Pale Moon 11.0.1 released

[Moonchild]

Pale Moon 11.0.1 has been released!

Release notes:

A small maintenance release to address a few annoyances in the original new release of v11.0:

• Tone down the rather too aggressive network settings that were introduced in Firefox 11:
  1. Maximum concurrent connections opened by Pale Moon lowered to 48 (was 256) to make sure it doesn't easily saturate the networking layer of Windows, to prevent residential NAT gateways from being overloaded and to lower strain on wireless networks
  2. Maximum concurrent connections to a single server lowered to 6 (was 15). In tandem with pipelining this is still plenty, and it actually promotes the proper intended use of pipelining
• Fix the installer to properly check for the minimum required operating system version: Windows XP for both x86 and x64 versions
• Switch off OpenGL as preferred engine for WebGL again to fix compatibility problems
• Switch off DirectWrite font rendering again to fix compatibility issues with certain graphics cards
• Properly implement the removal/blocking of status bar add-ons when upgrading/installing

In addition, Pale Moon 11 will:

• Save open session information less often (once a minute)
• No longer store form data and other entered information in the browser session store when pages are viewed over SSL, to increase security - the data entered in secure pages is no longer committed to disk.

[dallas7]

Once again, a hearty "Thank You!" for all your efforts toward and devotion to Pale Moon development. I moved my portable v9 profiles to v11 painlessly and without issue on my XPx86 and Win7x64 systems.

In looking at the release notes for 11.0.1, I'm wondering if I need to go through that process again...

I see where those max connect metrics could be a problem and I've lowered them within about:config.

Status bar add-ons are not a concern in my environment nor are the OS checks.

1) Since I have not yet experienced any OpenGL or DirectWrite problems I would prefer to let them be. Are there any Web sites I could visit to assess those issues on my systems? Or otherwise, how would one test to those ends? (This is a matter of interest and curiosity for me as well - and others, I'm sure. Not because I'm too lazy to move to 11.0.1. )

2) For "In addition, Pale Moon 11 will..." Am I correct in your meaning that those two bullet points are already addressed in 11.0?

Cheers!

[Moonchild]

In looking at the release notes for 11.0.1, I'm wondering if I need to go through that process again...

It should be rather painless - you can actually use the internal updater for your portable version in that case.
(help -> about -- button check for updates)

1) Since I have not yet experienced any OpenGL or DirectWrite problems I would prefer to let them be. Are there any Web sites I could visit to assess those issues on my systems? Or otherwise, how would one test to those ends? (This is a matter of interest and curiosity for me as well - and others, I'm sure. Not because I'm too lazy to move to 11.0.1. )

If it already works well for you, then it really makes little difference. DirectWrite problems you'd notice quickly enough, it would fail to render text on pages or render them incorrectly.
As for WebGL, you can check that with e.g. Googlecode Aquarium http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/aquarium/aquarium.html
If you have things missing there, you may have a problem. Most modern graphics cards with up-to-date drivers should do fine enough using OpenGL though (and probably significantly faster on some cards.

2) For "In addition, Pale Moon 11 will..." Am I correct in your meaning that those two bullet points are already addressed in 11.0?

Yes this was already addressed in version 11.0, it's valid for any version 11.x -- it just failed to make the release notes but is worth mentioning, IMHO

[dallas7]

Googlecode Aquarium http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/a ... arium.html

OMG. That is wicked! Locked up my tower box big-time (Intel E8400, on-board G35 graphics). I humbly went to 11.0.1.

On my Win7 laptop, no lockup but all I get is on big expanse of grey - no aquarium or anything. That's an i5-2430, Intel HD 3000 graphics.

Yes, I know... Integrated graphics. Intel integrated graphics. Enough said.

Thanks for the quick reply and details. Keep up the great work.

[Moonchild]

Intel HD and other integrated Intel graphics (like Extreme or whatever fancy names they have these days) tend to be very touchy and not very well implemented (in their drivers). The Firefox code base and blocklist already makes specific checks on Intel and disables certain features. OpenGL seems to be a big problem for these chips/drivers.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't use dedicated graphics, and Intel graphics seem to be popular in lower end laptops which are used a hell of a lot, which is why this point release was pushed out this quickly - it's a showstopper for people upgrading from 9.2.

[bekam]

So, with these corrections and improvements, PaleMoon solves problems with system restarts or blue screens?

[Moonchild]

It certainly should, on some systems^*.

It should be noted as well that blue screens or system restarts usually mean that you have a bad hardware driver on your system. Update your drivers to the latest version, or if all else fails disable Pale Moon's hardware acceleration in options -> advanced -> tab general
Pale Moon may trigger such blue screens or restarts, but since it runs as a regular application, not as a system application, it would not cause this behavior itself and always something at a lower level would be the actual culprit. It would cause a fault in a poorly programmed driver, which in turn would cause a fault in Windows, making it halt.


*these systems would be systems with poor graphics drivers that break on trying to use OpenGL for graphics.

[link68759]

I think I found the directwrite tweak in about config, but how would one enable openGL for systems that would benefit from it?

[Moonchild]

I think I found the directwrite tweak in about config, but how would one enable openGL for systems that would benefit from it?

A few parameters, use at your own peril:

webgl.prefer-native-gl -> true
layers.prefer-opengl -> true

Especially the latter is only something you want to use on mid-high range dedicated graphics cards with proper support of OpenGL in the drivers that specifically benefit from it. I suggest only trying it on NVidia cards, I've had performance issues on ATI with the layers one.

[niteshade]

No longer store form data and other entered information in the browser session store when pages are viewed over SSL, to increase security - the data entered in secure pages is no longer committed to disk.

Is there a way to override this behavior?

[Moonchild]

No longer store form data and other entered information in the browser session store when pages are viewed over SSL, to increase security - the data entered in secure pages is no longer committed to disk.

Is there a way to override this behavior?

Yes! Type about:config in your address bar and press enter.
In the configuration editor that opens up, find the following parameter: browser.sessionstore.privacy_level
Set this parameter to the value 0 (zero)

[niteshade]

Yes! Type about:config in your address bar and press enter.
In the configuration editor that opens up, find the following parameter: browser.sessionstore.privacy_level
Set this parameter to the value 0 (zero)

Thank you! This is why I love Palemoon and appreciate your work. Donation sent.

[BadAttitude]

First of all I want to say "Thank You" for all the work put into Pale Moon! Excellent job! As usual I jumped over here to see what the update was about and after reading the previous comments I decided to see if there were any display driver updates for my laptop. I thought for sure my drivers were up to date and as it turns out there are NVIDIA drivers that were released March 13th. I ran the google aquarium before and after installing the new driver and what a huge difference the new driver made with webgl.prefer-native-gl -> true. Before the update, in the google aquarium I saw 13 fps w/50 fish and after the driver update am now getting 40 fps w'50 fish. With the webgl preference set to false I see mostly 64 fps w/50 fish and up to 78 fps for a second or two. Point here I'm trying to make is check for driver updates! And I'm wondering what are the advantages of using OpenGL if I see better frames per second with the preference disabled? Once again....Thank you!