After some thorough deliberation and getting feedback from some regular users about the intended shift of focus, a decision was made to discontinue further development and publication of the Pale Moon browser for Android.
Some of the reasons behind this decision:
- Although using Gecko as a rendering back-end, the application itself is a completely separate program (Fennec) and written in an odd-one-out language that needs language skills we don't have enough in-house expertise in: java.
- Android as a platform is both complex to support and rapidly evolving, and maintaining compatibility with the full range (especially 5.0/Lollipop) is beyond the manpower available in our community. If you look at, for example, bug #1030897 - the full Mozilla/mobile team has trouble keeping up with that, not something we can ever hope to match.
- Mozilla's focus on the mobile platform would have them much more in their element than Pale Moon. And it's considered the better choice not to continue to have an "almost-acceptable" browser app on that platform that would have to just hobble along trying to keep up, instead of an actual good product with a clear, defined presence and direction.
- The application will not be updated further with release publications. This means that the currently published version is the last one to be officially built for that platform. of course adventurous, tech-savvy users may still use the source code to build Pale Moon for Android from a later version of the browser, but it is not guaranteed to build or result in an acceptable app because the mobile branch will not be maintained further.
- For people wanting to switch to a different browser like Firefox, please be aware that Pale Moon Sync is a Weave 1.1 implementation and is not compatible with e.g. Firefox Accounts. You will therefore lose your ability to use Sync your tablet/phone with your desktop Pale Moon installation, unless someone can revive and maintain the Sync browser extension implementing this functionality.