How long will Pale Moon support Windows 7 for?

[Bryn89]

This is something I've been meaning to ask about... given that it's almost five years since Microsoft ended support for Windows 7, and almost two when the ESU stuff came to an end (Extended Support Updates). As someone who still uses Windows 7, how much longer will Pale Moon support it?

I ask because, from what I found out, Pale Moon ended support for XP in 2016, two years after Microsoft pulled the plug on that.

Just curious, that's all.

[Moonchild]

Short answer: as long as we feasibly can.

Longer answer: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and 11 are pretty much based on the same generation of NT kernel, and offering very similar core functionality. There are some differences that need special consideration, but in broad strokes software that runs on Win 7 will also run on Win 11 without having to compromise.
Windows XP was a different story. NT5 is simply a different beast.
So it depends in general on if our toolchain used to build the browser continues to be able to reasonably target Windows 7 or not, and whether libraries we depend on become problematic. So far we've not seen major issues in those areas but things may change. We'll do our best to extend Windows 7 support as long as we can and there are currently no plans to discontinue Win 7 support.

[Bryn89]

Okay... you've cleared that up well. Thanks

[martinw2]

I was wondering the same about W7 as I prefer it to all the later editions. However, the last few months I have noticed a big drop in the number of sites I can use, or PM is incredibly slow, forcing me to switch to firefox against my better judgement. Was wondering if this is due to the numbers of websites that are now only geared to smartphones or W11, chrome, etc. Clearly something is going on with the web developer geeks constantly inventing lousy scripts for their customers leaving pale moon to constantly play catch up.
Martin

[frostknight]

I was wondering the same about W7 as I prefer it to all the later editions. However, the last few months I have noticed a big drop in the number of sites I can use, or PM is incredibly slow, forcing me to switch to firefox against my better judgement. Was wondering if this is due to the numbers of websites that are now only geared to smartphones or W11, chrome, etc. Clearly something is going on with the web developer geeks constantly inventing lousy scripts for their customers leaving pale moon to constantly play catch up.
Martin

If you don't use ublock origin, I recommend you do so.

Ads slow things down to a crawl.

Although, I suppose, it could be an outdated hardware issue. Windows 7 is unsupported by microsoft, so it might have some problems perhaps for that reason.

Its a shame too.

[UCyborg]

Pale Moon is difficult to use on modern web unless you manage to stick to select few websites exclusively that still work OK. That's not going to change unless either the web or the browser changes radically. And since MCP is dead set on keeping the core design as-is, most you'll get out of this forum is gaslighting, despite the obvious fact that the browser is unable to cope with many web sites and performance issues being pointed out over and over again.

None of the web browsers available today vibe with me to be honest.

[Moonchild]

Pale Moon is difficult to use on modern web unless you manage to stick to select few websites exclusively that still work OK.

That's just not true!
I use Pale Moon myself for 95+% of all my web needs without any (or only minor/non-breaking) issues.

And since MCP is dead set on keeping the core design as-is, most you'll get out of this forum is gaslighting

Wow. Did you have a bad New Year's or something?
If there was an option to develop the core more rapidly while preserving XUL and broad, powerful extension compatibility, I wouldn't think twice about going for it. But that simply isn't the reality. Even if I'd do something drastic to "decouple" UI from content and let that be rendered by Blink or what not, it would fundamentally break extension use.

The fact that your particular use of the web runs into more issues doesn't mean that the community is "gaslighting" by expressing a different (genuine) experience. It's fine to draw your own conclusions, but please don't imply people are being untruthful on purpose.

[tellu-white]

Moonchild wrote :
I use Pale Moon myself for 95+% of all my web needs without any (or only minor/non-breaking) issues.

This statement is also true in my case.

Moonchild wrote :
If there was an option to develop the core more rapidly while preserving XUL and broad, powerful extension compatibility, I wouldn't think twice about going for it. But that simply isn't the reality.

I've been a Pale Moon user since 2017. The reason I dropped Firefox was their decision to abandon XUL and (thus) the powerful add-ons that relied on it. So, thank you Moonchild for Pale Moon, the web browser "I use for 95+% of all my web needs".

[Shadow]

Ain't taking sides, but one thought is is MC using low spec or high spec machine? Assume it's very likely high end range, so shouldn't he be using a cheapy low spec alt from time to time to check it out for those in that situation. Using high spec has to mask things that are there, no?

As for the websites mix, would estimate for me about 70-30 in favor of it being fine. Definitely hitting a snag or multiple daily. It can be stress inducing at times but I put up with it for the sake of the greater good or something like that. Makes you have to engage and think. I've weirdly come to somewhat appreciate the learning experience that comes with that.

