Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for "legacy PM" by some

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Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for "legacy PM" by some

Unread post by gracious1 » 2017-11-26, 05:27

Hello. A developer (jspenguin2017) made this comment at github:
Pale moon is legacy, the new browser is called Basilisk. I'll add support for more browsers that support WebExtension, but not now.
If you are the unicorn who love and support the old technology then the fork button is there. I'm not going to learn an extension system that less than 0.1% of user use.
So something I have feared has already happened. Now that Basilisk is out, some developers think that Pale Moon is a legacy browser, and that Basilisk is its replacement. "Pale Moon is legacy, the new browser is called Basilisk." This is of great concern, for as much as I want to see Basilisk succeed, I would hate to see developers abandon Pale Moon when we were just getting several on board.

I post this here because I would like to ask the Basilisk team to please spread word to your colleagues in the software world that Basilisk does not replace PM, and because I would also like to ask Basilisk end-users to be careful not to perpetuate this misconception. I am sure you are all doing that already :mrgreen: , but how many other developers and end-users are thinking the same thing as jspenguin2017 ?
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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by Sajadi » 2017-11-26, 10:36

There is seriously a clear misunderstanding what Basilisk really is :D

In the end, UXP - which also makes Basilisk happen should push Pale Moon into the future at some point ahead in time, but with the old classic UI on top ;)

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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-11-27, 12:05

People just don't read.
Feel free to correct anyone who gets this wrong. I've already re-iterated this many times, and doing it any more would just be totally redundant and wouldn't help anyway if people don't read.
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joe04

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by joe04 » 2017-11-27, 14:04

gracious1 wrote:Hello. A developer (jspenguin2017)
I follow uBO development, so I can explain why jspenguin said what he did. His new AdBlockProtector2 Webextension is an expansion of his current uBlockProtector extension that is only for Chrome. He's stated in the recent past that he couldn't get the gory Javascript details to work properly in XPCOM Firefox mode.

The point is, from his perspective use of the word "legacy" is technically valid (though his tone was derisive) for Pale Moon since that's the official label Mozilla places on XUL/XPCOM extensions. And he may have mentioned "the new one is Basilisk" because it has some support for Webextensions and thus may be able to work for AdBlockProtector2.

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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-11-27, 17:53

Not only derisive, but making a wrong statement. Stating it that way gives the inescapable impression that Basilisk is replacing Pale Moon. It's just incorrect, even if he wants to view it from his perspective, because he never supported Pale Moon to begin with.
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MoonExplorer

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by MoonExplorer » 2017-11-29, 02:19

Moonchild wrote:Not only derisive, but making a wrong statement. Stating it that way gives the inescapable impression that Basilisk is replacing Pale Moon. It's just incorrect, even if he wants to view it from his perspective, because he never supported Pale Moon to begin with.
That's the impression I got reading your explanations viewtopic.php?p=127552#p127552
Moonchild wrote: Current Pale Moon = system + Tycho + Pale Moon
Current Basilisk = system + UXP + Basilisk
Future Pale Moon = system + UXP + Pale Moon

-> UXP will be a replacement for Tycho.
What's the difference between Future Pale Moon and current Basilisk? If there is no technical difference between them, with future Pale Moon using the same set of technology (with improvements of course) that Basilisk uses now, it seems pretty much like a rebase to me.

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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by GREGBKK » 2017-11-29, 02:24

What are the advantages of Basilisk compared to other browsers? Is it designed for speed? features? security?

I ask because I like the new browser but I (possibly wrongly) thought that pre-Quantum versions of FF were considered slow and cumbersome, so I don't know what the possible advantages are.

ianas

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by ianas » 2017-11-29, 03:11

GREGBKK wrote:What are the advantages of Basilisk compared to other browsers? Is it designed for speed? features? security?

I ask because I like the new browser but I (possibly wrongly) thought that pre-Quantum versions of FF were considered slow and cumbersome, so I don't know what the possible advantages are.
in my expirience pre quantum Firefox was quite faster and used less ram then Chrome based browsers that being said I tested FF57 and FF56 on some of my machines and the old Firefox was faster then quantum (quantum was a bit faster on my dual core but not as fast as advertised and it ran with out my 20+ xpcom addons)
it's my understanding that Quantum is faster on 4+ core cpu's (I tested it on a 2 core and 4 core cpu's both tests done at http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/ strangly enough in the dual core 57 was faster on the quad core it was significantly slower)
one of the benefits of Basilisk is that it will keep support for xul/xpcom addons and there are a few hundred thousand of them it will also add support (it's partially here) for webext addons so we'd have best of both worlds
there are other benefits like keeping npapi support (a lot of people need this) etc
probably a few other things I can't think off at the moment

