Pale Moon (Split from Firefox Ads Thread)

[satrow]

If you don't use Sync, could you not disregard the stability warning and enable Purity anyway?

Even if you decide not to join the PM forum, there's nothing to stop you using it as a read-only resource, even via a search engine query: search term here site:forum.palemoon.org for example (though the inbuilt PM forum search for purity looked very comprehensive and was listed most recent first).

[blues]

Blues: resource usage differences are difficult to quantify without direct comparison with Firefox. What most users look at is memory usage - that can be anywhere from slightly more than FF to significantly less, depending on the website(s) and content loaded, length of browsing session - say +5 > - 20%. There can be similar differences in CPU usage, especially when Pale Moon makes better use of modern graphics cards to offload the donkey work more efficiently. CPU kernel usage (high kernel usage = lagging or 'sticky' mouse, System sluggishness, etc.) is sometimes significantly reduced in Pale Moon on heavy or poorly designed pages.

Thank you, Satrow.  Appreciate the input. :cool:

[Corrine]

One of the things you will need to watch out for is over-zealous security software, it's still classed as 'rare or unusual' by many heuristics (think guesswork) and can lead to odd things happening, silently being 'sandboxed', for example - perhaps related to your time out with the Profile Manager, Basil? I'll check with the Developer to see whether it's signed, I know the main browser is, that should bypass that issue in the future, if it was part of the problem.

There's also a rather neat Pale Moon Commander Add-on - options on steroids! - it also includes a Reset all Preferences button, as it's a pretty complex tool!

Sorry, I wrongly attributed Corrine's profile migration problem to Basil.

Not to worry, it was probably the way I worded it.  Anyway, I doubt it was a security software issue, using Windows 7 Ultimate with MSE, MBAM Pro and WinPatrol PLUS.  In comparing the newly created Pale Moon profile with the copied FF profile, the Pale Moon Cache Folder is 13.6 MB (14,280,573 bytes), with 43 Files, 55 Folders.  Since I have an old profile that I hadn't used in many, many years, I suspect that is what caused the problem.  I probably should have deleted it long ago.



As to FB Purity, I've also been in contact with the developer since I had helped him with autoplay of videos on FB but obviously Moonchild is already on top of it.



"CPU kernel usage (high kernel usage = lagging or 'sticky' mouse, System sluggishness, etc.)" clearly describes the only frustration I've had with FF.  It was particularly bad after the update to 27.0.  The 27.0.1 update helped but wasn't a complete solution.



I looked at Pale Moon Commander yesterday since it was mentioned on the home page.  However, the description scared me off:

This is a configurator. Any changes made by this add-on are permanent even after removal of the add-on. You should use this with care!
Changing preferences you don't understand can break your browser. A basic manual is available on the add-on's home page but it remains more of a tweaker/expert tool than anything else, so it's suited for people who are willing to do a little research of their own about preferences or who are already familiar with Firefox settings.

[Corrine]

If you don't use Sync, could you not disregard the stability warning and enable Purity anyway?

That is what I did by unchecking the disable box.

(I registered at the forum.)

[satrow]

Corrine, I don't think MSE is likely to 'mess' with Pale Moon (although IE's 'Smart' Screen has been known to block its' download) and MBAM Pro and Winpatrol Plus are fine with it. The 'usual' culprits like Norton, Avast (though I know that could be worked around fairly easily), Kaspersky, etc are likely to try to 'sandbox' it silently - though this may be less likely to occur now that Pale Moon is digitally signed. It's the AV's heuristics and reputation -type 'features' that are likely to falsely trigger it. The usual sign of interference are Flash issues and general sluggishness - Flash uses it's own 'sandboxing' technique now, adding another plays havoc with it.

Yes, it does sound like the Profile migration tool tried to pick up the old FF profile; one problem new users sometimes have is because they still have PM or FF loaded during the attempted migration.

When it comes to CPU/GPU issues, I have a pretty good 'feel' for what's happening on my computers and (I think) I'm quite sensitive to small changes, as I would guess my fellow beta testers also are. Any performance regression noticed is fed back to Moonchild who can usually pinpoint, fix and recompile a new beta version for further testing within an hour or so if he's available, it's rare that a performance issue makes it to the release versions.

Applies to all Mozilla -based browsers:- With most Add-ons, Pale Moon Commander included, it's safest to undo any changes made by any Add-on before they're disabled or uninstalled, otherwise there's a high risk of some changes remaining active. A screenshot saved of about:support before any new Add-on is installed is a good way to keep track of any changes made. Upgrading a profile over a long period of time, especially if that period includes some major internal browser changes, is likely to end up buggy/corrupt at some point. Creating a fresh or test profile is quite straightforward (I must have ~6 profiles currently) and manual/selective importing of data from an older profile should only take about 10-15 minutes and is a great way to fix any profile corruption, etc and regain a fresh, fast browser with all needed extensions and Bookmarks.

But yes, like some anti -malware tools, PM Commander should be prescription only, it needs to be treated with respect, only change settings in the areas that you need to and understand.

[Corrine]

Thank you, Andy!  It never occurred to me to undo any changes made by an add-on prior to disabling/uninstalling.   

[Corrine]

How about this!  After installing Pale Moon, I had started a discussion at Sysnative wondering what others thought about the ads.  Glaswegian commented that he has new tabs set to open to Google.  After reading his comment, I thought about it and then realized he had probably edited about:config.  It had not occurred to me to edit about:config to change the default action for a new tab so I tried it and it works great.  Following are the steps I used to change the default from about:blank to a URL of choice:

• Type about:config in the address bar (confirm any warning)
  
• Search newtab
  
• Right-click browser.newtab.url and select Modify
  
• Change about:blank to the URL of choice (I used http://www.bing.com)
  
• Close about:config
  

[satrow]

Most of those are available by going to Tools > Options in Pale Moon, under the General and Tabs sections, Corrine. In Pale Moon, there are usually more options available than there are in FF.

