Will Pale Moon ever build on top of Firefox 29+?

[Starchild]

I am just asking this, because updates are inevitable, but people may have doubts using Pale Moon as a browser if it keeps on reporting the user agent (and thusly, its build version) as 28.0. Plans to at least integrate Fx29's security fixes into the stock Fx28 source, and compiling as Fx29 / PM25?

[megaman]

2 things you will want to note.
1. Compatibility - That is the question, but there is a solution for the temporary. Like Yahoo! recently stated that their mail will only work for the latest 2 versions of every browser, the big 3(Firefox is one of those big 3), due to security reasons. (Yahoo! Mail will be reverted to the Basic version on older versions, though, so no loss functionality)
2. Performance - Each browser upgrade will bring more performance enhancements, this I have no knowledge about. Palemoon already has great performance as it is.

The security fixes that come in Firefox 29 also come in Firefox 24ESR, so Moonchild implements those in Palemoon 24.

[satrow]

Plans to at least integrate Fx29's security fixes... ?

Any relevant security fixes are already back ported and applied to Pale Moon.

[Starchild]

The security fixes that come in Firefox 29 also come in Firefox 24ESR, so Moonchild implements those in Palemoon 24.

Is Pale Moon's versioning in parity with Firefox ESR, then?

[megaman]

Is Pale Moon's versioning in parity with Firefox ESR, then?

Palemoon 24 is based on Firefox 24 ESR.
Latest Firefox is 24.5, and Palemoon is? Yup, 24.5, too.

[Night Wing]

2 things you will want to note.
1. Compatibility - That is the question, but there is a solution for the temporary. Like Yahoo! recently stated that their mail will only work for the latest 2 versions of every browser, the big 3(Firefox is one of those big 3), due to security reasons. (Yahoo! Mail will be reverted to the Basic version on older versions, though, so no loss functionality)

Off-topic:
If Yahoo Mail is doing the above, then I would "kick my Yahoo Mail email account to the curb....in the blink of any eye". Since I have five email accounts, I wouldn't miss my Yahoo email account.

In other words, I wouldn't let Yahoo (and it's CEO Marissa Mayer) tell me what browser I'm going to use.

[megaman]

If Yahoo Mail is doing the above, then I would "kick my Yahoo Mail email account to the curb....in the blink of any eye". Since I have five email accounts, I wouldn't miss my Yahoo email account.

In other words, I wouldn't let Yahoo (and it's CEO Marissa Mayer) tell me what browser I'm going to use.

Off-topic:
By all means, their methods involve security. Now, of course I am going to try an message them over the version 24 but they rather have the latest versions running due to the latest security fixes, than old ones and get blamed for security issues that users come across. (Yes, yes, the latest Firefox 24 also get the latest security fixes, that we know. It should be included along with the 2 latest versions.)
Either way, users like you or me don't need to bother/worry. You only get reverted to the older version(Basic Mail) anyways. This is another site I would request Moonchild to add to the Compatibility List.

[dark_moon]

Sure, but PaleMoon will use the next ESR (31) version of Firefox.
So we have enough time to remove australis.

[Moonchild]

Sure, but PaleMoon will use the next ESR (31) version of Firefox.
So we have enough time to remove australis.

That remains to be seen.

I'm more likely to make a hybrid when that time comes, and use the Gecko31 back-end for security, under-the-hood features, supported standards and rendering improvements, but at the same time use the v24 front-end, because it's kind of silly that I would need to throw away years of front-end work to fine-tune and polish the UI, just to have to do it all again and then some by reverting all this Australis insanity.

Compatibility: This means it will no longer have any sort of parity with Firefox. I will be using my own version numbers from then on, as well. I'll have to redesign the way add-ons are handled and think about how to supply compatibility with Firefox add-ons (next to Pale Moon specific ones in the future) but it will likely remain at Firefox24 compatibility level for add-ons that don't indicate a specific Pale Moon version in the install.rdf.