MoonExplorer

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by MoonExplorer » 2017-11-29, 04:15

GREGBKK wrote:What are the advantages of Basilisk compared to other browsers? Is it designed for speed? features? security?
I ask because I like the new browser but I (possibly wrongly) thought that pre-Quantum versions of FF were considered slow and cumbersome, so I don't know what the possible advantages are.
My understanding is that you could say it's designed for preserving the features Firefox had, more precisely - as a testbed for the future Pale Moon releases, because it's hard going on supporting a fork of Firefox 38 ESR.
You should understand that it's basically Firefox as it was in the beginning of 2017 w/ Goanna rendering engine. If I understand the situation correctly, it doesn't have security issues fixed that were fixed in Firefox 52 ESR more than two weeks ago (which is understandable, it being a testbed). Basically, in the rapidly changing world of the modern Web you don't look for bleeding edge security where there are only 4-5 people maintaining the code of a highly complicated piece of software, one of them contributing the bulk of commits (like 60-70%).
Note that this is just my personal opinion.
pre-Quantum versions of FF were considered slow and cumbersome
As a side note, you should always ask yourself questions, like "Who considers it to be slow? Is that a fact? Is it slow for me? Does it do what I want, the way I want?
What would you rather be driving - a sport bike at breezing 200mph without eye protection and any comfort at all, or a comfortable cab at 50 mph with by your friends?
ianas wrote: old Firefox was faster then quantum
Absolutely. I had the same results, however, Firefox 56 was only marginally faster than Firefox 57. And both were noticeably faster than Firefox 52.

roytam1

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by roytam1 » 2017-11-29, 04:43

MoonExplorer wrote:
GREGBKK wrote:What are the advantages of Basilisk compared to other browsers? Is it designed for speed? features? security?
I ask because I like the new browser but I (possibly wrongly) thought that pre-Quantum versions of FF were considered slow and cumbersome, so I don't know what the possible advantages are.
My understanding is that you could say it's designed for preserving the features Firefox had, more precisely - as a testbed for the future Pale Moon releases, because it's hard going on supporting a fork of Firefox 38 ESR.
You should understand that it's basically Firefox as it was in the beginning of 2017 w/ Goanna rendering engine. If I understand the situation correctly, it doesn't have security issues fixed that were fixed in Firefox 52 ESR more than two weeks ago (which is understandable, it being a testbed). Basically, in the rapidly changing world of the modern Web you don't look for bleeding edge security where there are only 4-5 people maintaining the code of a highly complicated piece of software, one of them contributing the bulk of commits (like 60-70%).
Note that this is just my personal opinion.
pre-Quantum versions of FF were considered slow and cumbersome
As a side note, you should always ask yourself questions, like "Who considers it to be slow? Is that a fact? Is it slow for me? Does it do what I want, the way I want?
What would you rather be driving - a sport bike at breezing 200mph without eye protection and any comfort at all, or a comfortable cab at 50 mph with by your friends?
ianas wrote: old Firefox was faster then quantum
Absolutely. I had the same results, however, Firefox 56 was only marginally faster than Firefox 57. And both were noticeably faster than Firefox 52.
To be clear, Firefox since 55 release/final requires rust language.

ianas

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by ianas » 2017-11-29, 04:53

I just did a comparative test of a few browsers on my old dual core desktop and surprise surprise the fastest browser is:
Image

no not Firefox 55 but Basilisk it is faster then Firefox 57 Quantum it is faster then Firefox 56 it is faster then Vivaldi or Chrome
if the results are unclear the list is from first to last
Basilisk , Firefox 57 x64, Firefox 57 x86 no addons (I run a portable build), Firefox 56, Vivaldi 1.12 (no addons) not Chrome, Vivldi 1.13 (no addons), Basilisk with greasemonkey (I don't use greasemonkey in FF), PaleMoon 27.6.1, the next is FF57 but I was watching a video when I did that test so ignore it, Chrome 62 no addons, Vivaldi 1.12 with ublock-origin and tampermonkey, Palemoon with greasemonkey, Vivaldi 1.13 with ublock-origin and tampermonkey
Surprisingly the winner is Basilisk, PaleMoon is slower then Firefox and Vivaldi but beats Chrome
I was having issues with Greasemonkey and Firefox
https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/c ... laying_in/
so switched to Tampermonkey which is a lot lighter unfortunately Tampermonkey went full webext and does not work properly with Basilisk or PaleMoon
Greasemonkey is literally dragging both Basilisk and PaleMoon but I need my anti-ad-block ads-bypasser and my anti-adware filters
https://gitlab.com/xuhaiyang1234/AAK-Cont
https://github.com/adsbypasser/adsbypasser
https://github.com/HandyUserscripts/AntiAdware
now if we can get webext working and I can replace greasemonkey with tampermonkey

