How long will Pale Moon support Windows 7 for?

[frostknight]

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.

I only on rare occasions use any other web browser. The one I usually pick otherwise is badwolf. Its a linux/BSD web browser only as far as I know.

Mostly palemoon does the job though. Beyond maybe certain websites where videos sound wrong and other user agent sniffers that I haven't gotten solutions for due to not asking.

[UCyborg]

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.

I think Chromium and Firefox devs would disagree on similarity between NT 6.x and NT 10.0.

So how about dropping NT 6.x and have it work better on NT 10.x? That oughtta be controversial around these parts! I do seem to remember when I was still using Win 8.1 and 7 occasionally, I would notice Basilisk (not sure if I was also using Pale Moon then) sometimes bugging out when it came to tabs, like a tab would visually disappear, but you could still switch to it. I never got this glitch on 10.

Windows XP was a different story. NT5 is simply a different beast.

Off-topic:
On somewhat unrelated note, I noticed the author of music player AIMP made it work on Windows XP again. I don't follow their forums much, but I distinctly remember him being convinced in the past it's a pointless endeavor. It's fascinating in a way, no other OS got that kind of following.

[Moonchild]

I think Chromium and Firefox devs would disagree on similarity between NT 6.x and NT 10.0.

They can disagree all they want, but the kernel is similar enough that the earlier version of Win 10 still had a 6.x kernel version identifier at Microsoft. it was only after it became a running joke that they decided to just update it to match the public-facing Windows version (hence skipping 7-9 in their versioning). That's saying a lot.

So how about dropping NT 6.x and have it work better on NT 10.x?

You'd be hard-pressed to find parts of "10.x" on the Win API side that make a significant difference for how a browser operates. I'm sure if you search long and hard you can find some, but in the big picture it'd not be significant.

Overall not sure if you're being tongue-in-cheek or what with the rest of your post...

[suzyne]

After repeated recommendations by @Massacre for Supermium, I tried it. Somehow, it can plug the gaps between the latest version of Chromium to allow the Supermium browser to work on earlier versions of Windows. Now, I don't actually use an old computer with Windows 7 (although there is an old laptop with it in the cupboard that might still work?), so I am only taking it on faith that it works fine on those computers, but I see Supermium as evidence that Pale Moon can support Windows 7 for a very long time?

[andyprough]

After repeated recommendations by @Massacre for Supermium, I tried it. Somehow, it can plug the gaps between the latest version of Chromium to allow the Supermium browser to work on earlier versions of Windows. Now, I don't actually use an old computer with Windows 7 (although there is an old laptop with it in the cupboard that might still work?), so I am only taking it on faith that it works fine on those computers, but I see Supermium as evidence that Pale Moon can support Windows 7 for a very long time?

Good, let some other community deal with all those ancient versions of Windows. Always seemed to me that this was an entirely artificial problem that fans of ancient Windows were trying to shove off onto Pale Moon, whereas Pale Moon development should be constantly looking forward and not backward.

[opus_27]

If memory serves, the devs have committed to supporting Windows 7 as long as doing so is not unreasonably burdensome.

It is my earnest hope that they will stand by this commitment.

[andyprough]

If memory serves, the devs have committed to supporting Windows 7 as long as doing so is not unreasonably burdensome.

It is my earnest hope that they will stand by this commitment.

True. I was referring to the people who have been trying to drag Pale Moon back into Windows XP support for many years. It's really a terribly unfair burden to put on a project that does not want to live in the past.

[Moonchild]

As stated multiple times before, current Windows versions (from Win 7 SP1 forward) all sort of fall into the same "family" and there are currently no indications that there will be anything breaking compatibility with the earlier members of that family of OS versions because of the vast similarities. I don't have a crystal ball though, and things might change in the future. I'll do my best to retain compatibility as long as possible with what we have now. Note that that doesn't mean "at all costs".

[frostknight]

Good, let some other community deal with all those ancient versions of Windows.

Off-topic:
Ancient versions of windows you say... When I think "Ancient" I think windows 95/98 or windows 3.0 and older.