User Agent: I will be dropping the Firefox/nn.nn compatibility flag at that time as well. I'm tired of having to deal with increasing issues with nagging sites because they still use UA sniffing. It's bad, mmkay? Don't do it. No, I'm serious, just don't. If you are a webmaster, you should write standards compliant code these days. The era of "a different page coding for every browser under the sun" is behind us. Even MSIE is catching up in that respect and conceded that gecko does it better.

[Sajadi]

That does sound much more complex as just simply removing Australis. You really believe that could work out? Or in other words... is there really a chance to have an Australis free browser without using classic theme restorer?

Because combining a different back-end and front-end i am sure of that leads to even more trouble as simply backing out Australis. If that alone leads to some bad bugs, i see no way how combining different fronts and backs would be more easier to solve.

[Moonchild]

There is no such thing as "simply removing Australis". Australis is not just a theme anymore (like it started out as) and builds on a thoroughly stripped-down base. Without that base, you can't restore the previous feature set. Even at a casual glance, people are seeing that CTR doesn't do what it claims because it is limited in what it can do on that base. hence the "even with classic theme restorer it doesn't work the way I want it to" remarks.

I said it before: the Mozilla code base is fairly modular. It's not a "classic" application in that it has a framework and an app part. You have the xulrunner (the core library) and any front-end is XUL/JS code built on top of that.
"Simply backing out" Australis is what Holly did. Backing out each Australis-specific patch as it landed and based on the knowledge present at Mozilla about which bugs were specific to Australis. Since Holly stopped being developed in Mozilla's "infinite wisdom", there is no in-progress code base with Australis patches backed out anymore. There is no record anymore of which bugs are Australis-specific and which are not, as a result. So, come FF31, it will be a blob of unspecified patches with no record; not even mentioning the locked sec bugs you don't have access to. Even then, Holly was already stripped of many useful features, so it wouldn't do as-is.

Yes, making a hybrid is more complex, but properly detaching the UI is a lot more doable than trying to muddle through thousands file changes to try and find which ones need backing out and which ones don't. I think it's the only way forward for Pale Moon, since building on top of Australis' stripped UI is just not proper, not efficient, and would remove a lot of value.

[Ryrynz]

Sounds sensible. Looking forward to keeping tabs on the GIT repo and seeing what I assume will be FF31 under the hood when the time comes.
Using ESRs going forward probably makes a lot of sense too. Guess there's a bit of a job ahead, an interesting time for Pale Moon with possibly more tweaks and changes setting it even more apart from Firefox.
I would almost at that stage consider a name change for the browser, but it's your baby at the end of the day.

[opera1215b1748]

I wonder what will happen to add-on writers in few years time?
If many add-ons will not be usable on cromofox (with or without the CTR), will they (add-on authors) keep working for users with older FF versions - or simply quit the thing and forget it?

Yes, MC says add-ons will work with future versions of PM, but will there be add-ons to use? Apart from some stale versions of add-ons?

MC, maybe when muddle settles, will you think on bringing in some functionality natively that is currently provided by add-ons?
There are some things every FF/PM user has installed, maybe there will be a time to make them browser-native?

[vayth]

My guess is brand new add-ons and new version of the old add-ons will only target Australis, or something that work with CTR. Like Add to Search Bar for example, which will install ver.2.0 on PM and 2.2 on FF29. Although that one doesn't really have many changes apart from compatibility and localization update..

[Moonchild]

Although that one doesn't really have many changes apart from compatibility and localization update..

... which is the case for just about all add-ons that have compatibility issues with the old UI.

[olino]

I know that everybody dislikes australis shait, even me, but I was trying out ff 30 and nightly x64(with more addons as on PM, because i needed to get rid off that look) and i have to say its (seems to be) faster, even its not optimized like PM. It starts faster, it eats less ram, its more snappier....

Would be someone able to compile ff30 with pm tweaks when we have the source codes?

