Pale Moon development will see a course direction in 2022 according to a new post from the Moonchild project owner on the official Pale Moon forum. Pale Moon, an open source web browser that started out as a fork of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, is based on the Goanna rendering engine and the Unified XUL Platform (UXP).
The decision was based on the results of a November 2021 survey, comments, and other considerations. The survey asked browser users to select what they wanted from the Pale Moon project. Options included 100% matching Google Chrome, being a Firefox clone but without the telemetry and data collection, a browser that would support classic Firefox extensions, or focusing on what Pale Moon was always looking for. The last two options received 39% and 34% of all votes in the poll.
Other considerations included the following main points:
- The Pale Moon extension ecosystem was struggling due to lack of participation.
- The user base is relatively small.
- The project does not have enough core developers.
- Users are struggling with web compatibility issues and extension compatibility issues.
Based on these findings, Moonchild announced plans to change the direction of development. The following changes are mentioned in the announcement:
- FUEL restore to improve extension compatibility.
- Firefox GUID reset to improve extension compatibility.
With these two in place, the development team can focus on improving web browser compatibility and addressing major compatibility issues. These changes will take time, but should significantly improve compatibility.
With less pressure on us to shape and nurture the extensions ecosystem, we will continue our efforts to work on implementing the major blockers that have caused increasing web compatibility issues (mainly issues in JavaScript, Google frameworks, Google WebComponents, and some persistent but Difficult to implement specifications We realize that without further outside help this will still take considerable time and web compatibility will remain less than desired / optimal as we work to improve adherence to current trends in web ‘design’ (please note note citations).
The Basilisk browser may be suspended as a result, or it may be detached. The decision has not yet been made on this.
Now you: Do you use Pale Moon? What is your opinion on the decision?
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