Extensions on Pale Moon going forward

[Moonchild]

In a proper course correction (i.e. reversing course after almost completely being painted into a corner) the situation for extensions on Pale Moon going forward will be the following:

• We will be releasing a new milestone v31 soon-ish. This will return to the situation as-present in v29.1.1 and before.
• The add-ons manager will once again display the "dot" indicators to show which installed extensions are released for Pale Moon natively (blue) and which are legacy Firefox extensions (orange). Since we won't be intending to do away with the dual-GUID system in the future, no further warnings will be given about potential incompatibility. If you install Firefox extensions, they may or may not work properly. YMMV if the dot is orange.
• Pale Moon will continue to carry its own GUID {8de7fcbb-c55c-4fbe-bfc5-fc555c87dbc4} for easy recognition of the application and potential adaptive code in extensions if developers wish to continue targeting old Firefox versions as a target application.

Pale Moon v30 and any -fxguid companion extensions will not be considered viable. v31 will build on UXP and even though it is receiving many updates, and will aim to adopt a lot of the streamlining of the Goanna Runtime Environment™ (which should at this point be considered a failed experiment) while remaining broadly the same as it has been otherwise.

If you are still on v30.* please change over to v29.4.6 (or Linux) and reinstall your converted add-ons with non-fxguid ones from the add-ons site - do it today.

[Night Wing]

@ Moonchild

That shortcut for "Linux" (for v29.4.6) you posted seems to be the incorrect link. It gives a "404 Not Found nginx/1.20.2" page. I think you meant this link below.

http://linux.palemoon.org/download/mainline/

[Moonchild]

Woops. thanks. I corrected it.

[thosrtanner]

This is great to hear. Thank you very much for this news.

[markd89]

Hi,

I'm a long time user and stayed on 29.1.1 because I liked my old extensions. Do I understand correctly that when v31 is released, I can upgrade and still be able to use them?

Thanks much,
Mark

[Moonchild]

Hi,

I'm a long time user and stayed on 29.1.1 because I liked my old extensions. Do I understand correctly that when v31 is released, I can upgrade and still be able to use them?

Thanks much,
Mark

Yes, with the caveat that unmaintained legacy Firefox extensions may or may not work going forward as a result of platform diversion.

[LuftWafflePilot]

What happens if I keep using v30 and then try to install v31? IS this only from addons perspective? I only use a few and don't think any of them is old Firefox one.
Also can I just downgrade to v29 without having to recreate a profile from scratch? I believe v30 release notes pointed out backwards incompatibility with previous version.

[BenFenner]

What happens if I keep using v30 and then try to install v31?

I'm also curious about this, as one or more of my computers are running v30 and it's been no big deal so I just figured I'd wait for v31 to come out and it'll upgrade. Is this assumption correct?

[josephd]

What happens if I keep using v30

as one or more of my computers are running v30 and it's been no big deal so I just figured I'd wait for v31 to come out and it'll upgrade. Is this assumption correct?

Read the following and come to your own conclusion.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28054

[Moonchild]

I recalled v30.* for a number of good reasons. In addition, they don't have the latest security updates at this time as a result since it's not a supported version by nature of being recalled.

Of course it's not up to me to decide what you want to run on your own system, but it's not a wise thing to do and you'll be on your own if you insist you are going to let a broken browser be your choice just because an arbitrary version number is higher.
I don't expect that there will an issue upgrading to v31 from an installed v30, but there's a not insignificant risk of profile issues the longer you run v30. I can also not guarantee that automatic updates will work flawlessly from v30 to v31.

[LuftWafflePilot]

Are you implying the profiles of v30 are bugged in some way, which might cause problems in the long run?

[Moonchild]

Are you implying the profiles of v30 are bugged in some way, which might cause problems in the long run?

Indirectly, yes. v30 was recalled for a good reason. I don't do a recall lightly. It may not bite you, or it may. The longer you stay on v30, the more likely one of the issues in it will cause problems down the road.

[Anon27]

Hi,

I'm a long time user and stayed on 29.1.1 because I liked my old extensions. Do I understand correctly that when v31 is released, I can upgrade and still be able to use them?

Thanks much,
Mark

Yes, with the caveat that unmaintained legacy Firefox extensions may or may not work going forward as a result of platform diversion.

