A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Drugwash » 2021-12-17, 17:29

Moonchild wrote:
2021-12-17, 00:13
Drugwash wrote:
2021-12-16, 23:54
There are differences and there are similarities between the PM and TC projects,
Apples and oranges comparison. You cannot compare a tool that acts on local file systems and has plenty of utility for archaic OSes with a web browser that will only facilitate unsafe use of known vulnerable OSes past their time on the (hostile) internet. Not that that has been the one reason to drop support for it (there was no one reason) but certainly by now it has become a pretty big factor to consider.
Would it be clearer if I strongly emphasized the word projects? It's about an application using a plug-in/add-on system to enhance its capabilities, and it's about doing so in a way that keeps and enhances the user base by any and all possible means. The actual scope - as in being a file manager versus a web browser - is irrelevant in this context.
moonbat wrote:
2021-12-17, 00:15
Drugwash wrote:
2021-12-16, 23:54
users don't necessarily care about what extensions' names are, or how their button icons look like, or how their settings panel - if any - is designed and so on - they care mostly about the actual functions available through those extensions, their effectiveness, the user-friendliness of reaching those functions and any settings that may require tweaking.
What are you basing this on? Users who go looking for extensions are precisely the sort who want fine control over their experience instead of what is generically provided out of the box. The vast majority of users are not like this and are very well served by Chromezilla where features are stuffed into the browser core. And a shoddily designed extension isn't going to make things better for them. All of mine for instance provide keyboard mnemonics for their preference pane options where present, because it is a decades old desktop convention that your UI should be usable both with and without a mouse.

Total Commander isn't a valid comparison with a web browser that has to deal with the brave new world of no standards and draft features being introduced every other week. The set of tasks for managing a file system is pretty much fixed and static compared to keeping up with an ever changing web. And as Moonchild has now said - there's a difference between running a dead OS like XP in a virtual machine isolated from any network because of some irreplaceable legacy application vs using it as a daily driver on the current internet.
You probably misunderstood what I said about extensions.
See above regarding TC vs PM. Same misunderstanding.

There are a few people I know using XP daily, on bare metal not in virtual machines, at home or at work, and this cannot be changed for various reasons other than sheer moronic stubbornness. They recently complained about not being able to log into their Wordpress blog accounts with any available browser. And there aren't many such browsers at all. Irony is I currently can't log in myself either with Pale Moon on Linux Mint 19.2. The XP users and the Pale Moon users and who-knows-how-many-others in time are like the unvaccinated in New Brunswick, Canada that are being denied access to grocery stores.

Maybe instead of running to comply to any absurd or dangerous new standards that are being thrown at us, we should reshape the Internet to bring back common-sense and usher out the likes of Google. Preferrably before we starve to death... so to speak, or literally.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-12-17, 17:36

About the ONLY good thing that would come out of this is killing Basilisk which was something that NEVER should have been a thing to begin with. I told you that then and I was proven right with the damned DRM and WebRTC shit we have been forced to keep in our codebase. AS FOR THE GOD DAMNED WEB EXTENSIONS.. Yep right again. SO whatever.

In order to facilitate this retarded change that is JUST surrendering to the mob.. I will have to MANUALLY go through the datastore and convert all the Pale Moon extensions back to the Firefox GUID at the VERY least. We would also have to put the Dual-GUID system in but in reverse where the Firefox ID is primary and the Pale Moon ID is secondary JUST so AUS can update extensions and themes and especially your fuckin pointless language packs. After the transition is done then we can put MORE work in to revert the reverse dual-guid bullshit.

I will have to make a lot of judgement calls in order to make this happen. But of course then I will be on the fuckin hook for those judgements as well as old versions of extensions that will be left behind and there is a possibility that the enemies YOU allowed to gain a voice and foothold will try and say that all our add-ons are untrusted cause we touched them. Even though they were PERFECTLY fine with .1-signed.1-signed bullshit by Mozilla. But sure it is possible but why the fuck should I even bother if this is gonna be the new normal?

