Pale Moon is an award-winning open-source browser known for its emphasis on customization, giving users complete control of their browsing experience. The Goanna layout and rendering engine – an offshoot of Firefox’s Gecko engine – allows this.
Privacy-focused and compatible with legacy add-ons, Opera is an attractive choice for users who wish to preserve the functionality of their favorite applications while at the same time staying up-to-date with modern browser features and extensions. However, its functionality may be limited in certain instances.
Features
Pale Moon stands out from other mainstream browsers in a number of ways, most notably through its dedication to customization. Users can create their own look and feel with support for classic XUL extensions and full themes; users also have access to blocking pop-up windows and configuring JavaScript and multimedia settings.
Moonchild Productions’ browser utilizes the Goanna layout and rendering engine, an open-source fork of Mozilla’s Gecko engine. Community members provide developer support; new versions are released every six weeks by Moonchild Productions, the company behind it all.
Changes can be implemented faster than with other web browsers, which often take months or years between major updates. Opera is also known for providing fast page loads times, seamless navigation features, and full support of HTML5 standards.
While this browser contains some contemporary features, its primary aim is not to compete with more advanced web browsers. By focusing on optimization and eliminating unnecessary “modern” features, it aims for a lightweight browsing experience and will run on older and less powerful hardware.
Features that stand out are its grouped navigation buttons, an inbuilt PDF reader, default tabs next to page content by default and functional status bar – which you can switch off if desired. In addition, this browser offers customizable start pages with quick access to bookmarks, search engines and news websites as well as pop-up blocker functionality with exceptions made for specific websites.
Pale Moon stands out with its Sync service, allowing you to sync your browser history, bookmarks, passwords and open tabs across devices. While this can be handy for users on multiple devices at once, Pale Moon relies on third-party providers for location services that may cause some users to have concerns.
This browser supports various privacy-related settings, such as Data Privacy, Cookies and Tracking Protection. Furthermore, there is a function to block all or specific types of cookies. Unfortunately, unlike other browsers it does not include an integrated parental controls feature.
Compatibility
Pale Moon strives to be compatible across various platforms, particularly Windows. Additionally, Pale Moon supports add-ons and themes so users can customize its appearance according to their personal tastes. Furthermore, this browser can utilize hardware acceleration features available on most modern graphics cards for an unfaltering and responsive browsing experience.
Pale Moon is an independent web browser from Mozilla, though some overlapping features with Gecko-based products exist. As a result, features desired by users are regularly implemented or improved upon in the browser – particularly its layout and rendering engine which has been updated multiple times to improve on its original implementation, most recently with Goanna which implements best-of-class implementations of HTML/CSS features like scoped styling, visually accurate gradients, font rendering on modern hardware etc.
Pale Moon browser stands out as being particularly secure and privacy-minded due to its range of extra configuration options that go beyond what other browsers typically provide. Users can set a global cookie preference that will prevent websites from setting any cookies at all; additionally, more granular control of site data and cookie handling by creating lists of domains which should never store cookies or website data can also be enabled by using Pale Moon’s customizable filters.
One unique security-related feature unique to Opera is its ability to disable WebRTC – something most consider best left for dedicated programs or plugins/add-ons.
As part of Goanna’s ongoing development work, its browser has also been brought up-to-date with ECMAScript specifications, becoming fully compliant with ES6 specifications. This ensures that Goanna meets most web standards as they emerge; future releases will feature further improvements as they emerge.
Privacy
Pale Moon is a privacy-centric browser, running on Goanna and SpiderMonkey engines rather than those found in Chrome or Firefox’s Gecko engine. These engines don’t collect telemetry or store cookies – unlike Chrome and Firefox! Furthermore, its privacy policies are clear, and its feature lets you set cookie preferences per site individually.
Though based on Firefox, Pale Moon stands out with its own distinct features that set it apart from competitors. Pale Moon supports legacy add-ons not yet compatible with Mozilla’s most current browser version and offers an impressive selection of themes and extensions for users to select. Furthermore, Pale Moon boasts fast performance while remaining user friendly thanks to an easy interface.
Secure option with small code base and no known vulnerabilities, it also boasts a highly responsive developer community and more standards compliant web engine that makes pages more compatible. Furthermore, its security policy stands out among competitors and rapidly fixes any bugs found.
One of the best features of Opera is its ability to automatically block ads and trackers, providing more effective privacy protection. This feature is essential for those seeking online security. Opera also enables users to browse in private mode and protects sensitive data. Furthermore, users are alerted of malware/phishing websites as well as being given control over clearing their browsing history/cache manually.
Pale Moon provides another great feature with its search suggestions feature. This sends search terms you enter directly to search engines (DuckDuckGo, Yahoo etc) as you type them so they can offer suggested results before confirming your search query. All information sent over secure connections governed by each search engine’s respective privacy policies.
The browser also offers a Sync service, which syncs your settings and bookmarks across devices. The encryption system ensures end-to-end protection of user data; recovery keys will only ever be stored on computers where the service resides. Your information may only ever be shared with third parties if consented or legally mandated by law enforcement authorities.
Add-ons
Pale Moon features an expanding list of add-ons designed to extend its capabilities, similar to what can be found with Firefox extensions, but more lightweight and targeted at specific needs. Some add-ons make using Pale Moon easier with specific operating systems or pieces of software while other allow you to alter its behavior or alter its appearance.
Add-ons provide more features while simultaneously increasing browser stability and security. Some examples of add-ons:
New canvas fingerprinting techniques make identification harder by altering data read from canvas surfaces in a way that’s humanly imperceptible, making it harder for pages to match their sources. In order for this solution to function, both middleware and card reader drivers are needed.
An extension that enables viewing of image metadata such as Exif (Exchangeable Image File Format) and IPTC-NAA/IIM (International Press Telecommunications Council/ Newspaper Association of America/ Information Interchange Management). Displays these when mouse is hovered over image.
A port of the popular Firefox Reader View add-on that displays PDF files in a separate window, enabling you to print pages directly from within your browser and see document structures like tables and lists.
This plugin makes it simple and fast to save any web page as an image file with one click, and then paste that image directly into documents or email messages.
Adds a context menu item for easily viewing the About dialog for extensions, themes and language packs without opening the Add-on Manager.
Pale Moon uses its own Add-ons repository that stands apart from those available through Chrome’s Web Store and Firefox’s Mozilla Add-ons website, making it simple and straightforward to add extensions that help navigate the internet securely and effortlessly. With an impressive set of features designed specifically to keep you safe while surfing online, installing and managing add-ons for Pale Moon couldn’t be simpler.
Web browser that adheres to modern web standards, supports an expansive range of plugins and extensions, and is optimized for modern processors. With an interface similar to that found in Firefox browsers like Linux distributions as well as Windows; additionally it is equipped with an add-on that enables importation of Firefox profiles for seamless use on modern processors.
