Which version is right for me?

[Moonchild]

This topic is no longer applicable, since the Next Generation version is now the recommended version for everyone, and the legacy version is no longer supported. The topic is saved for archival purposes only.

Since Pale Moon comes in 2 different releases, there may be some confusion as to which version is right/recommended for you.

It is recommended for anyone not having special reasons for running the 3.6 browser to move to the Next Generation one. Pale Moon 3.6.x support will end soon.
With the maturation of the code in later versions of the underlying Mozilla code, there is no pressing reason to keep using version 3.6.x if there are no specific reasons for your situation to do so, and websites will move to using more advanced HTML5 which may not be supported anymore in the older versions or perform particularly poorly.

Recommendations for the version to run in specific scenarios, where "Legacy" is the 3.6.x version and "Next Gen" is the current (latest) version:

• If you have an old system like an Athlon XP or Pentium-III that only supports SSE and not SSE2: Legacy (required for these systems)
• If you run Windows 2000: Legacy (later versions up to and including version 8 may run but are not officially supported, version 9 and later will not run, period). Consider upgrading your operating system!
• If you run Windows XP and have a Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 or later and average or better computer resources: Next Gen
• If you run Windows XP and have a Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 or later but are particularly extremely low on free RAM: Legacy
  (Ver. 3.6 inherently uses much less memory because of the different back-end used). Only use this if it is otherwise crippling! You may also want to consider a different browser than Pale Moon in this case (a "light weight" browser) that is designed specifically to use as few resources as possible.
• If you run the browser in a virtual machine (VMWare, Virtualbox, etc.) or other virtual/emulated environment (e.g. Wine): Next Gen
• If you have particularly poorly supported graphics hardware (low-end embedded graphics, very old graphics card): Next Gen
  (You probably have to disable hardware acceleration in options -> advanced -> general)
• If you run Windows Vista: Next Gen
• If you run Windows 7: Next Gen

Important note: If you install 3.6.x and you have Firefox 4 or later already installed on your system, do not use the profile migration tool! Firefox profiles of v4 and later are not backwards compatible with older versions.