Tell me that oh fearless leader.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by MoonWalker » 2021-12-17, 17:47

moonbat wrote:
2021-12-17, 02:35
power users who like to tweak and customize their browser and aren't afraid to get into coding for it as required.
But that "power users" did not make efforts to fork or built extensions targeting Pale Moon. Something does not add up.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-12-17, 18:11

MoonWalker wrote:
2021-12-17, 17:47
moonbat wrote:
2021-12-17, 02:35
power users who like to tweak and customize their browser and aren't afraid to get into coding for it as required.
But that "power users" did not make efforts to fork or built extensions targeting Pale Moon. Something does not add up.
They DID start back when we removed Jetpack in Pale Moon 27 but then Moonchild allowed it to be hacked and put back by JustOff and that initial burst of new development was cut off. Now it is 2021 and no one wants to do anything new save a few good people who have put in an effort. I don't see how we can expect new development when even more old and insecure Firefox extensions from JustOff's CAA will just run again until of course they are busted again by some OTHER change. I am so sick of this shit where decisions are made and in the end it is *I* who ends up making shit happen.

Why is it up to me? Why can't anyone else fucking do it. OH THAT'S RIGHT we can barely get forks in the first place let alone someone who create or even contribute to making the god damned infrastructure. Infrastructure that was attacked by some from the very start in and of its self let alone the actual effort the infra was created to support. Maybe I should have never came back after the original coup attempt. Obviously true progress doesn't matter unless it is "progress" by the "progressive" assuming it isn't just going against me for the sake of going against me.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-12-17, 18:28

I get the feeling that some things haven't come across very well, even among our own people; let me try and clarify (some) things here.

I'm aware Pale Moon has issues with web compatibility. I'm not trying to say it doesn't; it's there for everyone to see. Those things must be addressed, regardless whether it is ultimately the fault of Google or webmasters or frameworks or the general idea in the web design business that everything has to be JavaScript driven or any of the many other factors that weigh in to the situation we have now on the web where anything but the latest Chrome or Chrome derivative not "just works" or even works at all. To be able to address that we have to be able to focus on those issues and find inventive and sometimes radical ways around the fact that we aren't Blink-based and we aren't Firefox and the solutions implemented in either can't easily be made compatible with us without completely pulling the underlying plumbing apart and reconstructing it in a way that can do things in the way it's expected. I've personally tried tackling several of the major compatibility issues over the past year and have run into many brick walls. It's not for lack of trying to directly adapt Mozilla solutions (which are still the closest of the mainstream engines to us, although distinctly different) but it's just too many hurdles and we'll need to try a different approach to address these web compatibility issues in our core. Maybe that even means doing away with UXP and rebooting the underlying platform code; however, the base premise behind Pale Moon, even in that case, will not change and it will not go "Quantum". XUL is too powerful and versatile of a concept to abandon. It has so much potential and if nothing else I want to bring that potential to our users.

Even without distractions, that will, undoubtedly, take considerable amount of time, and while these things are worked on, Pale Moon will simply be less useful as a general use browser or a "one app fits all" solution for the obscenely complex web that "mainstream" spec writers continue to pile more and more on, seemingly just to keep their jobs as spec writers. The volume of specifications out there is a behemoth, and a lot of stuff added after, say, 2013, I think, is even optional/unnecessary and catering only to trying to make everything do everything (not in the least trying to introduce a lot of C++ paradigms into JavaScript which isn't needed if people would actually use the paradigms that have been present in JS from day one). Unfortunately a lot of those things require repurposing of parts of the language that simply isn't compatible with what we had, and is a massive detriment to efficiency and performance of any engine -- which has been masked in no small part by going multi-process in Chrome and Firefox.

