I may have to let Pale Moon for Android go. :(

[New Tobin Paradigm]

That's sad to hear. I had a good run with Pale Moon. It was a really good browser.

We hope you are sticking with the desktop.

[NFiorentini]

On the Pale Moon for Android board, on two occasions, I have volunteered to help with the Android product, and I never got a response.

Can this decision to discontinue Pale Moon for Android be rescinded in lieu of a call for volunteers? I don't know how many people would be required to keep the project going, but perhaps MoonChild, et al., could pick a number that they believe is sufficient, and if the number of volunteers exceeds these goals, can the project be allowed to live?

I believe that having a presence on the Android OS is extremely important; Android is not going anywhere, and will only increase its proportion of OS users. The line between mobile and ... ummm ... less mobile ... may completely evaporate within the next couple of years. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this distinction will be rendered moot in a span of time shorter than the number of years many of us have been loyal Pale Moon users.

Furthermore, the role of the web browser itself is also evolving, as everyone here can attest. One of the more interesting directions: Browsers running apps:

ARC [Android Runtime for Chrome OS] apps can run in the Chrome Web browser, as it is one of the development tools. So far, Google has emphasized ARC for Chrome OS, possibly as part of building up a catalog of ARC-enabled apps. But it would seem bizarre for Google to limit ARC to Chrome OS over the long term if it can also be used with the “desktop” Chrome browser.

https://commonsware.com/blog/

Personally, I would love to run my Android apps on my Windows desktop, especially if it induced fewer nightmares than Blue Stacks.

If the problem of supporting Pale Moon is manpower limitations, then let's get more manpower!

PS: I LIKE Java.

[hundone]

That's sad to hear. I had a good run with Pale Moon. It was a really good browser.

We hope you are sticking with the desktop.

I really like PM, but syncing passwords and tabs between my devices is a very important feature for me. So, sadly no. But I dont know of any alternative as good as Pale Moon. So I really dont know what to do.

[Moonchild]

Can this decision to discontinue Pale Moon for Android be rescinded in lieu of a call for volunteers? I don't know how many people would be required to keep the project going, but perhaps MoonChild, et al., could pick a number that they believe is sufficient, and if the number of volunteers exceeds these goals, can the project be allowed to live?

It's not so much a question of "how many people can be rallied" as it is a matter of what those people bring with them. Offering to help is appreciated, of course, but "starting to learn Android programming" is not exactly a good base to offer the maintenance of a full-fledged Android web browser. Liking java I'd say is a prerequisite but so is bringing some technical knowledge of the Android OS, bionic, different APIs for different versions, etc. etc. Do you think you have that kind of knowledge? Can you talk C/C++ with me as well to keep a link with the back-end and using the C/C++ libraries to facilitate an Android app calling into a custom *nix binary? We are not just talking front-end/SDK stuff here. Please have a look at what is in /mobile/android in the source tree, as well as other-licenses/android, widget/android and mozglue/android, let us know if you would be comfortable tackling something like that.

I'm certainly open to keeping this part of Pale Moon alive, but it will need a dedicated group of people to work through the issues with it, something our current contributors simply don't have and I personally simply can't keep muddling through - I just don't know enough about Fennec to tackle the more complex problems on KitKat and Lollipop, and I do have a limit of how much active knowledge I can have in my brain at any one time
How large this group of people needs to be depends on the knowledge level of those people.

PS: the lines between "mobile" and "stationary" may not be as hard-set, but the lines between operating systems are, and will remain so. Pale Moon, for example, would run fine as a desktop application on a linux-based mobile device or on a Windows tablet. But Android is a completely different story - it's a different app.

[rstefko]

That's a pity. I like and use the Android application on daily bases. Hope someone will come up with the Sync 1.1 addon.

[tz2026]

There were two things I used PM4A. The first I found a quick substitute - view page source (mainly for embedded MP3s to download them).

The main thing I find useful is the weave password/tab/history/bookmark sync. If I had a sync manager I could use the other browsers.

