PaleMoon 28 is kind of bad

[Pfade]

I've been using Palemoon as my primary browser for about three years, and usually every new version was an improvement.

My reason for using this browser was lower CPU usage, lover memory requirements and less constant writes to the hard disk. All three making it particularly ideal for an older PC.

Palemoon 28 completely destroys at least two of those (I haven't checked the disk writes). It uses a lot more RAM, it frees it a lot poorly, and sometimes it seems to create some sort of memory leak. If with the last version I had to restart only once a day on average, now I have to do it constantly because it eats RAM in a much worse way and then starts to freeze.

On the CPU side it's also sensibly worse, especially when playing videos.

In general the browser works well. I haven't noticed anything different after updating to 28. The only noticeable change is a much, much worse performance on all fronts.

I don't know if this is the price to pay to keep the browser up to date, but on older hardware what I'm saying is that 28 is way, way, way less efficient than the previous version to the point I often have to boot Firefox.

If there's no way to fix this I'll probably have to end this honeymoon and go back to the standard browsers. In three years I've been using Palemoon I've never seen such a sudden degradation of performance.

[Moonchild]

Considering this is just a complaint and not a request for support, moving this thread to the general discussion section.

[adisib]

People need more than just performance. Although I place a high priority on performance just as you do, sometimes it is the price that has to be paid to serve the needs of other users. Just because it is the only difference you notice doesn't mean it is the only difference others notice.

If there's no way to fix this I'll probably have to end this honeymoon and go back to the standard browsers.

In my experience, Pale Moon still uses far fewer resources than the standard browsers. Although PM28 has a very noticeable increase in memory usage, it is still currently using about half the RAM as Firefox on startup with the same add-ons (other than Pale Moon also having the expose noisy tabs extension and a lightweight theme installed).

Perhaps if you gave more information, other users may help you find replacement extensions or configuration changes that may help reduce the resource usage for you.

[tenseys]

I haven't found this to be the case. PM uses very little cpu and memory. When i launch FF for example, cpu spike from 80-100% very briefly. PM rarely gets above 40% for a second before settling back down to 2% cpu. FF also uses way more memory with it electroysis thing.

The real test for me is on a grossly underpowered $120 dell netbook I have. FF, Chrome, and Edge all take 10-13 seconds or more to open on it. PM does it in 6 seconds. It loads pages much faster is smoother overall. It smokes all the other browsers, its not close.

I think it is a massive improvement.

[Pfade]

Considering this is just a complaint and not a request for support, moving this thread to the general discussion section.

It's not a complaint, it's an indirect question about why there's such a degradation with 28. If it's something that doesn't require looking into on your side, then you'd have at least to motivate why.

Now that I'm frustrated with performance I've also ran Firefox side by side, and Firefox uses 5% CPU to play a video. Palemoon 50%. So it looks like hardware acceleration is failing completely (no problems with previous version).

Disk writes seem fine.

So I can point at an easily reproducible failure of hardware acceleration when playing videos, higher CPU usage in general, and worse memory management. This after using it for a few days, and what I do is always pretty much the same, so it's not just a seat-of-the-pants kind of vague feeling. It's just performing sensibly worse overall.

[tenseys]

Considering this is just a complaint and not a request for support, moving this thread to the general discussion section.

It's not a complaint, it's an indirect question about why there's such a degradation with 28. If it's something that doesn't require looking into on your side, then you'd have at least to motivate why.

Now that I'm frustrated with performance I've also ran Firefox side by side, and Firefox uses 5% CPU to play a video. Palemoon 50%. So it looks like hardware acceleration is failing completely (no problems with previous version).

Disk writes seem fine.

So I can point at an easily reproducible failure of hardware acceleration when playing videos, higher CPU usage in general, and worse memory management. This after using it for a few days, and what I do is always pretty much the same, so it's not just a seat-of-the-pants kind of vague feeling. It's just performing sensibly worse overall.

When you said video I want to youtube and tested them since that site has a lot videos.

With the same video PM is at 7% while FF is at 40% cpu.

What video are you talking about?

[Pfade]

Although PM28 has a very noticeable increase in memory usage

Well, that's what I wrote. The problem is that it's not just a flat increase, but worse memory management in the longer term. Firefox still uses more memory when you boot it, but Palemoon frees it more poorly and over time it gets worse and worse. The previous version wasn't perfect but a lot better.

Perhaps if you gave more information, other users may help you find replacement extensions or configuration changes that may help reduce the resource usage for you.