Hi,

I, too, chose to stay on 29.1.1 at the time, so I'm basically like Mark, but with a difference that might be relevant: for pandemic-related reasons, I was unable to use my computer at all for about a whole year (starting right after PM decided to remove all support for previously compatible FF extensions that did not explicitly target PM starting at version 29.2.0, and I made the choice to not update at the time, but fully intended to do so eventually once a long-term solution — such as an addon that restored support for old FF-targeting but PM-compatible extensions, or a computer program that automatically adjusted the extension's code to make the targeted browser read as Pale Moon rather than Firefox — presented itself), and while my computer has been able to intermittently turn on and be used for non-internet-dependent purposes for about a month now, I've only just managed to get it an internet connection stable enough for non-essential browsing and to even think about updating the software. As you can imagine, I was completely shocked to learn of the recent… events that transpired between you and Tobin. I hope he is OK, and that you two have managed to work things out, and that any damage resulting from such events proves reversible (if it hasn't been recovered from already). But I was also very shocked and admittedly confused to learn about the "new direction" PM intends / intended to be taking in 2022 (if I understand correctly, PM 30/31 will support installing extensions not explicitly targeting PM if they are nevertheless compatible and experience less website compatibility issues than 29.1.1), and, since I'm not tech-savvy enough to understand what GUID and FUEL are / mean /stand for, reading the release notes history as a way to avoid having to dig through over 100 messages with zero knowledge of the context made me even more confused. It seems that version 29.3 restored this FUEL thing "for old extension compatibility", so I was wondering, are addons intended for Firefox but known to work perfectly / flawlessly on Pale Moon 29.1.1 supported by Pale Moon 29.4.6 (the most recent release version other than the recalled v30), or should I keep Pale Moon 29.1.1 until Pale Moon 31 becomes available? If I update to 29.4.6, will the extensions not explicitly targeting PM be automatically disabled, and, if so, is there a way to reenable them (or make them read as explicitly PM-targeting extensions)?

[Moonchild]

Off-topic:

As you can imagine, I was completely shocked to learn of the recent… events that transpired between you and Tobin. I hope he is OK, and that you two have managed to work things out

He seems to be doing fine, and despite saying he wasn't going to do any more Mozilla Technology work, he seems to be working on what he envisioned this project should have become if he was to be the sole dev involved. Unfortunately on the flipside he seems also bent on trying to harass me personally (instead of just going his own way) and thinks he's untouchable for the damage he did, and the more he keeps doing that, the more likely the consequences of it will end up biting him. It's called "consequences for your actions" and seems to be a lesson that never really sunk in...
I have no interest in "working things out", or in any way being in touch with him, since he's proven to be the worst kind of person he always accused and condemned others to be.

any damage resulting from such events proves reversible (if it hasn't been recovered from already)

I think we're in a pretty good spot right now regarding that. There's more work to do to comb through the GRE code and pick out what we need without ending up with the issues v30 had, but the services he took down are in good order and operational.

are addons intended for Firefox but known to work perfectly / flawlessly on Pale Moon 29.1.1 supported by Pale Moon 29.4.6 (the most recent release version other than the recalled v30), or should I keep Pale Moon 29.1.1 until Pale Moon 31 becomes available?

Unmaintained Firefox-only extensions are not compatible with 29.4.6, but will install on 31.0.0 (including the ones that were automatically converted for v30 with "-fxguid" for minimum disruption). You would best wait for v31 in your case which will come very soon, and save yourself a potential headache.

[LuftWafflePilot]

Are you implying the profiles of v30 are bugged in some way, which might cause problems in the long run?

Indirectly, yes. v30 was recalled for a good reason. I don't do a recall lightly. It may not bite you, or it may. The longer you stay on v30, the more likely one of the issues in it will cause problems down the road.

So if I updated to v30, then downgraded to the new 29 and then updated to 31, do you think I should eventually start a clean profile just to be safe?

[Moonchild]

So if I updated to v30, then downgraded to the new 29 and then updated to 31, do you think I should eventually start a clean profile just to be safe?

Depends on how long you stayed on 30 and what you did when you were running it.
You are probably OK, but I will not guarantee anything because of the many many factors involved on other people's computers.
As a point of reference, I myself went to 30, then back to 29 and am now on 31 after automatic update from 29 and everything seems to be fine on my pretty old and loaded profile. So... my confidence is fairly high you'll be fine, also

[andyprough]

I went from 30 to 29 to 31 on Linux, and I had high cpu usage on 31 this morning. I created a clean profile and the cpu usage went back to normal. I'm thinking it was probably a mis-behaving extension, but I haven't gone back to determine the cause.

[Moonchild]

I'm going to close this thread as it's been drifting off-topic.

In closing, remember that this direction of allowing Firefox extensions does not mean we will be providing extensive support for their use. The consequence of this broader compatibility is that users are more often on their own or having to rely on other users for extension support. We will continue to foster Pale Moon targeting extensions on our add-ons site, of course, and those will likely have better extension developer support (although most are still hobby projects and maintainers can and do move on to other things leaving the extensions behind).