[BoFiS]

This is INCREDIBLY sad since I only use Pale Moon for Android on my phone, and of course also on my desktop (and at work). The synching of bookmarks is the primary concern, though tab synching is nice too. It will be extremely upsetting to give it up and I feel like I'll keep using the current Android version until there's really a reason to switch since I'm so committed to Pale Moon on the desktop that having all of my bookmarks on my phone, automatically synced, is something I do not wish to give up on. Was it really that much developer time to maintain the app, which itself was just a fork of Firefox for Android? Both the desktop and mobile versions have improved greatly since I gave up on Firefox entirely and I hope that perhaps there's some way to keep the Android app going...

[squarefractal]

Was it really that much developer time to maintain the app, which itself was just a fork of Firefox for Android?

If a person don't have good knowledge about another language, it becomes very difficult to maintain the codebase. "Moonchild Productions", I would assume, has no one who's proficient in the language, and that's why...

Maybe Moonchild can look for a new maintainer through social media?

(However, for some reason, I believe that this decision was accelerated due to some non-working commits in the Code_cleanup branch.)

[NFiorentini]

t's not so much a question of "how many people can be rallied" as it is a matter of what those people bring with them. Offering to help is appreciated, of course, but "starting to learn Android programming" is not exactly a good base to offer the maintenance of a full-fledged Android web browser. Liking java I'd say is a prerequisite but so is bringing some technical knowledge of the Android OS, bionic, different APIs for different versions, etc. etc. Do you think you have that kind of knowledge? Can you talk C/C++ with me as well to keep a link with the back-end and using the C/C++ libraries to facilitate an Android app calling into a custom *nix binary? We are not just talking front-end/SDK stuff here. Please have a look at what is in /mobile/android in the source tree, as well as other-licenses/android, widget/android and mozglue/android, let us know if you would be comfortable tackling something like that.

To be fair, my "starting to learn Android programming" statement is several months old. But I'm no where near being an expert in Android. Or in anything else listed above.

What I'm hoping for is that you can get the people who actually do possess those skillsets together, and that I can be permitted to tag along and learn on the fly. For me, this would be an answer to the "What's next?" after learning Java and Android in that it gives me a To-Do list of what to learn next. For Pale Moon for Android, it means that whoever is tasked with leading the effort isn't completely alone and (eventually) that help will become more helpful in time. And for you and the Pale Moon community, a browser sharing Pale Moon's namesake, mission, and aspirations will continue to exist for the most prolific OS on the planet.

PS: the lines between "mobile" and "stationary" may not be as hard-set, but the lines between operating systems are, and will remain so.

Under the hood, sure. But since when have end-users cared much about what's under the hood? I know I haven't until fairly recently.

There is immense public pressure from users who are increasingly frustrated from the restrictions imposed by multiple segregated ecosystems. What if the browser can play a role in tearing down these artificial walls, regardless of OS? What if I could (easily) continue reading that News Republic article that I started reading on my Android phone during the bus ride to work, except on the Windows' machine's 24" monitor and inside of a Pale Moon tab? Conversely, why can't I set my settings and configurations once and have it apply to both the desktop and the mobile browser? Why can't I take the running IPython Notebook that's rendered in a Pale Moon tab on my desktop and put it in a Pale Moon tab on the phone or tablet, and take it down the hall to show a colleague (envisioning one day that there's also Python and Anaconda for Android)?

I could be wrong (and I often am), but to me, it seems like the browser business is just getting interesting! I hope that you can find find some good people who are capable of keeping it going long enough that I can apprentice with them.

[dark_moon]

I use the Fennec FDroid browser which is a slight modified firefox in the F-Droid appmarket.

[Moonchild]

Under the hood, sure. But since when have end-users cared much about what's under the hood? I know I haven't until fairly recently.

Yes, but maintaining a browser and making sure it keeps running smoothly and without crashing is all "under the hood".

However, for some reason, I believe that this decision was accelerated due to some non-working commits in the Code_cleanup branch.

You are jumping to conclusions and wholly incorrect.
Just because I back a few things out to test a theory and then re-apply them, doesn't immediately mean there's an inherent issue. I guess my way of development is different than yours. As I'm sure I've said before: commits on working branches are not guaranteed to build or even be sane. This is why we have repositories and quick ways of juggling code changes back and forth.

