Pale Moon forumDiscussion forum for the Pale Moon web browser2024-03-26T12:09:21https://forum.palemoon.org/app.php/feed/forum/12024-03-26T12:09:212024-03-26T12:09:21https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=31001&p=250302#p250302Details can be found in the release notes!
]]>2024-03-23T17:51:382024-03-23T17:51:38https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30961&p=250171#p250171
]]>2024-03-18T13:24:362024-03-18T13:24:36https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30971&p=249944#p249944 This follows a lengthy discussion about the impact of this and a baseline poll on the forum to decide on how best to approach this issue. The gist of it is that our processor and build optimizations have fallen behind what current hardware supports, and we're leaving a lot of performance on the table as a result. This seriously holds back the browser's potential and lies at the root of some of the slowness users have been experiencing when dealing with very heavy "modern" websites.
What changes will be made to the system requirements?
Our requirements for 32-bit Windows will remain unchanged.
For 64-bit on x86 hardware, we will move from a minimum requirement of a CPU with SSE2 support, to one that supports at least the AVX instruction set. In Intel terms, this means x86_64 v2 + AVX. Any desktop Intel CPU released after approximately 2011 (Intel Sandy Bridge or later), and any desktop AMD CPU released after approximately 2013 (AMD Bulldozer or later) should support AVX. Some users have indicated that particularly low-power mobile CPUs have lagged behind in their support for AVX a little (Some 10W Celerons, for example) so if you are running a particularly low-end CPU or laptop, you may want to double-check. If you are unsure, you can use e.g. CPU-Z on Windows to see what your CPU supports. Linux and other operating systems may have tools available inside the distribution itself to query CPU capabilities; please check your documentation (or community fora) if you need help. For some alternative operating systems that would normally run on much older hardware (e.g. Solaris/Illumos), we may continue using an SSE2 baseline. Please check your maintainers' information if this is the case or not. It is expected that all our main distribution channels follow this requirement change, though, i.e. Windows, binary Linux from our website, and package distributions for major Linux distributions (Debian/Ubuntu/etc.)
What do I do if my CPU is too old?
You will have the option to (on Windows) switch to the 32-bit version of Pale Moon. Simply uninstalling the 64-bit version and installing the 32-bit version will be all you need to do, and you will continue to receive automatic updates from that point on. We currently do not have plans to continue releasing SSE2 64-bit official binaries but if there is enough demand for it, I may consider adding it as a courtesy build for a while (which would require manual updating). On Linux, things may be a bit less transparent, but please check if your distro is planning to make less optimized community builds available when we are further along. Of course the recommended course of action (if you are able to) will be to upgrade your hardware to something a bit newer than 10+ years old. Ageing hardware will not last forever, so you may be doing yourself multiple favours at once. There is a large second-hand market for PCs which will allow you to pick up capable hardware for very little money in most countries. We do, however, understand that this may not be an option for everyone.
Why are you doing this? Isn't Pale Moon supposed to be aimed at older hardware/operating systems?
We are doing this to get back to one of the core principles of Pale Moon: to provide an optimized, efficient alternative browser. The notion that Pale Moon would be specifically aimed at retro hardware is incorrect. While better efficiency has had as a side effect that it was less of a heavyweight in terms of resource use, it was never specifically aimed at old or more limited hardware use; in fact, Pale Moon has been ahead of the curve requiring SSE2 way before any of the mainstream browsers did so (we uncompromisingly required it back in 2009 when we got our start). Our current situation is no different, and as one of our core community members remarked, "switching to AVX would be kinda like returning back to our roots".
While we understand a small (probably vocal) minority might make their upset known, we simply can't make the rather niche use of our browser on retro hardware be detrimental to the vast majority of our user base. We will try to retain alternative builds for those users as long as feasible (either directly or through the freedom of community builds), however, we have to respond to the constantly evolving web which unfortunately requires more powerful hardware and optimized software for a good user experience.
]]>2024-03-16T10:16:392024-03-16T10:16:39https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30961&p=249913#p249913They have also added an old version of Firefox to their test suite now, which might help for prevention of future breakage, although they are still of the conviction that Goanna/UXP is equal to an old and unmaintained version of Firefox apparently by doing that.
Another attempt has been made to explain they can't act as gatekeepers of the Internet this way, and that Pale Moon/Goanna is modern, maintained, and not "based on an old version of Firefox". It boggles the mind how even supposed technology giants don't understand the simple concept of a fork...
]]>2024-03-13T16:39:402024-03-13T16:39:40https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30961&p=249826#p249826Unfortunately CloudFlare is widely used on many different websites and as a result is impacting our entire user base in many respects, ranging from logins (even on their own dashboard) to partner sites to even basic websites without any highly sensitive information that would need shielding, but of whom the webmasters have chosen CloudFlare to increase their hosting security.
I have contacted CloudFlare immediately when this issue started and I was made aware of it (last Monday) and an urgent priority ticket was opened after a chat with a tech support rep. This ticket was not treated with urgency by CloudFlare, and in fact it was ghost-closed (i.e. silently and suppressing the notification e-mails normally associated with it) with a form reply that did not even address the issue I was indicating. I re-opened it but has still not been handled with the necessary priority which is why I am making this announcement here to inform more users of what to expect and where the issue lies. In addition to my own efforts as project owner, our users have also opened a community issue thread at CloudFlare which has gone unanswered thus far.
Of note, this isn't the first time something like this happened (it's been a kind-of annual thing twice before) and this gatekeeping by CloudFlare of the internet needs to stop. This is literally killing usability of our browser with no fault of our own.
I'm hoping the right people pay attention now so this can get solved. I'm afraid this may escalate into something ugly, and I hope to avoid that.
In the meantime, unfortunately, the only workaround is to use one of the mainstream browsers or a chrome clone.
]]>2024-02-27T12:15:222024-02-27T12:15:22https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30896&p=248946#p248946 Details about this version can be found in the release notes.
]]>2024-01-30T11:07:152024-01-30T11:07:15https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30803&p=248017#p248017 This is a new development milestone release with many changes, fixes and improvements. For details please check the release notes on our website.
]]>2024-01-02T11:55:242024-01-02T11:55:24https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30733&p=247289#p247289 I'd also like to express my thanks to everyone who answered the request for help last month; your contributions big and small have made a big difference in the sustainability of the project, securing funds for web hosting, getting a new SSL certificate, putting funds towards various services so we can continue to provide them to all Pale Moon users and sister project developers, and more... Thank you so much for your support!
]]>2023-12-22T14:06:162023-12-22T14:06:16https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30695&p=246931#p246931 As usual you can find all the details about this release in the release notes on the Pale Moon website.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all the best wishes for the New Year!
A reminder for the people on the FreeBSD beta: our binaries require FreeBSD v13 or later. v12 is no longer supported.
]]>2023-12-09T14:41:012023-12-09T14:41:01https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=30655&p=246502#p246502Unfortunately there has been a pretty sharp downward trend in what DuckDuckGo's search partnership provides to the project, so now more than ever, we rely heavily on your generous contributions and donations.
If you find Pale Moon in any way useful, please consider one or more of the following options to help out:
Setting your search engine to the included DuckDuckGo and disabling your ad blocker on the DuckDuckGo domain (so they can show sponsored results).
Doing so will go a long way to make sure we can stay afloat and independent! In addition, I would still like to pay rent and eat
Of course everyone who has already contributed or donated has my most sincere thanks and above all, please don't feel obligated to send any money you may not have spare to use freely. Give only if you can and when you can.
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