The Pale Moon Project - Custom-built and optimized Firefox browsers for Windows Operating Systems

Pale Moon "Legacy"

Final release: Pale Moon 3.6.32 fixes a few performance and stability issues. Full details can be found in the Release notes. This is the final version of this branch and no more updates wil be made.

This branch is no longer officially supported by the Pale Moon developer, but you may post support questions for this branch in the designated board on the Pale Moon forum.

Pale Moon 3.6.x (the "Legacy" version) is no longer maintained but kept available for those people needing this version of the browser because of their hardware, operating system, resources, browsing environment or add-ons/toolbars that have no updated versions or support for later Firefox code. It has only limited support for HTML5 and CSS3, and this standards support will not be extended further. If you run into web sites complaining you need to upgrade your browser or otherwise run into modern/new web sites that are not working properly, it is recommended you upgrade Pale Moon to the next generation version.

End-of-Life announcement

After a good number of years of stable, tried-and-tested use, the Gecko engine version 1.9 has finally reached the end of the line, and with it, the Legacy version (3.6.x) of Pale Moon. The reasons for this are multiple, but some of the more important highlights are given here:
  1. Functionality: More and more web sites are adopting techniques and code that no longer works in gecko 1.9.2, or cause severe performance issues. This includes large and popular social media sites, blog sites, art sites and most other actively developed web sites on the Internet. As such, the legacy browser is quickly losing ground in terms of being useful for its intended purpose.
  2. Maturation of the Next Generation code: The Firefox code base has improved significantly in the last few versions and the initial memory problems are all but mitigated. This means that there are ever fewer reasons to keep running 3.6.x, even on lower-end systems. The Next Generation version of Pale Moon performs well in virtual machines, for example (this has been extensively tested).
  3. Security: New security patches for problems that also affect gecko 1.9.2 are becoming increasingly difficult to back-port, especially issues related to javascript. There are currently a number of critical vulnerabilities in Pale Moon 3.6.x, although they are not commonly exploited. What is additionally important, is add-ons and toolbars that will no longer be updated and have not been updated for a while already. Each unmaintained add-on or toolbar poses a potential additional risk. Running 3.6.x prevents you from using updated extensions as they are no longer maintained or developed for that version of the browser.
Unfortunately, this also means that I will drop support for SSE-only processors. Considering these processors have been superseded by SSE2-capable ones a decade ago (in 2000 by Intel's Pentium 4, and in 2003 by AMD's Athlon64), these systems are considered museum-grade by now. I know that there are still plenty of Athlon XP machines out there, but overall it is a very small percentage of Pale Moon users; similarly, the museum-grade O.S. of Windows 2000 will no longer be supported with the end of support for the Legacy version, as the Next Generation version will only run on Windows XP (with the latest service pack) or later versions of Windows.
If you are running an old system no longer supported by Pale Moon, you have the option to switch to Mozilla Firefox or another browser that still supports your hardware. If you are running on Windows 2000, I strongly recommend you update your O.S.; Windows 2000 is no longer maintained or updated by Microsoft and has a number of vulnerabilities that won't be patched anymore (it's no longer safe to run for most people).

If you are still in need of the latest Legacy build of the browser, you can download it from the locations linked to below. Please note that no further support for this browser will be given, although you may find fellow users willing to help out on the Pale Moon forum.

The latest, final version is 3.6.32.

Minimum system requirements:
  • Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, 32-bit or 64-bit
  • A processor with SSE support (see list of supported processors)
  • 64 MB of free RAM (128 MB or more recommended)
  • At least 50 MB of free (uncompressed) disk space
Installer, ZIP and Portable version: Download (ge.tt)
Installer @ download crew: Download
Portable @ download crew: Download
Or you can download from the Pale Moon archived versions page, where you can also find the language packs for this version in 3.x/langpacks.


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