Basilisk profile import

[Unix Ronin]

On first run, Basilisk offers to import a profile from Chrome ... and ONLY from Chrome, not from Firefox or Pale Moon. Those are your choices — Chrome or no import at all.

Is there a reason why Basilisk does not offer to import what it can from Firefox or Pale Moon? One would think that importing bookmarks, history, saved passwords etc would be easier from Firefox and Pale Moon than from Chrome. And one would particularly think that Basilisk would offer to maintain as much continuity as possible from Pale Moon.

[Moonchild]

Is there a reason why Basilisk does not offer to import what it can from Firefox or Pale Moon?

Yes, very simple: Importing from Firefox isn't possible because Mozilla keeps changing the profile data storage format.
In the case of Pale Moon it's because such a migrator was never written by anyone.

Basilisk doesn't necessarily aim to offer continuity from Pale Moon. It's a standalone browser application.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

If they are both UXP of reletive closeness you can do it manually with a subset transplant.. cookies, passwords, places (bookmarks and history) without much risk from established profile into newly created. Leave prefs, extensions, etc behind and you are on your own at your own risk.

I don't normally give this info out because if things go wrong and they can you'll just blame me or spread this info incorrectly as without risk to people who couldn't identify shit even with a tricorder.

If it is important to you I can give you express instructions but don't hold anyone responsible but yourself.

As for Firefox anything up to 51 whole profile as long as you reset prefs afterward for Pale Moon generally but other issues may arise. Up to 52 as is for Basilisk but resetting prefs would be advisable. Newer than that and you're pretty much out of luck.

Cross mozilla-based application profile mangling isn't to be taken lightly and there are snags and caveats everywhere. Too many to be coded against. That is why importing from Google Chrome and Internet Explorer is actually easier in some ways.

Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should do that thing. It really should be considered on a case by case basis. I can tell through in-depth experience when and to what degree you can do it. Very few others can even if they claim otherwise, even among the people here.

I don't want to contradict Moonchild but importing data (not profile) from newer-than-52 Firefox is possible but not practical as such a migration would require tracking every detail of an ever changing profile setup. So practically impossible but technically possible but no one has the time to.. uhh.. do it. We have enough to do with our own technology without bothering with keeping tabs on what new abominations Mozilla is doing with theirs.

Feel free to make Modern Firefox data extraction and translation your mission and contribution to the Basilisk Migration code though

[sabretoothedhamster]

As far as this topic is widely spread over the internet and have got no satisfactory solution (I do not consider an answer "it is not possible because it is not possible at all" as even acceptable in this situation) I decided to register here and post a piece of my experience.

I have successfully migrated three Firefox installations to Basilisk without any notable issues using FEBE (v8.9.3.1) from http://softwarebychuck.com/febe/febe.html
The heaviest setup was with 60+ extensions, 500K+ bookmarks etc. and the latest one was performed just today. So, the algorithm is quite straight:

1. If your FF suddenly and rudely updated itself to the Quantum line you need to stop it immediately, manually download previous good FF version (my choice is https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.7.4esr/ ) and install it on top of updated one.
2. Install there FEBE 8.9.3.1 extension if it is not installed yet, and make a full backup with it.
3. Install Basilisk (build 2019.09.03 works ok)
4. Install THE SAME FEBE 8.9.3.1 into Basilisk (corresponding xpi file could be found right in the directory where FEBE put it's backup)
5. Restore full profile into freshly created Basilisk profile using FEBE and then restart Basilisk with restored profile (use -profilemanager command line option)
6. Check if everything works ok and replace those plugins/extensions which have native PaleMoon/Basilisk builds

P.S. YMMV
P.P.S. BTW to solve extension conflicts I could recommend excellent tool from FEBE author: http://softwarebychuck.com/fect/fect.html

[moonbat]

Looking at all this, I'm glad I made the switch to Pale Moon the very day Mozilla announced they were going to flush XUL/XPCOM down the drain. Firefox was still more or less compatible back then so I was able to just copy over my profile directory, change profiles.ini to point to it and that was it.