But yes, it isn't feasible to work on windows xp, vista, 7, 8, 10 and 11 all at the same time.

Although I still find windows 10 and 11 to be especially ugly and not just UI wise. But I understand not everyone is hit by the forced upgrades happening at bad times. In any case, spyware is still spyware.

Microsoft is a member of prism like Google... so there's that

As stated multiple times before, current Windows versions (from Win 7 SP1 forward) all sort of fall into the same "family" and there are currently no indications that there will be anything breaking compatibility with the earlier members of that family of OS versions because of the vast similarities.

That is fascinating in a way. How similar is windows vista to 7 btw? I am curious. Because the UI of both looks very similar.

[Moonchild]

That is fascinating in a way. How similar is windows vista to 7 btw? I am curious.

Vista is considerably different as it was released at a half-way point between XP and 7 in terms of kernel work. There are a ton of under the hood differences there, which is why we can't reasonably support it.

[andyprough]

Ancient versions of windows you say... When I think "Ancient" I think windows 95/98 or windows 3.0 and older.

But yes, it isn't feasible to work on windows xp, vista, 7, 8, 10 and 11 all at the same time.

When I was reading the Supermium github page I saw that it was focused on Windows XP, Vista, 2003, and later, and that they are working on supporting Windows 2000. Those all seem pretty old and abandoned at this point, and their users have very few options in terms of web browsers for the modern web. In order to go back to Windows 95, 98, 3.1, the only project that I know of that will allow modern web browsing is to set up a Browservice instance, which is a proxy server on your LAN that allows you to view web pages on much older OS's which will usually have very limited CPU and memory resources.

[UCyborg]

Looks like UXP on Vista / XP will live as long as roytam1 remains among the living. From user's perspective, I'd say it's approximately as good as support for Linux from official offerings, both have shitty WebGL performance and non-existent support for hardware-accelerated video decoding. XP struggles with some fonts' display if site goes too much outside of web safe font territory.

As for running the forks on modern Windows...well who can tell the difference between an app that uses SRW locks, GetTickCount64 and an app that uses critical sections, GetTickCount and whatever other differences under the hood? Though Ideally, it's probably the best to prefer best available methods available on certain OS.

Interestingly, Serpent also comes with early implementation of web extension support. Back in late 2023, I got KeePassXC-Browser working with some limitations, for filling passwords from KeePass (using KeePassNatMsg plugin), including One-Time Passcodes (no Pale Moon compatible extension can do the latter bit). Still works today.



Original KeePass uses recent version of Inno Setup installer (which supports Windows 7+), but the application itself, based around .NET Framework, is quite scalable, it took many years before it broke on Windows 98 to the point of crashing on launch.

[frostknight]

Vista is considerably different as it was released at a half-way point between XP and 7 in terms of kernel work. There are a ton of under the hood differences there, which is why we can't reasonably support it.

That makes sense, but thank you for enlightening me.

I really didn't care whether you did or didn't, actually, vista looks like trash anyhow. Not that 7 and beyond don't look bad too, but it is often interesting to know why people support A vs supporting B.

Just was interesting to know your reasoning to put it bluntly.

[CodeLurker]

IMHO Win7 is the oldest M$ OS that still matters. Perhaps starting with Win8, they began helping themselves to our private data, forcing updates on us, and adding bloatware. I'm still using Win7; and haven't had malware in years; not on my machine, nor three others in the house that I maintain. I use UB Origin, Hostsman and Sandboxie to filter out malware. I don't fool myself to think I'm unhackable, but then who targets Win7 these days? (Most Linuces have package managers that still suffer from dependency hell, no matter what it's proponents say; and that's just the start. Try installing yer app on another drive!) I suppose a Win11 Lite or Win11 privacy options sort of thing might make me change my mind - perh. if I connect it thru PiHole, and can be sure the flood of private data has really been stopped.

WinXP is just very crashy vs. Win7. When an app crashes, it can easily take the hole OS down with XP. That is very, very rare with Win7. I strongly recommend that upgrade. Win7 isn't good for gaming with recent games, and might not be good for some other applications; but there's not much that I need to do, that I can't do on it.