This is a small but important update to the previous major release to address some critical issues:
Fixed loss of the browser's disk cache on startup due to incorrect corruption detection logic
Fixed a browser crash on some HTML5 games
25.4.0 (2015-05-08)
IMPORTANT: If you use a language pack, make sure to update it to the latest version! We do have automatic updates enabled for language packs but please double-check that the version matches. If you are using an older language pack with this version of the browser, some dialog boxes may come up blank.
This is a major update - too much has changed for this little blurb to do it justice so please see below for the most important changes/fixes in this release:
Fixes/changes:
Updated SQLite from 3.7.17 to v3.8.8.3, improving history/bookmark/etc. performance by up to 50% depending on operation
Added a new "mixed-mode" state for HTTPS connections. Clarified mixed-mode connections with a mixed-mode padlock and better tooltips.
Added a conditional partial shading to the URL bar and made it default (shading only on secure sites, no red shading at all by default).
Dev: Fixed file system mode flags for *nix systems, to make executable files like scripts actually flagged as executable
Added native IPv6 lookups to NSPR to solve IPv6-only and dual-stack setups in some situations
Added a pref to control the unloading of idle plugins from memory and lowered the default "idle" time to 60 seconds before plugins are unloaded
Fixed version strings for e.g. flash on Linux being displayed with commas instead of periods - this should also fix the incorrect "your plugin is vulnerable" message while being on the latest version
Windows: Set the double-click/Ctrl arrow word selection to not eat the space (only select the actual word)
Android: DNS fix for VPN connections, preventing the "server not found" issues people have been reporting for certain VPN providers on mobile
Updated a number of trusted root certificates, and distrusted the CNNIC root certificate by popular demand
Linux: Worked around the slice memory allocator not being properly disabled on later GLib versions
Android: updated the random number generator handling on later versions of Android
Added fix to prevent spurious re-paints with plugins (performance/UX improvement)
Removed the plugin check link from the Addons Manager, since it's no longer reliable and not officially available for browsers except Mozilla Firefox. (Bonus: no user profiling/tracking through optimizely!)
Optimized the NSS callback for secure connections
Updated the domains that are whitelisted for installation of extensions/themes/personas, streamlining the use of addons.palemoon.org
Added personas support to titlebar text (adopt the lightweight theme's coloring/shading) in custom titlebar mode (Pale Moon appmenu/button)
Added display of HTTPS protocol (SSL/TLS) to the page info window (thanks Travis!)
Improved certificate display: Removed MD5 and added SHA256 fingerprint, and made them selectable/copyable
Updated classification of secure connections: Classify any encryption with less than 128 bits or including RC4 (if manually enabled, see previous version notes) as weak.
Dev: Added availability of the full ciphersuite string for use in extensions to the nsISSLStatus interface (nsISSLStatus.cipherSuite)
Added MAKE_UNLINKABLE to the about: page redirector and added that as default for the reader mode on Android
Removed the compilation and inclusion of a one-time-use pre-compiled startup cache in omni.ja, reducing overall application size significantly and avoiding a number of quirks of both the build process and the operation of the browser
Fixed an NVIDIA specific GLX server vendor bug for pixmap depth and fbConfig depth
Removed most telemetry code, reducing code complexity and wasted CPU
Linux: Added OSS support (mutually exclusive with ALSA): configure with --enable-oss
Made DNS caching a lot less aggressive to align the browser's behavior with the dynamic nature of the modern web.
Removed Mozilla-specific parameters for searches. Search suggestions should now work again for Google searches
Added the option to allow users to use a fixed (JSON) file-based geolocation response in favor of a GeoIP service.
Dev: Improvements to Clang builds (thanks Axiomatic/BitVapor!). Clang is not currently producing stable builds on Linux, so please use GCC for that operating system.
Linux: removed GnomeVFS that's no longer in use
Fixed the "double padlock while loading a secure site" niggle in the UI
Dev: added allowance of using -moz-appearance:none on drop-down lists to hide the arrow button (catering to custom styling of the control)
Added some more ES6 math/number functions:
Implemented Math.fround(x)
Implemented Number.isSafeInteger(x)
Implemented Math.clz32(x)
