To be more precise, it offers support for XUL, XPCOM, and NPAPI plugins, the so-called “legacy” Firefox extensions. The second feature that makes Pale Moon so popular is the fact that it still supports various old Firefox add-ons (most of which are no longer supported by the newer version of Firefox, and had to be built from the ground up to make them work). Even though outdated in terms of looks (the interface is still preferred by many users for its numerous customization capabilities and somewhat more approachable nature. The first and foremost is the fact that the browser uses the pre-Australis Firefox user interface. There are various other divergences from the Firefox version, and two of them represent two of the main reasons people love Pale Moon. This means that it is optimized for modern processors, it’s secure since up-to-date security features are constantly added to the project’s core, and extensive and growing support for some of the latest and most relevant web standards.

Here’s what sets Pale Moon apart, though.Įven though it uses the somewhat old-school user interface of Firefox browsers of old (version 4-28), the browser is a modern and actively-maintained product.

It replaced the Gecko browser engine with Goanna-forked one, defaults to a welcoming and very customizable start page ( collaboration), it uses DuckDuckGo as its default engine (instead of Google or !Yahoo), and it uses the IP-API service and not Google’s geolocation engines. Here’s a quick overview: Pale Moon always runs in single-process mode, whereas the modern versions of Firefox all run on a multi-process mode. Most of you might know by now that the project is actually a fork of Mozilla’s Firefox with various hand-picked features and optimizations. Sporting the motto “Your browser, Your way,” Pale Moon is all about customizability, stability, and speed. Released in late 2009, Pale Moon has managed to carve a good reputation among the best browsers of the industry and has since remained one of the best options for a specific niche of users out there. Nowadays, the browser industry is heavily dominated by a few popular names, but the most interesting aspect of it is the sheer number of good alternatives currently present on the market. A whole lot has changed in the last 10 years in regards to how the Internet affects and helps our lives, but one thing that’s remained largely the same is that we still use web browsers as our staple picks when it comes to getting work done online.

Free instals Pale Moon 32.4.0.1