However, we do have distractions. Trying to extend ourselves to, on top of all that, also redefine the extension rules of engagement and asking people to invest time, effort, and goodwill into a more efficient way of handling extensions by cutting away ancient manifests, ancient unsupported pure-Firefox extensions, and additional abstraction, is stretching our scope too much with what is already a mammoth task that will require more time and focus. On top of all that this is seen as arbitrary decisions to "make them incompatible" as if we would willingly want to cripple what is one of our greatest strengths here is something I honestly don't understand, but I can yet understand that for people looking from the outside in, it may, at the surface, seem like this -- especially if there are vocal groups of people who genuinely hate our project for one reason or another keep painting the impression that we are arrogant and don't have the user at heart. Given that context there simply won't be any desire to do any of what is needed to make this project succeed; there won't be any involvement, there won't be any support, and for the casual observer it may seem as if we're just "trying to be different". That has never been my goal or my direction. Pale Moon has never been released "because it was different"; it has grown that way over years when Mozilla kept making strange and undesirable decisions for my view on what a web browser should offer.

So, giving that plenty of thought I decided that at least for Pale Moon, and despite the fact that wanting to improve the ecosystem of extensions to something purely focussed on Pale Moon with a clear separation from the inherently increasingly incompatible Firefox legacy that isn't maintained by anyone being the reasonable thing to do, it wasn't going to do anything but undermine our own foundations.

Aside from that, another distraction obviously being the dragging on of a conflict with people in support of a couple spin-off projects over clear licensing issues, it simply wasn't a sustainable thing any longer.

As said in my initial post I have given all this plenty of thought and setting on this new path moving the whole extension issue out of our main scope and making it entirely community driven to make sure stuff works in a hands-off approach where there are no "arbitrary" (even if they are not...) barriers, or at least as few as possible barriers, to making "Firefox" extensions work on Pale Moon will allow us to more solidly focus on finding ways, over time, to restore more web compatibility with the insanity which has been slowly spreading over the web (in whatever version they call it now...).

I don't have all the answers to all of the questions. Not everything is planned out and not everything is set in stone or even worked out into a vague action plan, but reducing the barriers to extension use in opposite to what we've been trying to do (which is creating some form of guarantee that stuff will at least work...) is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary. If there will be breakage and no clarity which extensions are "supposed to work" and which ones "are likely to not work" then that will ultimately have to be on everyone else to find solutions for, not us. All we can do is facilitate and continue to facilitate centralised distribution of the extensions and vetting to keep malware out.

It's the best compromise I've been able to find given the clear divide in what people really seem to want from Pale Moon.
With the direction I sketched here:
  • If web compatibility on every site is your #1 concern and you don't want to use more than one browser, ever, then Pale Moon currently can't suit you. That is just a matter of fact regardless of our direction, but at least with this new direction we have a fighting chance to solve it.
  • If extension compatibility with the legacy Firefox extensions is your #1 concern then the thresholds for that will be removed as much as they can, which would make things easier. Also, it will (I hope!) take away this misconception that we're trying to be "purist and different" over all else which simply isn't true.
  • If customization of the UI is your main concern we can retain that because we will continue to build on XUL and the power of it as a UI language.
And none of the other options would provide that... Switching engine or going Quantum would destroy customization and extensions. Going on the way we were would just have us "bleed to death" for lack of a better term with insufficient people and resources to make happen what must happen.

So... I hope that makes some more sense to everyone.