[cyberreine]

I'm VERY sorry to hear that Pale Moon for Android will be discontinued. I've tried a number of browsers on my Android tablet and phone, and Pale Moon was far and away my favorite. It formatted pages better than any other Android browser I've tried (which include Firefox, Opera Mini, Dolphin, Last Pass, and, briefly, Chrome). I might add that I didn't use the sync feature, even though Pale Moon is my primary browser on my Windows computers. My preference for Pale Moon over other Android browsers had nothing to do with sync. It just worked better than any other browser I tried.
I feel very sad that Pale Moon for Android will be discontinued. However, the reasons that Moonchild has offered make a lot of sense. The browser on my Windows computers is still more important to me than that on my tablet or phone, and if working on the Android version will ultimately mean less attention to Pale Moon for Windows, I think Moonchild has made the right decision.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

commits on working branches are not guaranteed to build or even be sane.

Take https://github.com/mattatobin/palemoon-vnext-research/commits/vNext_gecko29 for instance, squarefractal, That does build.. It even largely works.. but it was insane!

[squarefractal]

Off-topic:
Hey MC and Tobin, I'm not a developer after all, so please excuse my ignorance

[Moonchild]

My preference for Pale Moon over other Android browsers had nothing to do with sync.

I never suggested that this had anything to do with sync (that is just the reason why it was first published when it was) - it is about the core product being unmaintainable for us. I've looked in detail at the code issues present, relevant bug numbers, and the way in which Pale Moon for Android is quickly falling behind in terms of code development. There are some problems with compatibility for Android <4.0 preventing proper operation and there are a growing number of problems with compatibility with Android >=5.0 - For starters, that will make the target range (too) small. Second, actual code differences with Fennec have never been big, since Pale Moon for Android has been relatively recent. It's been underdeveloped from the start, and I don't see that changing, so it will just continue to deteriorate or at the very least be stale and of limited use.

Off-topic:

Hey MC and Tobin, I'm not a developer after all, so please excuse my ignorance

The what are you doing looking at the repo and drawing conclusions from it?

[Moonchild]

One other option to move forward would be to re-base Pale Moon for Android on mozilla-release, but with the sync reverted to Sync 1.1 (it was stripped out relatively recently and should be fairly separate). Even that though is something that will have to be done by a dedicated maintainer.

[cyberreine]

I never suggested that this had anything to do with sync (that is just the reason why it was first published when it was) - it is about the core product being unmaintainable for us

Moonchild, just to clarify, I wasn't saying or implying that your decision to stop development on PM for Android had anything to do with sync. I was simply saying that my enthusiasm for the browser was based completely on PM's performance on Android, not in any way on its ability to sync.

[kdane4]

It was pretty good but I rarely use it now for android. Others are right, you can now devote more time on Palemoon desktop which I use on my PC

[dogkappa]

Damn. I switched from using Opera and Firefox to Pale Moon on Android, the same switch I did on desktop a long time ago. It is a big shame to see it go, because it was the best possible browser for my low end device Moto E. Firefox for Android and Opera Mobile both constantly get killed in the background because of Motorola's mistake in the ram handling on their rom, and Pale Moon so far has been the only browser that does NOT get constantly killed for whatever reasons.

But I understand if you want to disconnect this project, but it makes me sad. Especially if I now have to move back to Opera Mobile without extension support or Firefox for android (Chrome Mobile is not even an option, it is just awful to use on this device).

Do you guys have any recommendations to replace Pale Moon with any browser at all? Does there exist any other Fennec based browsers? I will give F-Droid fennec a try at least. If I do move begrudgingly back to Firefox, does Firefox Android still allow extension install outside the mozilla shop?

Oh, and is there any way to extract Pale Moon for Android bookmarks as an html file or something? I do not know to use the sync feature.

[rstefko]

Just find out that Firefox for Android still support v1.1 Sync. You have to go to the Settings -> Account -> Add new -> Firefox (old). I will use it until it will be discontinued too