[moonbat]

You can look at the system requirements for yourself to see that they are extremely frugal by today's standards. Anyone who can't even match what is listed here under recommended, let alone minimum, needs to donate their rig to a computing museum. So there's no 'low end' vs 'high end' to be compared here.

Aside from that it is fairly obvious how bloated modern websites and Chrome's memory hogging is a meme in itself. So no surprise websites designed solely for it would also perform sluggishly if you have RAM less than that of a flagship smartphone from a dozen years ago, let alone a PC.

[tellu-white]

Shadow wrote :
Ain't taking sides, but one thought is is MC using low spec or high spec machine? Assume it's very likely high end range, so shouldn't he be using a cheapy low spec alt from time to time to check it out for those in that situation. Using high spec has to mask things that are there, no?

I use an old PC with Windows 7 SP1 32-bit and 3GB of RAM. I will have to replace it eventually (right now I have other priorities), but so far I am using it without significant problems. It's true that I have heavily customized Windows removing all unnecessary features and that when I use Pale Moon I don't use other applications that use a lot of RAM.

So, I'll answer your question myself: "I use Pale Moon for 95+% of all my web needs without any (or only minor/non-breaking) issues". However, I have to mention that when I open the pages that I visit daily, I use some add-ons (created by me) that remove (or modify) sections of their code and so they load fast.

[andyprough]

I use some add-ons (created by me) that remove (or modify) sections of their code and so they load fast.

You should share some descriptions of some of your homemade addons. Sounds intriguing.

I've also found that a lot of the code that pages try to load is completely unnecessary. For me the Pale Moon ηMatrix addon is a really good one for weeding out the useless stuff.

[tellu-white]

andyprough wrote :
You should share some descriptions of some of your homemade addons.

There are several pages that I visit every day. For each of them I use a unique add-on. I coded these add-ons after analyzing how each page works. In these add-ons I use "XMLHttpRequest" (and modify the code I get) or/and "WebRequest" (to block specific URLs). In addition, I use the add-on "Intercept & Modify HTTP Response", when needed.

Most of these pages are in Romanian language, so my add-ons are not useful for the vast majority of Pale Moon users.

[frostknight]

That's just not true!
I use Pale Moon myself for 95+% of all my web needs without any (or only minor/non-breaking) issues.

Same. The only real problems are when I run into specific useragent sniffers.

Some websites alas, need to stop doing this.

But due to greed will not.

But it is what it is, eh?

[moonbat]

But due to greed will not.

What greed, it's not like other browsers are bribing them to do it. Incompetent coding is what it is, using a UA instead of proper feature support detection.

[suzyne]

I guess there could be a discussion about whether using a framework is the sign of a programmer competence, but I don't think it is likely that website developers are personally inserting checks for user agents or similar.

Wouldn't such code be part of the JavaScript framework that they have been asked to use by their employer or the person who's paying? I don't really think the current state is about greed or incompetence, but more simply about fashion and trends in what's considered the most cool or productive library to use.

[moonbat]

I guess there could be a discussion about whether using a framework is the sign of a programmer competence

Unless it's their own personal site, in most cases it isn't even up to them. Corporate IT plays it safe and sticks to what everyone else is doing without upgrading, consider that there were IE6 only sites even in the 2010s.
The trouble is when the frameworks themselves are Google or Facebook created (Angular/React for eg) and they have a vested interest to push every draft trinket that gets shoved into Chrome, thus making sites that use them not work reliably on anything else.

[UCyborg]

It's just that it seems almost every time I steer away from the few websites I usually visit, which are mostly forums, I encounter problems, either they don't display, are poorly responsive and if I'm lucky, they make the browser stuck in perpetual cycle where it hits 100% CPU core usage at regular intervals and have to be restarted.

Recently I even came across a website that cannot be viewed in any browser on my favorite computer because of hard dependency on WASM SIMD. My smartphone with quad-core Cortex-A7 clocked at 1,2 GHz needs cca. 70 seconds to open with Chromium 119. It literally doesn't do anything more than what websites have always being doing, some information, pictures and a form to submit data.

I'm sick of IT in general. Yeah, depression also hits harder during holidays.

[UCyborg]

Well I'm still on Pale Moon most of the time, not sure about %, probably at least 4/5. Lots of poor web sites out there, which is frustrating.

[frostknight]

What greed, it's not like other browsers are bribing them to do it. Incompetent coding is what it is, using a UA instead of proper feature support detection.

Actually, on further inspection of what was just posted, I take it back, its not greed. It is laziness.

people just want to do the job quickly no matter how half-assed it is.

Then again, javascript was a half-assed idea for a programming language to use for the web... so there's that.