And since while I was writing this Tobin butted in with a reply which is more swearing, clearly not having been temporarily having reduced thinking capacity and not wanting to do shit that's needed just because it doesn't align with his "perfect" view of the project, let me address that too.
So this is mainly for you, Tobin:
You'd best not try to redefine history here which is what you're doing regarding Basilisk. You were on board with it being used as a development application for the (back then) UXP-in-development. Don't try to tell everyone now you weren't because it's convenient ammo with it having outlasted the time you envisioned it would last because there was some utility value in an Australis browser based on the platform code. Then you're just being hypocrite. And I can't stand hypocrites.
Yeah you'll have to do some work for transitioning back to the Firefox GUID. But hey, guess what? You designed the addons site specifically to handle multiple GUIDS, didn't you? Also thanks to Basilisk. And since you're taking the time to basically shit on everything now I've done to actually be more accessible to users (Basilisk, language packs, wanting to have less barriers for extensions now) I get the feeling you think you are literally the boss of me!? I'm sick of your increasing levels of bullshit and anger on display towards everyone within striking distance.
I may have been OK with you labelling yourself the "UXP coordinator" because you seemed to function better having some label of importance, but if you think I'll let you single-handedly sabotage the only way we can survive going forward you're dead wrong, no matter how much you decide to whinge about "you having to do everything" -- last I checked you've been mostly doing your own thing for a browser you never released and pushing your own ideas for improving the addons site while it was already working pretty well as-is and you call that doing work I made you have to do?....
So you better get on board with this and stop giving me BS reasons to try and push your unrealistic vision on MY project, or you can just right fuck off and take your ideals with you to Binary Outcast and spin your own platform and Borealis off into whatever you want it to be. I will not have any of it! If necessary I'll maintain everything myself; I don't need your fucking server you INSISTED you wanted to keep running "for the project". How much of that was charity, really? Or did you just want to have some leverage and control? Because that's what it looks like to me now. :?
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Cassette » 2021-12-17, 20:27

gepus wrote:
2021-12-17, 10:30
I did read the whole thing. :)
Except for NPAPI plugin support (I personally have no use for) some minor cosmetic changes you can achieve through CSS so far.
As for the status bar it works for me the same way I configured Pale Moon to work (hidden, visible only when hovering over a link or when establishing a new connection).
I'm aware of CSS, but I did mention in the post (again, it wasn't long) that the option would be there without the need for CSS tricks. For me I can use the CSS resources that are available to make that relatively easy, but not everyone has the know how to even do that or the patience. Also, the status bar of Pale Moon and Firefox of old isn't just a bar to display web addresses. You can also put your extension control buttons on there. You can't do that on Firefox anymore. My list was obviously not meant to be exhaustive as it included "and etc". My point is Mozilla has seemingly arbitrarily taken away options and no fork that I know of restores those options. Mostly they just remove stuff which has value, but is limited. Finally the CSS userChrome and userContent options have been labeled as "legacy" by Mozilla so their future is uncertain.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by ron_1 » 2021-12-17, 21:18

m3city wrote:
2021-12-17, 12:43
I don't understand gripping to old way of extensions. As time has shown, webext got embraced, some extensions died, some adjusted and some replaced. I feel that holding onto legacy extensions is the most user base narrowing factor, you simply cant grow with that. And growing userbase should be one the aims of a projects anyway. I read Mr Straver's comment that webextensions cant be implemented, and yet I need to ask - why? That one change exposes PM to all users that feel uncomfortable with FF. There is just one extension that needs to work, a holy grail of internet - uBlock origin. It will become dead for PM at one point when Mr gorhill decides so, and no one will be competent enough to pick it up for real just for one browser.
I don't mean this offensively, but you don't know what you're talking about. You don't need Webextensions to grow as a browser. They are inferior compared with what can be done with the (so-called) old technology. Also, there is already a version of uBlockO for Pale Moon.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by m3city » 2021-12-17, 22:53