[satrow]

Update from Moonchild and the FB Purity developer http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3842:

Looks like a fix is in the making and to be released soon.

I checked and found scriptify has been updated in the last few days, and the latest version generates extensions that dont interfere with Firefox sync. i've updated the xpi hosted at http://install.fbpurity.com if any of your users want the fixed version, they should clear their browser cache and reinstall via that page.

Once a new version is released that fixes this issue, I'll update the blocklist to restrict warnings only to affected versions of the extension.

[Corrine]

Most of those are available by going to Tools > Options in Pale Moon, under the General and Tabs sections, Corrine. In Pale Moon, there are usually more options available than there are in FF.

Thanks.  That is what I have Pale Moon set to do.  The about:config change solves the FF problem for those who want to make the change there.

[Basil]

It is not only Corrine that had problems with the migration tool .
I have heard a couple of other people I know, had the same issue.
They both gave up!

Is there a problem with the migration tool.....It could be putting people off Pale Moon, if they don't know how to do it manually!... :(

[satrow]

From the download page for the Pale Moon profile migration tool:

Pale Moon profile migration tool
This tool will help you migrate a Mozilla Firefox profile to Pale Moon.
This tool may not work for everyone, since it has a few important limitations:


  1.  This tool only works for the default profile locations for Firefox and Pale Moon
  2.  This tool does not work for portable versions of either browser
  3.  This tool may not work well on limited accounts on Windows Vista.


It was put together mainly for people who have standard installations and as a convenient aid for people who do not have enough knowledge of the Windows O.S. and filesystem to manually copy the profiles over. It is not meant to be very versatile or flexible at this moment, but "gets the job done" in most cases.

Current version: 1.3.3 (2014-01-09)
This version update should solve any permission errors while copying, and addresses a problem with incorrect profile paths on non-admin accounts when elevating privileges.

Note: Please close both Firefox and Pale Moon before attempting to migrate your profiles. Not doing so may cause an incomplete transfer or give errors.

If this tool, for whatever reason, doesn't work for you, please check the Troubleshooting section on this site for instructions on how to manually copy over a profile.

This tool is provided to you as FREEWARE. Unlike the Pale Moon browser, this tool is not open source and the source will not be made available. © 2009-2014 M.C. Straver.

So, no, I don't think there are any known issues with the tool itself "for people who have standard installations" other than the few mentioned above. Obviously, should there be any corruption within the original Firefox profile - not so uncommon, especially if it's seen a large number of FF versions, and those which incorporated big changes - then there are likely to be issues importing it.

Troubleshooting section contents (manual profile migration instructions):

The Pale Moon profile migration tool (for 3.6.6 or later) doesn't work
Since there are many different setups of Windows, it is always possible that the migration tool doesn't do its job properly. In that case, you will have to manually copy your user profile(s) to the proper location for Pale Moon 3.6.6 or later. You can also use this method to manually copy a Firefox profile to be used in Pale Moon (they are compatible). Close down the browser and do the following:

  1.  Find your old Pale Moon/Firefox profile folder. Usually:
    On XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Application data\Mozilla\Firefox
    On Vista/7: C:\users\{your user name}\Application data\Mozilla\Firefox
  2.  Copy everything in that folder (subfolders and profiles.ini) to Pale Moon's profile folder, overwriting what is there. If you have already run Pale Moon at least once, it will have created the folder structure already:
    On XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Application data\Moonchild Productions\Pale Moon
    On Vista/7: C:\users\{your user name}\Application data\Moonchild Productions\Pale Moon

[Basil]

Hi Satrow,

I am aware of these instructions, having carefully read them before downloading Pale Moon. Thankfully, the migration tool worked beautifully for me, and I never needed them... :thumbsup:

The point, however, I was trying to make in my previous posting (admittedly very badly... :(), is that, as most people are not so computer literate, they might, and some do find the instructions daunting to follow. I have had friends, on three occasions so far, where I recommended the browser, and they obviously needed to migrate their data manually. At this point, all three gave up. The feedback I got from them was......."I can't be bothered with that....I want something that works properly!.... :wub: (I have left the colourful words out..... :lol:)

I think this is a real pity, because although  the browser is great,  it is probably losing users, as many people are either unable, or unwilling to follow additional instructions that they consider too complicated.

Please don't get me wrong, as I do understand the complexity of the issue and the dilemma of the developer. All I am trying to do is highlight the feedback I got from friends....not so computer literate as some people in technical forums.... :uhm:

One of these three friends, although he has been using a computer longer than I have, he is really struggling...he still refers to the browser as "the internet"..... :hysterical:...and when I try and talk to him about computer issues, I just lose the will to live!!... :thud:

[Corrine]

Remember when Mozilla changed the search function so that the "find bar" was no longer shared between tabs (version 25.0).  As a result of that change, when searching for text on multiple tabs, it became necessary to open the find bar (Ctrl+F) on each tab.  The Pale Moon developer recognized that change for the sake of change is nonsense and did not incorporate that change! 

[Corrine]

 :look: Considering that this has turned into a discussion on Pale Moon, I've split it from the original discussion which can be found at Mozilla to deliver ads in its Firefox browser


<edit: tag fixed by winchester73>