The release of the Pale Moon 30.0 web browser has been published, which is forked from the Firefox codebase to ensure higher performance, maintain a classic interface, minimize memory consumption, and provide additional customization options. Pale Moon builds are available for Windows and Linux (x86 and x86_64). The project's code is distributed under the MPLv2 (Mozilla Public License).
The project adheres to the classic interface organization, avoiding the transition to the integrated interface Australis introduced in Firefox 29, and provides extensive customization options. Notable removed components include DRM, Social API, WebRTC, PDF viewer, Crash Reporter, code for statistics collection, parental control tools, and accessibility features. Compared to Firefox, support for XUL technology is retained, along with the option to use both full-featured and lightweight themes.
In the new version:
- Support for unmodified legacy Firefox add-ons has been restored. There has been a shift from using a proprietary browser GUID to adopting the Firefox identifier, which will maximize compatibility with all legacy and unsupported add-ons originally developed for Firefox (previously, add-ons had to be specially adapted to work in Pale Moon, which created difficulties in using unsupported add-ons). The add-ons site developed by the project will support both XUL add-ons specifically adapted for Pale Moon and XUL add-ons released for Firefox.
- The UXP (Unified XUL Platform) that developed the fork of Firefox components from the Mozilla Central repository, freed from Rust language code bindings and excluding work from the Quantum project, has been discontinued. Instead of UXP, the browser will now be built on the GRE (Goanna Runtime Environment), based on more recent Gecko engine code, cleansed of unsupported components and platform code.
- The mechanism for GPC (Global Privacy Control) has been implemented, replacing the 'DNT' (Do Not Track) header, allowing websites to be informed of the prohibition on selling personal data and using it for tracking preferences or movements between sites.
- The setting to choose Pale Moon as the default browser has been moved to the 'General' section.
- Support for Twemoji 13.1 has been implemented in the emoji collection.
- Methods Selection.setBaseAndExtent() and queueMicroTask() have been added to improve compatibility with websites.
- The customization of scrollbar appearance through themes has been enhanced.
- The package structure for internationalization and language support has been changed. Due to rechecking translations, there is a decrease in the coverage of elements in language packs.
- The profile format has been changed — after updating to Pale Moon 30.0, the profile will no longer be usable with previous Pale Moon 29.x branch.
Source: opennet.ru
