Pale Moon Browser

Why settle for a basic build of your Firefox browser on Windows Operating Systems when you can have one that is specifically made for getting the most out of your system? Mozilla does not provide optimized browser packages for Windows, meaning you may be losing speed and efficiency when you use your browser; and truth be told, most people use their browsers all the time! That needs to change, so, here is the Pale Moon project: Custom-built and optimized Firefox browsers for Windows Operating Systems. Make sure to get the most speed and efficiency out of your browser!

Of course, getting a more efficient browser is not just about optimizing the compilation process (building a program from its source code), but also about carefully choosing features and knowing how to choose the best setup. This means that this browser, however extremely close to Firefox in the way it works, does not have all the functions that Firefox has. A few, carefully selected, features have been disabled that are not in high demand, and that do not interfere with the way web pages are displayed or function; all to maximize speed and efficiency of the browser.

Main features:

- Highly optimized for current processors
- 100% Firefox sourced: As safe as the browser that has seen years of development.
- Uses slightly less memory because of disabled redundant and optional code
- Significant speed increases for page drawing and script processing
- Support for SVG and Canvas, downloadable fonts, WOFF and some HTML5
- Support for Firefox extensions (add-ons), themes and personas
- Support for OOPP (Out-of-process plugin execution)
- Able to use existing Firefox profiles, bookmarks and settings with this migration tool


System Requirements:

. Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7, 32-bit or 64-bit
. A modern processor with SSE2 support like a Pentium IV or Athlon 64 or later (see list of supported processors) Standard Pale Moon will NOT run on Athlon XP processors! Please GO HERE if you are running on an older processor machine.
. 64 MB of RAM (128 MB or more recommended)
. At least 50 MB of free (uncompressed) disk space

Give it a spin ... I like it so far!

cheers ...

4.0.3 now available

cheers ...

4.0.5 now available - use link in first post for update.

cheers ...

4.0.7 now available - use link in first post for update.

32-bit and 64-bits now official!

cheers ...

I am impressed with this version so far after playing with it for the past hours - solid even with the 64-bits. Wondering if this what we'd see on Firefox 5.0 official

cheers ...

Version 3.6.17

. code base of FF3.6
. Update of the code base to Firefox 3.6.17, this fixes a number of security issues and crashes.
. Change for network traffic over proxies to compensate for older/poor proxies that can't handle HTTP pipelining. (pipelining disabled by default when using a proxy)

Download link in first post. To be honest I recommend using ver 4.0.7

cheers ...

Version 3.6.18

Update of the code base to the current branch code for Gecko 1.9.2 (3.6.18 milestone). This milestone is apparently kept off the wire by Mozilla. In addition, some post-milestone bugfixes have been implemented, including an (apparently security-critical) Javascript bug and SVG bug.

Changes:

- Minor cosmetic changes
- Floating point accuracy changed yet again to the more precise model, based on feedback from users indicating that .15 worked smoother. Apparently there are still more under the hood problems with using the fast model globally.

Free

cheers ...

3.6.20:
Update of the code base to the current branch code for Gecko 1.9.2 (3.6.20 milestone).

Fixes:

Windows Vista and Windows 7: Set default browser works correctly again - fixed the internal check so it won't complain about not being the default browser when it is.

cheers ...

Version 6.0

New release based on Firefox 6.0!

Of course the necessary bugfixes and changes as part of the new code base, with a number of additional changes:

. Add-ons will no longer automatically update by default the moment they are checked and found to have a newer release, giving the user the choice to accept or reject the update, read release notes, etc.
. Update of the status bar add-on to v2.2, fixing compatibility issues and extending some configurability.
. Link right-click menu has "Open in new tab" on top now, like Firefox. If you are having trouble retraining yourself for this behavior, please download a menu editing Firefox add-on to customize your menus. This change was made based on user feedback.
. Added ak, ast, br, bs, en-ZA, gd, lg, mai, nso, and son language packs

Free

cheers ...

Version 6.0.2

Addressing issues of DigiNotar security certificates.

free

cheers ...

3.6.23

Changes:

- Unification of the SSE (AthlonXP) and SSE2 (regular) builds of Pale Moon v3. The current 3.6 browser will run on any CPU with SSE capabilities, meaning Pentium-III/Pentium-IIIm or Athlon XP/MP, and later, processors.
- Performance tweaks to the layout graphics libraries which should slightly increase graphics decoding and rendering speed.
- A few stability and security updates following the Firefox base code.

Considering the current performance and stability of Pale Moon 6.0.2, it is recommended at this point for anyone running on a machine with a CPU capable of SSE2 to switch to the next generation of the browser if you are running Windows XP SP2 or later, except if your hardware is particularly slow and may be impaired by the performance regression cairo currently suffers from re: animated images. Pale Moon 3.6 will see future stability and security updates, and potentially more improvements in performance.

