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

Information about the project

General Information

The Pale Moon project is the work of a single individual, using contributed Open Source code to create a full-featured, speed optimized browser based on the popular Firefox browser. Having seen the advantages on other systems (e.g. Linux) with regards to programs being compiled specifically for the capabilities of the machine it is installed on, it became obviously clear that Windows users were at a disadvantage: Mozilla only releases windows executables with maximum compatibility in mind, meaning that Firefox is made to run on as many different systems as possible, sacrificing efficiency and speed in the process to be compatible with, by current standards, absolutely ancient hardware (backwards compatible to the first Pentium processors from 1993).

In addition, later versions of Pale Moon aim to provide more freedom of choice than Mozilla about how people want to browse the web, and which feedback users want to see; efficiency, after all, should not stop at the engine of a browser, but extend to all parts of it, including the user interface. Specifically, Firefox 4 and later have redesigned the user interface after the visions of the Mozilla Firefox product directors and user experience team to provide a minimalist interface; unfortunately also removing essential functions and making a few less logical design choices, confusing minimalism with cleanliness.
More information about the Pale Moon application layout can be found here.
Users will find a slightly more conservative approach to changes in the user interface in the Pale Moon browser, which, although very close to Firefox, is (now more obviously so than before) a different product. However, these differences in layout do not prevent anyone from configuring their browser interface to exactly the way they want it to look and work (including like Mozilla Firefox's default layout if they so wish).

Pale Moon is a middle road, cutting away support for ancient systems to achieve a significant speed and efficiency increase, but not trying to squeeze the last few percent more out of it by limiting the range of systems it will run on even more. It aims to not waste computer resources and power on inefficient programs, while at the same time serving a wide range of systems that are currently in use around the world. As one person remarked when the first version of Pale Moon was just released: optimizing for only the very latest systems and limiting Pale Moon to run only on those would be rather pointless, as those systems have enough horse power in excess to not make the few percent extra even noticed that would be gained by additionally using their specific hardware capabilities.

Pale Moon will be released later than Mozilla Firefox, as it will take time to build and test based on release code, and may even run behind regular Firefox releases one or more versions depending on how rapid Mozilla pushes releases out the door, as this is still a project run in my free time, and I like to test the browser on at least a few systems before releasing it to the public. I also find that some Firefox updates don't warrant the time and effort to make a "point release" (or in some cases a "major" release, even) of Pale Moon to keep on the bleeding edge of Firefox development. Because Firefox shares its source code over several different platforms, patches that are implemented for a new version quite regularly do not apply to Windows browser builds and are therefore irrelevant to Pale Moon development. Pale Moon will be updated only for select and relevant updates of the Firefox source code.
This also means that Pale Moon will not be built based on beta, release candidate, milestone, or other development releases of the Firefox source code. Only relevant "Release" source code will be used to ensure stability.

That being said, Pale Moon may, on occasion, have intermediate releases to fix known issues in the Pale Moon browser before a new release version of Firefox code is available.

Support

I would like to express my thanks to the following people for their support, in no particular order:

Testing and moral support:
Cole Hughes, Colin Moran, Gerardo Rubio, Daryl Sprint, Jason Sullivan, and the beta testers on the forum

Donations (monetary or otherwise) and other support:
Cory Westropp, James Bass, Natalia Janeiro Pita, Michael Hunter, George W. Skuse Jr., Mirko von Elstermann, Ky Tat, John F. Allen, Adam Kirchgassner, Casey Brooks, Vojtech Behuncik, Jerry Hung, Michael Law, Lee Brown, Manuel la Fosse, Chris Finlayson, Bas Bleijendaal, Ian Scott, S.K. Brown, Solon Zhu, George Tillmon, David E. Wilson, Doris DeNudt, Dale Raggatt, Dave Wijnhoven, James Cross, Irving Prais, Denis James Prosser, Andrew Bozinoplouos, Edward Whiteaker, Grant Holman, Ianp (braveheart_leo), Christopher Thompson, Luc Bell, Alan Bischof, Markus Schweizer, LouAnne Stachowski, Steve Cramer, Chris Horace (and son), James Camper, Bernard Olij, Robert Tipping, Poggi Paolo, Tom Molnar, Rob van den Sigtenhorst, Tsali Peleg, Wolfgang Stanke, Victor Saltmeris, Alfredo Heredero Bellot, Isabel Guinder, Jonathan Millet, Colin Booth, David Vogl, Jacob M. Ross, Bart van Zoest, Robert Harvan, Rufo Moreno Fernandez, Henry Eisenson, Louise M. Head, Thomas D. Rouncefield, David Pyke, Faye Reynolds, Paul Carlson, Leon Grekin, James Soden, Dean Graham, Norman Hunter, David Tice, Dick Girard, Terence Truscott, HL7 Systems & Services, Mike du Pau, John Kruger, Donna Logan, Victor Saltmeris, Leopold Akpabio, S.G. Collins, Matthew Nitti (Zatzai), Howard Verne, John-Paul Coetzee, Thomas Saunders, Al Hughes, Graham Sewell, Robert Wilson, Markus Philipane, Michael Olson, Klaus Mahr, David Delmar, Andrew Taub, Don Hay, Rhonda Morales, Garth Ponsonby, Kris Bernardic, Mark Orleman, Frank Klett, Øystein A. Sæther, Brian Davies, Mike Bennett, Mats Danielsen, Kurt Edwards, Stefan Rasch, Stephen D'Orazio, Vyacheslav Sergeev, Richard Schoenfeldt, Jeff Lee, Michael Noble, Dave Crowder, Robert Whitney, Michael Carroll, Michael Frazier, Mark Dozbaba, Rebecca Sweet, Lars-Ove Landsverk, Johannes den Boer, Gail Mahabirsingh, Brian Trudeau, Omar Alomair, Vladimir Yemelyanov, Sparkling Carpets Inc., Jörg Juchems, Glenn Bennett, Simon E. Parker, Thomas Nelson, Dallas Eschenauer, Jo Singstad, Andrzej Krol, Marcos Coelho, Claudia Chuba, C.P. Humphries, De Marco LLC, The Phoenix Gate, James Williams, Hayes Anderson Ltd., OtakuBooty

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