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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by gracious1 » 2017-11-29, 06:42

MoonExplorer wrote:What's the difference between Future Pale Moon and current Basilisk? If there is no technical difference between them, with future Pale Moon using the same set of technology (with improvements of course) that Basilisk uses now, it seems pretty much like a rebase to me.
UXP and Tycho are platforms.
Basilisk and Pale Moon are products (applications) built respectively on each platform.
Pale Moon will eventually migrate to the UXP platform, so they will both be built on the same platform, but Basilisk and Pale Moon will be two different products.
Pale Moon, for example, will not support DRM or WebExt, and uses a non-Australis interface (I don't know the correct term for PM's interface.)
Basilisk will support DRM and WebExt, but also continue to support XUL/XPCOM, and uses Australis.

Please read Moonschild's Technology Summary, which I think may help clear up confusion.

Also here is his picture to illustrate platform, application, etc.
Image
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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by MoonExplorer » 2017-11-29, 06:52

gracious1 wrote: UXP and Tycho are platforms.
Basilisk and Pale Moon are products (applications) built respectively on each platform.
Pale Moon will eventually migrate to the UXP platform, so they will both be built on the same platform, but Basilisk and Pale Moon will be two different products.
Pale Moon, for example, will not support DRM or WebExt, and uses a non-Australis interface (I don't know the correct term for PM's interface.)
Basilisk will support DRM and WebExt, but also continue to support XUL/XPCOM, and uses Australis.

Please read Moonschild's Technology Summary, which I think may help clear up confusion.

Also here is his picture to illustrate platform, application, etc.
Image
So basically "Future Pale Moon" will be basically Basilisk without WebExtensions and DRM support? Is that all the difference between the two? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Basilisk uses Australis because UXP is a fork of Firefox from the early 2017, I don't understand how you are going to (single-handedly?) get rid of Australis in it.

Thanks for quoting the picture, it proves my initial suggestion that Basilisk is a testbed for the rebase of Pale Moon.

MoonExplorer

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by MoonExplorer » 2017-11-29, 06:57

ianas wrote:I just did a comparative test of a few browsers on my old dual core desktop and surprise surprise the fastest browser is:
It's an artificial test with not much correlation to real browser usage. You should run https://mozilla.github.io/arewefastyet-speedometer/2.0/ or find a heavy page, e.g. https://windy.com and benchmark it with www.raymondhill.net/ublock/pageloadspeed.html
The results will be much more meaningful (depending on the purpose, indeed).

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2017-11-29, 07:06

MoonExplorer wrote:
gracious1 wrote: UXP and Tycho are platforms.
Basilisk and Pale Moon are products (applications) built respectively on each platform.
Pale Moon will eventually migrate to the UXP platform, so they will both be built on the same platform, but Basilisk and Pale Moon will be two different products.
Pale Moon, for example, will not support DRM or WebExt, and uses a non-Australis interface (I don't know the correct term for PM's interface.)
Basilisk will support DRM and WebExt, but also continue to support XUL/XPCOM, and uses Australis.

Please read Moonschild's Technology Summary, which I think may help clear up confusion.

Also here is his picture to illustrate platform, application, etc.
Image
So basically "Future Pale Moon" will be basically Basilisk without WebExtensions and DRM support? Is that all the difference between the two? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Basilisk uses Australis because UXP is a fork of Firefox from the early 2017, I don't understand how you are going to (single-handedly?) get rid of Australis in it.

Thanks for quoting the picture, it proves my initial suggestion that Basilisk is a testbed for the rebase of Pale Moon.
No.. You are incorrect. Australis is a theme and application components namely "CustomizableUI" of the Basilisk (or Firefox) application code.. Saying UXP is a fork of Firefox is missing the very point and buying into what Mozilla has tried to perpetuate. There is clear separation of what constitutes Platform (UXP) and Application (Firefox, Basilisk, etc). This is what what you quoted gracious1 saying.. What you said is totally going against what has been explained dozens of times on this forum.

Pale Moon on UXP will be Pale Moon never the less.. In Pale Moon 27 we put the Application Code which was originally sourced from Firefox 24esr (plus other bits) onto a Platform originally sourced from Gecko 38ESR which has ZERO of Firefox 38 left because I physically deleted all the code that was Firefox 38.

Basilisk's Application code is Late Firefox Australis with junk stripped out and not much else will be done on the application code except keeping it working and maybe an enhancement here and there but when Pale Moon comes to UXP it won't be any different than Pale Moon 27 was from Pale Moon 26 because it will be the SAME APPLICATION.