I don't use extensions outside of ublock origin on certain sites.

And there's also seems a problem running scripts as I've got pop-ups saying scripts are running slowly even on youtube, and I've never seen this in the past.

[Pfade]

What video? Gotta a specific link?

When you said video I want to youtube and tested them.

With the same video PM is at 7% while FF is at 40%?

All videos, of course.

[tenseys]

I've tried YT and I'm seeing the opposite. FF will settle after a bit but will spike. PM is very low and even.

[eskaton]

OP, can you please post the output of your Help-Troubleshooting Information page? Nothing can be helped if we don't know your specs and environment.

[doofy]

If there's no way to fix this I'll probably have to end this honeymoon and go back to the standard browsers

Which one?

I've only been using 28 lightly for a few months and noticed the RAM hit immediately. But thats to be expected - 28 is based on a higher FF build than 27 and every FF build since the dawn of time has demanded increased RAM. It's got to the point now where moz fanbois spout crap like "buy more RAM" and "RAM is there to be used". I shoulda kept the post I saw recently where a user with 96GB RAM posted a screencap of FF57+ using 60GB RAM.

And I've seen FF57+ go very close to running out of (16GB) RAM, and on the point of using my very limited, static, swap file before Win7 woke me up to what was happening.

PM 28 has definite performance advantages over 27. And a user has to decide if that's worth it for a resource hit.

Slowly I'll get round to making my 28 install identical to my 27 one, then I'll have the info to decide whether to switch to 28, or keep it as back up browser.

I've needed no other back up browser since installing 28.

28 is based on FF ESR 52, and I simply take it for granted that it uses less resources than FF ESR 52 cos it dumps the crapware.

Have you tested performance in a clean profile? Simplest way is to get a portable 28 and test resource use there. You might have got profile corruption from the upgrade.

[Pfade]

I have at least fixed the problem of hardware acceleration. Updating the video drivers restored the acceleration.

The previous version worked fine, so I guess PaleMoon 28 needed the updated drivers for some reason.

The performance degradation is easily explained since everyone is confirming 28 uses more memory. I'm on a 4GB RAM PC. But then I'm also seeing higher CPU spikes as well, and when the RAM load goes high then it's just all these factors creating a mess.

The previous version had its problem, I had situations when RAM went high and the browser lost all connection. I couldn't load anything at all, as if the router wasn't working. CPU was at max. And it usually took 15 minutes or so before it would fix itself. That or a reboot.

With Palemoon 28 instead I see quite often the browser gets completely unresponsive, and it also takes a number of seconds before it gets usable again.

So overall it behaves as the previous version, but generally not running as well. Now I've fixed hardware acceleration so it's usable, but from an user point of view it certainly does not feel "better".

[tenseys]

I have at least fixed the problem of hardware acceleration. Updating the video drivers restored the acceleration.

The previous version worked fine, so I guess PaleMoon 28 needed the updated drivers for some reason.

The performance degradation is easily explained since everyone is confirming 28 uses more memory. I'm on a 4GB RAM PC. But then I'm also seeing higher CPU spikes as well, and when the RAM load goes high then it's just all these factors creating a mess.

The previous version had its problem, I had situations when RAM went high and the browser lost all connection. I couldn't load anything at all, as if the router wasn't working. CPU was at max. And it usually took 15 minutes or so before it would fix itself. That or a reboot.

With Palemoon 28 instead I see quite often the browser gets completely unresponsive, and it also takes a number of seconds before it gets usable again.

So overall it behaves as the previous version, but generally not running as well. Now I've fixed hardware acceleration so it's usable, but from an user point of view it certainly does not feel "better".

And this is with portable or a fresh profile?

The previous version had its problem, I had situations when RAM went high and the browser lost all connection. I couldn't load anything at all, as if the router wasn't working. CPU was at max. And it usually took 15 minutes or so before it would fix itself. That or a reboot.

I've never experienced that.

[Night Wing]

I've got 4 computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops). The towers are 2010 and 2013 year models. The two laptops are 2012 and 2013 year models. They all came with 64 bit Windows 7. The total of hard drivers is 9, since all of the computers have 2 hard drives for each one, except the 2013 year model desktop tower has 3 hard drives in it.

Starting in 2011, which is now 7 years ago, I started with 32 bit window Pale Moon 4.0 on the same 2010 year model desktop tower computer I'm typing this post on right now. It (32 bit 4.0) was as fast back then as 32 bit 28.0.0 is now. The same goes for the rest of my 3 other computers.