[LimboSlam]

So If Pale Moon is based off Firefox 24 esr, is that why some addons are still not available for it? Will this ever be fixed? Also some websites say I need to upgrade to the latest version of Firefox. I thought Pale Moon was no longer associated with Firefox, am I wrong???

[Supernova]

So If Pale Moon is based off Firefox 24 esr, is that why some addons are still not available for it?

Some addons developper set the minimal version on addons.mozilla to the latest stable version, this do not mean that the addon necessarily don't work. A few one still are really not compatible, but not more than aren't compatible with Australis.

Also some websites say I need to upgrade to the latest version of Firefox. I thought Pale Moon was no longer associated with Firefox, am I wrong???

The default User Agent string contains "Firefox/24.0" as well as "Pale Moon/24.6.2". This is because a few bad designed websites : 1)a)By laziness check you have the last version of your browser to avoid checking if your browser can run properly this or that HTML5/CSS3/whatever feature ; b)Maybe think it's their job to be sure you are on the last version 2)Obviously check only the big 3/4 browsers and will display an ever bigger warning if you use anything they don't recognize
Including the Firefox string also avoid addons.mozilla to say you that you can't use its addons (but here it's a more legitimate use of the UA string).
This don't mean that Pale Moon follow Firefox developpement direction or that it is tied to Mozilla.

[Moonchild]

Would be someone able to compile ff30 with pm tweaks when we have the source codes?

How much good does a snappier start if the experience after that is abysmal?

So If Pale Moon is based off Firefox 24 esr, is that why some addons are still not available for it? Will this ever be fixed? Also some websites say I need to upgrade to the latest version of Firefox. I thought Pale Moon was no longer associated with Firefox, am I wrong???

Don't mistake the fact that addons.mozilla.org only caters to their latest version of their product for "add-ons not being available". In fact, requests have been made for the addons site to be updated so the latest compatible version of add-ons is offered instead of the (incorrect!) message that the add-on is not available. If that reflects poorly on Pale Moon, then that just strengthens Mozilla, so I doubt it will be addressed.

Websites that annoy are invariably using the bad practice of UA sniffing. Pale Moon does indicate it is Firefox Compatible (you can switch that off with general.useragent.compatMode.firefox) and this is on by default for the time being, because switching it off tends to have worse result with Pale Moon not being as widely known yet as to impact the global webmaster community - many sites will throw a mobile-focused website at you in that case, or (even worse) fall back to (incompatible) "old MSIE" code. Feel free to flip the switch though - it may not be so bad anymore today. Some site may even completely refuse to serve you. Sad, but true. So, the compatibility flag is still enabled by default for now to provide as little interruption for the majority of users as possible. Just because it's in the UA string doesn't mean it "is" Firefox. By that reasoning everything out there now "is" Mozilla - even MSIE - because they all have "Mozilla/5.0" in their UA
As a result of limited scripts seeing the "Firefox/xx.xx" in the UserAgent (instead of actually testing browser capabilities like they should), they assume you are using "Firefox 24.0" which is, of course, old - even despite the fact that ESR is still actively updated each cycle. It will take evangelism to the website owners to have them stop using UA sniffing scripts. But, Plenty of other threads on this and other fora about this - not wanting to repeat myself.

As an aside, the next version will properly re-introduce the use of the minor version number that Mozilla for whatever reason decided to drop (making everything .0) so that should help alleviate some confusion in scripts, if they are decent enough to actually examine the UA in more detail.

[Supernova]

As an aside, the next version will properly re-introduce the use of the minor version number that Mozilla for whatever reason decided to drop (making everything .0) so that should help alleviate some confusion in scripts, if they are decent enough to actually examine the UA in more detail.

I doubt most script will do, if they cared enough they wouldn't use that UA sniffing design in the first place.
About the disappearance of the minor version number, I see one advantage to it : it fights fingerprinting. Don't know if it as anything to do with their rationale however, the fact that rapid release stopped the use of minor version for everything but ESR is a more probable cause. With PaleMoon indicating its minor version however, it makes sense to indicate it for the firefox as well - it won't change entropy of the UA.