ron_1 wrote:
2021-12-17, 21:18
m3city wrote:
2021-12-17, 12:43
I don't understand gripping to old way of extensions. As time has shown, webext got embraced, some extensions died, some adjusted and some replaced. I feel that holding onto legacy extensions is the most user base narrowing factor, you simply cant grow with that. And growing userbase should be one the aims of a projects anyway. I read Mr Straver's comment that webextensions cant be implemented, and yet I need to ask - why? That one change exposes PM to all users that feel uncomfortable with FF. There is just one extension that needs to work, a holy grail of internet - uBlock origin. It will become dead for PM at one point when Mr gorhill decides so, and no one will be competent enough to pick it up for real just for one browser.
I don't mean this offensively, but you don't know what you're talking about. You don't need Webextensions to grow as a browser. They are inferior compared with what can be done with the (so-called) old technology. Also, there is already a version of uBlockO for Pale Moon.
No offence taken at all. I don't mean you need WE to grow, I mean that WE are there, used daily - even if inferior. And having a limited qty, less actively mantained list of extensions... it's not a selling point. Lack of support and will to modify extensions specifically to PM is one of the problems, isn't it?

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by athenian200 » 2021-12-18, 00:06

I assumed that we are all on board with this? It appears that actually, Tobin is the only one who was excluded from the decision making process here. I can definitely understand his frustration and surprise now that I know that. This puts me in a very awkward position. I consider Tobin to be my direct superior within Binary Outcast, and Moonchild to be my direct superior within Moonchild Productions. Up until now, that hasn't actually been a problem because our goals were aligned, and the code I work on is shared between the two anyway.

While I do wish Moonchild would have discussed this with Tobin ahead of time, I must stand by my earlier statement in support of Moonchild regardless of Tobin's feelings.

Tobin, I don't usually stand against you because you are usually logical and make a lot of sense. I also look up to you as a mentor and a senior member of the project who has been here longer than me. But I would have thought you of all people understood the danger to the project in struggling with web compatibility and extension compatibility at the same time. It makes no sense to fight a two-front war. If we had succeeded in implementing WebComponents last year, and Ascrod and Lootyhoof were still around to help out as part of the add-ons team, this might be a legitimate conversation to be having. But we are a year behind on WebComponents, and the two main people involved with maintaining our extension ecosystem outside of the core developers are gone now. "The community" is not going to step up and maintain extensions properly, they've had their chance and what they have said they want is half-busted Firefox extensions. Even the few who do want to "help" are only interested in hacking the GUID anyway rather than becoming legitimate maintainers. The most we are going to get out of them are quick hacks as needed for the extensions they care most about, and trying to cultivate talent and work ethic among people that are used to being spoon-fed is just plain unrealistic. I've even heard some people who do have talents with coding extensions resent us trying to micromanage the ecosystem because they have this whole free-wheeling GNU mentality where they resent any kind of restriction and want to "stand in solidarity" with the users who are wanting to make their random hacks. The only thing we've succeeded in doing by going forward with the Pale Moon GUID plan is set ourselves up as authoritarian gatekeepers that are easy targets for those who hate us. Besides, I don't know any JavaScript or XUL, so the only people who could maintain extensions left are you and Moonchild. All continuing on with the original direction would do is create more work for both of you. Moonchild has kept the donations flowing in by giving the people what they want, and ultimately this is a necessary step. I'm sure this wasn't his ideal outcome either, he's made a compromise to keep things going.

I don't like the feeling of "giving into the users" either, but the majority of the people left using Pale Moon are using it for old Firefox extensions and no other reason. It is literally our only selling point right now, because we do not have an extension ecosystem, we do not have an add-ons team leader, and we do not have good web compatibility. Those old Firefox extensions and maybe Flash Player are the only reason anyone would give us the time of day right now.

I hate to ask this of someone I normally respect, but are you sure you are thinking clearly? I know that you just had dental work done and that they gave you some strong medication. You are in unfamiliar surroundings, you aren't in your own space, and you're about to move to another state. A lot of stuff is happening without your input because you can't be here and you're trying to feel in control the only way you know how. The stuff you are saying right now sounds very self-destructive and incoherent.