When January of 2014 came, that was when the first linux Pale Moon was released. I was glad to see it released because when Microsoft released Windows 8, I could see the direction Microsoft was going with Windows so I had already made my decision to transit to a linux distro and ditch the Windows OS. After trying a few distros, 64 bit linux Mint in Xfce became my default distro. Linux Pale Moon ran like a champ on it and linux Pale Moon 28.0 runs like a champ on it now as well.

This HP 2010 year model desktop tower computer might be 8 years old, but it has a lot of "ooomph" in it. It has (just the highlights without mentioning the number of USB ports, HDMI port, printer port, etc)

2 DVD optical drives
2, 1 TB 7200 rpm hard drives
Nvidia GT Geforce 220 graphics card which came with the computer
Intel i7 processor with a speed of 2.80 Ghz
16 GB of memory (which is maxed out)

The only thing I've replaced in it has been one, 1 TB hard drive (7200 rpm) and one power supply. This 8 year old beast of a tower computer performs better than some of the newer computers people are buying today.

My HP 2013 desktop tower below is my "pride and joy" since it has got more "ooomph" than my beast above. It has (short highlights):

1 DVD optical drive
2, 2 TB 7200 hard drives
1, 1 TB 7200 hard drive
AMD graphics card in it (don't remember what model at the moment)
Intel i7 processor with a speed of 3.40 GHz
24 GB of memory (which I can max out to 32 GB on the motherboard if I want)

My experimental 2012 year model laptop (dv4-5113cl) has:

1 DVD optical drive
2, 1 TB 7200 hard drives
Intel 4000 graphics chip on the motherboard
Intel i7 processor with a speed of 2.50 GHz
8 GB of memory (which can be maxed out to 16 GB if I want to)

My wife's computer a dv4 Envy laptop and it has:

1 DVD optical drive
2, 750 GB 7200 hard drives
Intel 3000 graphics chip on the motherboard
Intel i7 processor with a processor speed of 2.667 GHz
8 GB of memory (and it is maxed out)

All of my 4 computers run, depending on the hard drive I'm or my wife is accessing when using a computer, 32 bit windows Pale Moon and/or 64 bit linux Pale Moon. All versions of Pale Moon (linux and windows) only use two addons which are: NoSquint, Adblock Latitude.

They all have (linux and windows) newest version of Flash in them: (30.0.0.154). And they all have 3 lightweight themes (personas) from Firefox which are: Caramel, Dream of Waves, Blue Light 2012. My and my wife don't have a lot of customizations done to our Pale Moon browsers and we don't have a "gazillion" tabs open either. We don't experience any problems on eBay, PayPal, YouTube, etc. When I update Pale Moon in both linux and windows Pale Mool, we've never had missing bookmarks, no wifi problems, no freezes (if the website maintainer know his stuff about coding which some don't), no problem with missing buttons, no problems with context window (menus), etc. I can't remember when I've had to create a new profile simply because I install a new version of linux Mint every 6 months.

I hardly ever use my Windows 7 hard drives since everything I want to do in Windows 7, I can do in linux Mint. I only keep Windows 7 around because my sister-in-law uses 64 bit Windows 7 so I help her out with her computer via Teamviewer. My Windows 7 hard drives, besides 32 bit Pale Moon, are always kept updated with the newest versions of Flash, Java, free Avast AV, free Zone Alarm firewall, Libre Office, WinRar, etc. The only thing I quit doing, the updates from Microsoft for Windows 7.

In closing. I've never really had a major problem with windows or linux Pale Moon on any of my 4 computers. The only glitch I can remember using windows Pale Moon was probably from a bad download of a new version of windows Pale Moon and that was way back in late 2011 or early 2012 when Pale Moon wouldn't open and I had to use "run as administrator" to get it to run.

As for a backup browser, my second choice in linux and windows is SeaMonkey (2.49.4). If both Pale Moon and SeaMonkey have a problem and I can't use either one them, I'll hold my nose and use the newest version Firefox.

In conclusion. With 4 computers with 9 hard drives running linux and windows Pale Moon, no problems.

[back2themoon]

OP, can you please post the output of your Help-Troubleshooting Information page? Nothing can be helped if we don't know your specs and environment.

Without it, this discussion is entirely theoretical (and pointless) especially since Pfade has already decided with zero troubleshooting, that PM 28 is "the destroyer". "PM27 worked and PM28 doesn't" is not troubleshooting.

Also note that old PCs do not last forever. Things change, and so does the Web.

