Workaround To Websites Not Working Properly In PM 25

[11ryanc]

With the update to Pale Moon v. 25 comes a new GUID system along with the drop in Firefox identification in it's User Agent. As much as I was exited to see PM try and disembark completely from it's sibling, many webmasters are very browser biased for smaller, independent projects such as Pale Moon. Essentially if the browser User Agent string does not fall under some of the big name others such as, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Malware Magnet.. uh IE , or Google Chrome, you face a risk of either being taken to broken versions of the website, prompted with false upgrade messages, or even blocked from accessing it all together in the worst case scenario.
The head developer has plans of reinstating the Firefox compatibility layer in the upcoming update to resolve this, however in the mean time for those that need a fix now follow these instructions :
*In the url bar, enter "about:config" without quotes. From there search for "general.useragent.compatMode.firefox". Locate where the value is set to false, and simply just double click on it to change it to "true". Also if websites still give you false warnings to update your browser, you may also override site specific User Agent settings to identify itself as a later build of Firefox. To do so, again open about:config and this time create a new string. It should look something like this:

general.useragent.override.domainname.com

Now as a value enter in the User Agent of a newer build of Firefox, for example: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0

That should resolve the issue of website compatibility issues in the mean time. However note this will NOT resolve issues with incompatible or broken extensions. Efforts are being made to create static releases of troublesome addons, but so far there are very few available, hence why I don't like to rely on too many addons. Learned my lesson with that using Firefox over the years with it's unneeded and unnecessary updates always popping up, only developers where very eager to provide fixes since such vast majority used Firefox..... With such little userbase compared to larger browsers, getting the attention from these authors is far harder to accomplish.
Hope this comes to use for those facing issues, fight for your browser choice freedom!

[alisadm217]

THANK YOU!! that "google image" search issue was about to drive me back to Firefox! glad i looked to see if there was a workaround first!

[Night Wing]

An easier way is to install the User Agent Overrider add-on. For Windows, choose a setting and for my Windows 7 setup for Pale Moon, I chose Windows Firefox 29.

This will help with sites like Google and once you leave the Google site(s) just disable it using toolbar button.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... er/?src=ss

And when 25.0.2 is released, this add-on won't be needed anymore.

[11ryanc]

An easier way is to install the User Agent Overrider add-on. For Windows, choose a setting and for my Windows 7 setup for Pale Moon, I chose Windows Firefox 29.

This will help with sites like Google and once you leave the Google site(s) just disable it using toolbar button.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... er/?src=ss

And when 25.0.2 is released, this add-on won't be needed anymore.

Used it before, was having issues with PM 25. Nothing too vital. I like leaving User Agent alone when possible, because there still are those few websites that correctly identify Pale Moon. DuckDuckGo being one of them. For the average user though, would make sense using something like that I guess.

[11ryanc]

THANK YOU!! that "google image" search issue was about to drive me back to Firefox! glad i looked to see if there was a workaround first!

No problem, glad this worked Personally I don't use Google at all anymore, much less headaches now that I don't have to deal with their constant "dress up" UI changes and tracking. DuckDuckGo & Bing here.

[Night Wing]

For the average user though, would make sense using something like that I guess.

The average user is sometimes harder to describe general terms. In other words, the average user just might be a non technical user that really feels uncomfortable if he has to use "about:config" to make the changes you want him/her to make. A few years back, I was like that. Not everyone who uses Pale Moon is a power user.

The good thing about this add-on, just click the toolbar button for it and it changes the user agent. Clicking the toolbar button again disables the add-on and it reverts back to identifying Pale Moon to websites.

As I stated before. In using 25.0.1, I only use this add-on for the Google sites. Once I leave the Google sites, I disable this add-on and surf the internet. Those websites which don't block me or give me an "outdated browser" prompt see my browser as Pale Moon (25.0.1).

[Moonchild]

TBH, I'm not entirely sure in what way this thread offers different info than the FAQ entry I created specifically for this purpose?
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6004

Also, for the "average user" in this context, Pale Moon 25.0.2 will have a handy checkbox to switch Firefox compatibility on or off globally with one click. So, User Agent Switching Extensions will not be needed then if you just want to spoof Firefox globally.

[11ryanc]

TBH, I'm not entirely sure in what way this thread offers different info than the FAQ entry I created specifically for this purpose?
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6004

Also, for the "average user" in this context, Pale Moon 25.0.2 will have a handy checkbox to switch Firefox compatibility on or off globally with one click. So, User Agent Switching Extensions will not be needed then if you just want to spoof Firefox globally.

I never noticed that thread, otherwise I wouldn't have started this one..
Sorry for the mix up guys. I'll remove if requested.

[Moonchild]

It's all right Thanks for taking the time to write this up!

[gi_jimbo]

...
Also, for the "average user" in this context, Pale Moon 25.0.2 will have a handy checkbox to switch Firefox compatibility on or off globally with one click. So, User Agent Switching Extensions will not be needed then if you just want to spoof Firefox globally.

Was it just me or is that box checked by default when updating to 25.0.2?

[Supernova]

Yes it is checked by default.

[BarryT]

I am not sure if I'm on the correct thread or not ...
I have latest PM (25.3.2) and have no troubles with any site except one, which gives me this response.

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to http://www.budgetdirect.com.au. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). (Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

Firefox, IE. etc. all access this site OK, but not my version of PM.
Is there any workaround for this problem?
Thanks

[trava90]

Please read the FAQ, point 2.

[BarryT]

Please read the FAQ, point 2.

Thanks trava90.
After reading that, I have decided to keep Firefox alive just for when I need to go to the offending website, rather than make PM vulnerable for general browsing.

[x-15a2]

Huh? It's OK to visit a non-secure site with one browser and not another? it not the browser that's vulnerable, it's your account security.

[LimboSlam]

Hello, some of what I mite say may be a little off topic so excuse me if it is.

I have visited my Facebook page plenty of times but never new why Facebook classified Pale Moon as Opera (after clearing browsing data). So I just decided to look in "about:config" and searched for general.useragent.override and I found this: Opera/9.80 (Pale Moon). Is that right, why is Pale Moon set to identify it as Opera, why not Pale Moon and then Firefox compatibility at the end?? I've also turned off the "Firefox compatibility made" so It's seen as Pale Moon and for those incompatible sites I use: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:25.3) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0 PaleMoon/25.3.2, or should I use: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:33.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0" so it's fully recognized as Firefox or does it not matter?

Anyways, the whole reason for what I said up top was because I wanted know if this is what I should use for my bank, Preference Name: general.useragent.override.mapscu.com and Value: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:25.3) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0 PaleMoon/25.3.2 or: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:33.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0 (Pale Moon). They both work, so does it really matter how I put it as long as it says: Firefox/33.0?

[squarefractal]

Facebook classified Pale Moon as Opera (after clearing browsing data). So I just decided to look in "about:config" and searched for general.useragent.override and I found this: Opera/9.80 (Pale Moon). Is that right, why is Pale Moon set to identify it as Opera, why not Pale Moon and then Firefox compatibility at the end?

Because some people have faced problems with backspace keys not working properly with any Firefox UA on PM, and it turns out that the Opera UA is the only thing that works.

[Moonchild]

Some sites are very strict in their UA checking and require an exact match with an official Firefox build to work. Others just check if Firefox is mentioned "somewhere".
Others (like FaceBook) require a different UA string altogether because all of their Firefox code is not working for us (The Opera string there is used to get as many features as possible without hitting broken code. Without it, certain other features are disabled as well).

Of course I'd prefer not to need this BS at all, but that's not the internet we have today.