I really hope Moonchild doesn't hold this against you after you come to your senses, and understands how much pain you're in right now, because I'm sure this is really embarrassing for him.
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-12-18, 01:11

athenian200 wrote:
2021-12-18, 00:06
A lot of stuff is happening without your input because you can't be here and you're trying to feel in control the only way you know how.
Yeah by swearing at everyone who doesn't agree with his particular exact plan that can't involve compromise :problem:
OK call me salty if you wish. You'd probably be right.

By the way and for the record, I have never done anything major premeditated because Tobin was otherwise occupied; not in the case of ABL and not in this case. Of course I can't hope to convince anyone who prefers to see conspiracies to the contrary, but just let it be said.
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by rfman » 2021-12-18, 02:06

Hi ,
i'am a basiilk user (i a have ditched palemoon browser for basilik because nearly all extension work nearly flawless on basilik
and , as far i'am concerned the web is far moe readable on basilik than on palemoon.

Yet

moonchild , if i read right you said that you will stop basilik and work only on palemoon?

when you talk about the browser where the most extension work as firefox , basilik is far above palemmon in this regard , then
in my perspective , it should be baslik that should be the new base because :
- extensiion work far better on it
- the web work quite well as well (since it base is more recent)

for example this extension :
https://github.com/Quicksaver/Tab-Groups/commits/master

work flawlessly on basilik but is unsable on palemoon due to internnal panorama
keefox (local use with keepass) work flawlessly but is unusable on palemmon
....


i think you should do another pool if people want basilik or palemoon browser
(you might think it palemoon , but it might be very well baslik the winner of thus pool)

best regards

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Mæstro » 2021-12-18, 02:57

I had only learnt about the statements made in the original post when the Debian package for 29.4.3 updated today. While I was uninvolved in the poll and surrounding discussion, I am glad to hear the direction that Pale Moon is going. I find the new policy much friendlier to non-programmers like myself, and it removes the worry that I had held for some months over Pale Moon’s future development and my own needs in a browser. Thank you, Moonchild, for changing course!
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Kris_88 » 2021-12-18, 06:13

The main problem now is browser incompatibility with modern websites. This discourages the development of add-ons. There is no point in fiddling with add-ons if the browser is less and less compatible. If this problem cannot be solved, then there is no point in continuing the project. I understand that this is a very unpopular decision, and I do not like it either, but it’s true...
Yes, modern web technologies are developing in the wrong direction, but the statement of this fact does not make life easier for users.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by khronosschoty » 2021-12-18, 08:21

Its a tough place to be right now. It's like Google owns the modern web. Google and Facebook. I try to understand what exactly is github trying to accomplish by breaking things all the time? Its a slippery slope, no matter which direction you go. Its true that the old extensions had a lot more promise and worked better, in most ways. However, developers have basically all abandon their old extensions. I've been pretty much out of the loop; but I ask myself, whats wrong with moving forward and keeping extension compatibility with old Firefox extensions (or at least not intentionally killing it) but at the same time moving towards dedicated Pale Moon extensions? Not sure what answer is here.

My own view of things: Keep polishing and improving what we have. There is lots of ways to improve things. Work on hardening the browser. Work on web compatibility when needed... I haven't experienced a whole ton of web breakage personally; github is the one that always bites me, but for the most part things work well. I think if these things are done, we'll get more users and more devs in time. Staying the course and polishing what we have is the only true way forward imo...

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by hitokage » 2021-12-18, 08:59

Moonchild wrote:
2021-12-16, 22:53
In the end, 40% of all users didn't care about the goals set, only that the direction was away from what they wanted. I cannot ignore that.
I wanted to point out a few of my concerns with this figure and the poll in general. Voting in the poll meant that the user had to have visited the forum while the poll was running and actually vote. Not everyone visits the forum or they may not visit regularly. They may not even regular visit the main page or review the release notes when they're updated, so even a notice there may not have helped. There is everyone who did visit the forum, did come across the poll thread, but didn't vote for whatever reason. Then there is also the possibility of skewed results from anyone (the XP people/some Reddit users) that wanted to cause trouble/drama.