[RJARRRPCGP]

It's got to the point now where moz fanbois spout crap like "buy more RAM" and "RAM is there to be used". I shoulda kept the post I saw recently where a user with 96GB RAM posted a screencap of FF57+ using 60GB RAM.

Even with Chrome, I never saw RAM usage like that! LOL! And I never recalled even Chrome getting near 16 GB of RAM.

Even with Chrome, if I saw that, I would be suspecting malware...

[doofy]

It's got to the point now where moz fanbois spout crap like "buy more RAM" and "RAM is there to be used". I shoulda kept the post I saw recently where a user with 96GB RAM posted a screencap of FF57+ using 60GB RAM.

Even with Chrome, I never saw RAM usage like that! LOL! And I never recalled even Chrome getting near 16 GB of RAM.

Even with Chrome, if I saw that, I would be suspecting malware...

Sure.

Obv, I can't speak for the 60GB punter, but my system is clean. Only way to know that for absolute certain is with a totally, guaranteed clean BIOS (and I'm too dim for that), and a fresh OS install. Not going to go there. For all intents and purposes, my system is clean. I constantly monitor CPU, RAM, up/down transfers rates, and if any spike I check it out.

I have 16GB RAM and always have about 6 or 7 in use. FF57 simply ran away with the remainder one day. No rhyme nor reason; it just did.

Reducing processes from 7 to 4 stopped it from happening again (you can't go below 4). Probably. But, having spent a stupid amount of time on FF57, I stopped using it cos session restore is fundamentally broken. And since I always have 80 or so tabs open, basic session restore functionality is a bit important for me.

[Pfade]

that PM 28 is "the destroyer". "PM27 worked and PM28 doesn't" is not troubleshooting.

It's just as it is.

I had three problems.

One was videos using lots of CPU, and I fixed it by updating video drivers.
The second was a sensibly higher RAM usage, and everyone else confirms Palemoon 28 uses more memory.
The third is higher CPU usage overall, and higher spikes, but this is a lot trickier to document, but it's also probably more connected to the RAM usage. The more the browser allocates and de-allocates memory, the more CPU it uses to perform that task. If RAM usage is sensibly less efficient and optimized in 28 as it appears to be, it might be enough of a good reason to justify the higher CPU usage too.

Especially over time RAM never goes really down. You could make the browser use up to 2GB, then close all tabs, and you never see memory getting to the same level unless you restart the browser itself, and then it starts lagging even if you just have one tab open. It might be for caching, but when usage goes up again it just doesn't seem to do a good job of freeing that memory, or perform well. and because RAM usage is higher in 28 I also hit that limit much more frequently, which makes the browser lagging and CPU usage going high as it tries desperately to juggle the memory (this even in the previous version).

What I'm saying is that the fact Palemoon 28 uses more memory kind of exacerbates all other problems as a direct consequence. I don't know if it's the ONLY reason to justify the worse performance, but it's a good one.

[doofy]

Especially over time RAM never goes really down. You could make the browser use up to 2GB, then close all tabs, and you never see memory getting to the same level unless you restart the browser itself, and then it starts lagging even if you just have one tab open. It might be for caching, but when usage goes up again it just doesn't seem to do a good job of freeing that memory, or perform well.

This might be OS specific. Everyone and their dog has told me about Win7's "efficient memory management", but all my experience is that is simply not the case. Slowly but surely mem useage goes up.

Just today, I've started using this: http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/bartab-tycho/ and the current improvement is astonishing. I have no experience to tell me how it might improve things over time; I just know that whereas I would expect to be seeing 1.9GB RAM useage, atm I'm seeing less than 1.1.

When I absolutely have to have RAM back, I close puter, turn off at plug, flush, restart.

[mrnhmath]

Especially over time RAM never goes really down. You could make the browser use up to 2GB, then close all tabs, and you never see memory getting to the same level unless you restart the browser itself, and then it starts lagging even if you just have one tab open. It might be for caching, but when usage goes up again it just doesn't seem to do a good job of freeing that memory, or perform well.

This might be OS specific. Everyone and their dog has told me about Win7's "efficient memory management", but all my experience is that is simply not the case. Slowly but surely mem useage goes up.

Just today, I've started using this: http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/bartab-tycho/ and the current improvement is astonishing. I have no experience to tell me how it might improve things over time; I just know that whereas I would expect to be seeing 1.9GB RAM useage, atm I'm seeing less than 1.1.

When I absolutely have to have RAM back, I close puter, turn off at plug, flush, restart.

BarTab has been succeeded by Lull The Tabs.