On what firefox version Pale Moon is besed?

[diana66]

Operating system: w 8.1 x64
Browser version: 32.4.0
32-bit or 64-bit browser?: x64
Problem URL: none
Browser theme (if not default):
Installed add-ons:
Installed plugins: (about:plugins):

If possible, please include the output of help->troubleshooting information (as text):

**PASTE troubleshooting information here**

On what firefox version Pale Moon is based??? Firefox 120???

[jobbautista9]

The short answer is none.

The long answer is that platform-wise (or backend) we diverged so much from our initial fork of version 52 ESR of mozilla-central (note that I refer to the whole repo, not just "Firefox") that it isn't really your regular, normal fork (or more accurately "rebuilds") like Waterfox and LibreWolf are where you can say with confidence what version it is based on (because they don't really change much from the original). Application-wise (or frontend), one could probably say version 28 (before the Australis interface introduced by 29) but take my word with a grain of salt; I haven't worked with the application frontend a lot so I'm not pretty familiar with how the development has progressed there...

[Blacklab]

Also see 'History of the Pale Moon project'.

[diana66]

52 ESR is very old (Windows XP timeline), now we are at 115 ESR.
Is seems this is a old firefox only with some bug fixes and ner certificates, will newest website properly working on it?

[Moonchild]

Maybe you don't understand what a "fork" means.
ESR 52 was our fork point, and we've developed our own path forward since then. So, many years ago, you could say we were very close to Firefox ESR 52 (but even at our fork point, the first release already had many improvements and changes), but that has not been the case for a long time.

this is a old firefox only with some bug fixes and ner certificates

I suggest you read the archived and current release notes on the website for a (concise!) overview what has been done. I don't know who told you it was "just some bug fixes" ...

[BenFenner]

Is seems this is a old firefox only with some bug fixes and ner certificates

And a 2023 Porsche 911 is an old VW Beetle with some reliability updates and stronger door locks.

[fretless]

Firefox itself is just Netscape Navigator with some new bugs and compromised functionality.

[Moonchild]

Firefox itself is just Netscape Navigator with some new bugs and compromised functionality.

Netscape Navigator was just Mosaic with a few bugfixes and a hacked UI.

[KlarkKentThe3rd]

Off-topic:
The last 2 posts made me smile.

[athenian200]

Well, depends on whether you're talking about the application code or the UXP backend. The UXP backend is simple, that's based on ESR 52 with a ton of backports and custom code added on top. Also a lot of features we didn't want were carefully ripped out, and I believe a couple of features from older platforms were forward-ported to UXP in the process. What's less simple is the application side of things... that code comes from a far more highly customized base that is much older than UXP, and was adapted to it. UXP was a platform that had to be built to run Pale Moon, Pale Moon wasn't built on UXP originally. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what version of Firefox the Pale Moon GUI/Application is based on. I want to say it's somewhere between Firefox 20 and 26, because the code clearly comes from a pre-Australis Firefox, but other than that I am not sure.

The point is that it has elements of both original code and multiple versions of Firefox. It's been slowly but surely becoming its own thing, though still taking as much as it can from Firefox in the form of applicable patches.

Firefox itself is just Netscape Navigator with some new bugs and compromised functionality.

I mean, back in early 2000s... there was no difference between Netscape and Mozilla because they were using the same codebase, so there was a brief period where you could have said that and been correct. Most people thought Mozilla/Netscape 6 was a lot less reliable and useful than Netscape Navigator 4.x. I can imagine it going something like this:

"Mozilla is just Netscape without the branding." (First Mozilla releases, circa 1998).

"Firefox is just Mozilla without the e-mail and composer parts. Who would want that?" (First Firefox releases).

"SeaMonkey is just the Mozilla Application Suite without the branding. Why change the name?" (First SeaMonkey releases).

"SeaMonkey is a weird cross between Firefox and Thunderbird that isn't updated as much. Who would want that?" (Later SeaMonkey releases).

And yes, I'm sure Pale Moon itself has been through all those stages, and that some people will never see it as its own thing. Just like some people will never see Firefox as anything but a lot of bodges on top of old Netscape code, or will never see SeaMonkey as anything but a lot of bodges to keep the Mozilla Application Suite alive after Mozilla decided to go in the Firefox direction.

[suzyne]

will newest website properly working on it?

It depends on the website. You really need to test the ones that are important to you.

Pale Moon is my primary browser for daily use, but I do need a second browser for the sites that don't work well on it. For me, that's just the way it is. But the idea that Pale Moon is just an old version of Firefox with some updates simply isn't true.

[andyprough]

Firefox itself is just Netscape Navigator with some new bugs and compromised functionality.

Netscape Navigator was just Mosaic with a few bugfixes and a hacked UI.

Off-topic:
Wasn't Mosaic based on ViolaWWW? And wasn't ViolaWWW based on Apple's 1989 version of HyperCard?

So I think you could say that Pale Moon is actually based on HyperCard 2.0.

[RealityRipple]

Off-topic:
Well, if you want to follow it all the way back, they're all just variations on Douglas Adams' concept of linking one section of text to another document or article; so all web browsers are just The Guide's children.

[athenian200]

Off-topic:
Well, if you want to follow it all the way back, they're all just variations on Douglas Adams' concept of linking one section of text to another document or article; so all web browsers are just The Guide's children.

Off-topic:
Well, and that idea probably came from the practice of including references and citations in paper documents. So really you could just say the whole idea of the Internet is basically just a reimagined version of MLA format setting a standard for providing references in documents and what information has to be included for people to know where to look, perhaps also taking inspiration from library organization systems and card catalogues. Those types of systems all have the same goal, organizing knowledge and connecting documents, but the underlying technology is quite different.