Web compatibility from those constantly reinventing the wheel is a problem. A potential work around could be implementing something like that extension that loaded a page using the IE rendering engine in a tab. I have no idea if there is a way to do an extension like that using Chrome/Chromium, or if it would be even more difficult then any other option.

For extension compatibility, it would be nice if everyone that had an extension they had to have listed it in that thread. Especially since it seems that there are very few that were broke by removing things like FUEL. It also seems that there may not be particular add-ons that broke/people want. They just want to be able to pull almost anything out of the archive and use it.
The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain - Scotty (Star Trek III)

To be clear this quote is not directed at Pale Moon, but a lot of other things in general.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-12-18, 12:07

hitokage wrote:
2021-12-18, 08:59
I wanted to point out a few of my concerns with this figure and the poll in general. Voting in the poll meant that the user had to have visited the forum while the poll was running and actually vote. Not everyone visits the forum or they may not visit regularly.
The poll was also up on the web and was announced in all channels. it is a true representation of the responses received from a pretty broad sampling. The final figures were combined forum and web results.
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"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by THX-1139 » 2021-12-18, 15:12

How difficult would it be to have two versions? have one version that follows the original plan, and one with the compatibility for extensions etc, I have no clue how much extra work would be involved in this- logistically and financially- or if it would be allowed (legally)...but if you had the 2 versions you could kill two birds with one stone; offering a 'compatible' version and also allowing your original plan to move forward...my guess is it would be too much extra work load but then I really have no clue.
Personally, I signed on to the original plan and voted that way, but I'm not going away in either case.
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by mweishaar » 2021-12-18, 16:41

Moonchild wrote:
2021-12-18, 12:07
hitokage wrote:
2021-12-18, 08:59
I wanted to point out a few of my concerns with this figure and the poll in general. Voting in the poll meant that the user had to have visited the forum while the poll was running and actually vote. Not everyone visits the forum or they may not visit regularly.
The poll was also up on the web and was announced in all channels. it is a true representation of the responses received from a pretty broad sampling. The final figures were combined forum and web results.
When I first saw the results, I immediately thought as hitokage did that it's the breakdown of the responders, not necessarily of the whole user base. It's a nit to pick, and I understand that it is the best information you have to go on. Personally, I really don't follow the forum (or any, anymore), or the development of Pale Moon all that closely. I don't feel that I need to! I'lI read the release notes when I install a new version, but I trust and leave that up to the developers. I do have a coding background but it is pretty far in my past. So purely as an end-user, I just expect it to work and if something isn't quite right I go looking for answers.

I did by chance catch the very end of the poll and am in the 34%. Pale Moon is and has been the best browser for me for many years now. I'll keep using it until it is not. In any forum/setting online where browsers are being discussed or recommended, I always promote Pale Moon. I refer to it being like Firefox before it took a wrong turn, and it is the standard I judge other browsers against. I do use a couple of extensions, but there are other things that are more important to me. I get that some people REALLY love their extensions, and change is hard. I hope the new direction can appease them as well as keep all the things I love about Pale Moon.

I will say that when I do recommend Pale Moon to people, there are usually responses about negative experiences with the Pale Moon developer(s). Perhaps that is because the users are either implicitly or explicitly called morons and imbeciles.

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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-12-18, 17:08

Not like I can do anything about certain people always disproportionately amplifying anything negative they hear about us. Did you ask them how many have personal experience with being called a moron or imbecile? I certainly am not in a habit of doing that. So... :think:
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Re: A change of direction for Pale Moon in 2022

Unread post by Kris_88 » 2021-12-18, 17:11

I looked at the internals of the new Firefox. The .manifest files are there, the XPCOM is there, XUL is used, and there is the parseXULToFragment function. Maybe it will be possible to restore compatibility with old add-ons? At least on an ideological level?

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