From a classical Mozilla perspective this is how it has been for over a decade. Only when Mozilla went ALL FIREFOX ALL THE TIME did they start to cloud the issue and started treating the PLATFORM as the same as the application and to hell with any other applications that would use the platform.. Like Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Songbird/Nightengale, Kompozer/bluegriffin and dozens more.

WE want to maintain the power and potential of that platform not simply slave it to only ONE Application that uses only a subset of the capabilities of that platform.

I hope this.. FINALLY.. Clears it up for everyone.

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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by gracious1 » 2017-11-29, 07:10

MoonExplorer wrote:So basically "Future Pale Moon" will be basically Basilisk without WebExtensions and DRM support? Is that all the difference between the two? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Basilisk uses Australis because UXP is a fork of Firefox from the early 2017, I don't understand how you are going to (single-handedly?) get rid of Australis in it.
Some things I want to point out, because I fear you may have misread me:
  • Regarding Australis, Basilisk is not getting of it; meanwhile, Pale Moon never had it, and never will have it.
  • Strictly speaking, UXP is not a fork of Firefox. UXP is a platform, and Firefox is an application. So UXP would be a fork of the Mozilla platform codebase.
  • Those differences b/t Basilisk & PM that I mentioned are not the only ones; they are just the obvious ones to the end-user, and it is 2 o'clock in the morning here. :coffee: (Could someone else jump in with some more technical differences?)
Good night all.
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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by Donotfillintheblank » 2017-11-29, 23:38

gracious1 wrote:Hello. A developer (jspenguin2017) made this comment at github:
Pale moon is legacy, the new browser is called Basilisk. I'll add support for more browsers that support WebExtension, but not now.
If you are the unicorn who love and support the old technology then the fork button is there. I'm not going to learn an extension system that less than 0.1% of user use.
So something I have feared has already happened. Now that Basilisk is out, some developers think that Pale Moon is a legacy browser, and that Basilisk is its replacement. "Pale Moon is legacy, the new browser is called Basilisk."
What is the reason for such rumors to be spread? Is it just a misunderstanding - a misconception- or someone who would for personal reasons be trying to actually get a particular piece of software out of traffic so to speak and see it replaced with some other?

ianas

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by ianas » 2017-11-30, 04:54

MoonExplorer wrote:
ianas wrote:I just did a comparative test of a few browsers on my old dual core desktop and surprise surprise the fastest browser is:
It's an artificial test with not much correlation to real browser usage. You should run https://mozilla.github.io/arewefastyet-speedometer/2.0/ or find a heavy page, e.g. https://windy.com and benchmark it with http://www.raymondhill.net/ublock/pageloadspeed.html
The results will be much more meaningful (depending on the purpose, indeed).
maybe the end result is artificial but comparatively speaking I can see which browser does better that test measures a lot of content from text processing javascript image processing to video rendering a faster browser would score higher
again this is an old machine and when I tried a newer test
https://web.basemark.com/
my Firefox ran out of RAM and crashed so I'm sticking to my story on my old dual core Basilisk is the fastest followed by Firefox 57 then 56 then Vivaldi and PaleMoon Chrome is the slowest

ianas

Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by ianas » 2017-11-30, 05:01

ianas wrote:
MoonExplorer wrote:
ianas wrote:I just did a comparative test of a few browsers on my old dual core desktop and surprise surprise the fastest browser is:
It's an artificial test with not much correlation to real browser usage. You should run https://mozilla.github.io/arewefastyet-speedometer/2.0/ or find a heavy page, e.g. https://windy.com and benchmark it with http://www.raymondhill.net/ublock/pageloadspeed.html
The results will be much more meaningful (depending on the purpose, indeed).
maybe the end result is artificial but comparatively speaking I can see which browser does better that test measures a lot of content from text processing javascript image processing to video rendering a faster browser would score higher
again this is an old machine and when I tried a newer test
https://web.basemark.com/
my Firefox ran out of RAM and crashed so I'm sticking to my story on my old dual core Basilisk is the fastest followed by Firefox 57 then 56 then Vivaldi and PaleMoon Chrome is the slowest
I tried running https://mozilla.github.io/arewefastyet-speedometer/2.0/
Firefox ran out of RAM and crashed I didn't test Basilisk as there was no point and it would crash too

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Re: Problem: Basilisk seen as replacement for legacy PM by some

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-11-30, 10:35

ianas wrote:Firefox ran out of RAM and crashed I didn't test Basilisk as there was no point and it would crash too
That's really not a given.
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