Free

cheers ...

3.6.24
This incorporates a number of security updates to the browser. This includes fixes for some memory vulnerabilities and XSS exploits.

Free

cheers ...

7.0
A new release building on the Firefox 7.0.1 code base. This version sees a large number of performance increases, as well as lower resource use than the previous version.

Additional changes:

- Introduction of the Tab Groups (panorama) button in the user interface for easy access (Next to the All Tabs button)
- Several additional performance improvements on individual browser components
- A change of the Application Menu button color to blue shades instead of a "foxy orange"


Free

cheers ...

Version 7.0.1

This update fixes a very important speed regression issue for Pale Moon 7.0. It impacts mostly the page content layout engine and DOM handling, which will be on par again with what they should be for Pale Moon in this point release.

Bug: 20111001-CCBug
CC bug 20111001
Speed regression with PGO/SSE2.

Reporters: n/a

Affects the following:
Builds: 7.0.

Cause: Compiler issues for the layout subsystem when using PGO combined with SSE2.

Details:
The linking phase of the layout engine causes instability in the compiler in some situations, causing code to be non-optimized or otherwise unstable or crashes the compiler altogether. This is (yet another) PGO compiler bug in MSVC :/

Solution:
Re-build, adjusting per-module optimization flags to less aggressive optimizations in part of the layout engine.

Implementation:
Makefile edit in /layout/generic:
Replace CXXFLAGS with forced -O1 -GL, ignoring all other optimization flags.
Makefile edit in /layout/printing:
Add -GL- to CXXFLAGS, excluding it from PGO (not important anyway)

Benchmarking scores will see a significant jump from 7.0 to 7.0.1 as a result, as well.
There are no other functional or UI changes for this release.

Free

cheers ...

Special build for x64 bits 7.0.1


cheers ...

version 8.0

A major update building on the Firefox 8.0 code base, with improvements that were planned for the (unreleased) version 7.0.2.
This version sees the following improvements in addition to those inherent to Firefox 8:

- Improved cache handling: this will make the browser handle system resources more efficiently on most systems.
- Improved networking: communication with web servers should be noticeably faster and smoother
- Fix for a rare image decoding bug (garbage, possible crashes)

Free

cheers ...

9.0.1
An update incorporating the Firefox 9.0.1 code base.
In addition, the following changes:

Under the hood changes and improvements to the way memory is handled by the Javascript engine.
WebGL has been changed to use ANGLE by default instead of using native OpenGL to give better performance on a number of systems that would otherwise suffer from high CPU usage and lower frame rates.
Change in compiler: from this point on, Visual Studio 2010 will be used for all "next gen" builds.
Build environment changed to cater to the ever-growing XUL dll size without having to compromize on what modules to optimize. (Prevent running into the 3GB address space limit)
DNS prefetching disabled by default to prevent router hangups
Changes to timings for UI script execution and content script execution to prevent unnecessary dialog popups about unresponsive scripts.
Some image decoding tweaks.
Eye candy: animated preferences dialog (resize when switching category).

Free

cheers ...

9.1

This update implements relevant fixes from Firefox 10 in terms of security and stability. Additional new functionality found in Firefox 10 has not been implemented.
In addition, the following fixes:

- Update to the status bar component to fix pop-up status and links, as well as a few other small issues.
- Update to the add-on compatibility assistant to no longer display the status bar core add-on as selectable
- Update to a few default settings based on usage metrics
- Removed some commercial search engines (e.g. Amazon) and added DuckDuckGo/SSL

Free

cheers ...

15.2

Fixes:
- Important performance regression fix. Both javascript and the layout engine should now have the speed and stability that is to be expected from an optimized browser.
- Fix for the "tabs on top" menu entry not showing when tabs are already set on top, making it very difficult to switch them back to bottom.
- Crash: Fix for a browser crash with certain types of invalid gradients. (bug #792903)
- Security: Prevent private browsing data leakage through popup windows (bug #795015)
- Security: Detect IC purging (bug #794025)
- Security: Prevent mRules from dying in DoInsertHTMLWithContext (bug #788950)
- Security: Drain the parent frame's overflow list before insert/append (bug #765621)

Features:

- Redesigned the identity panel and the way secure sites are handled in the UI
- You will now always get the favicon in the address bar, and on secure sites you will have an added padlock (indicating ssl, extended verification or a broken/insecure/mixed-content site) to the identity panel and colored shading around the URL to indicate the status. (see detailed changelog)
- After evaluating the new address bar autocomplete algorithm, it is now switched on by default.
- Added an option to easily switch address autocompletion on or off (see detailed changelog)
- Partial implementation of Japanese "status bar" preferences text

Free

cheers ...