5 ms·

At this point, would it make sense to fork Firefox?

by brillenfux 11y ago

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
There's already GNU IceCat. Pale Moon is quite popular among Windows power users, I've read.
- jd3 11y ago
  Ridiculous. I've never heard of power users using Pale moon. it seems like the current `hot fad' in comparison to products like SeaMonkey, which power users have always used since the de-coupling of the Mozilla Suite (netscape suite) in 2005. my personal thoughts on pale moon can be found here[0]. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/3ay037/pale_moon_to_switch_from_gecko_to_goanna/csh6ond https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/3ay037/pale_moon_t...
  - steve-howard 11y ago
    I still use Firefox, but I looked at the status of some of the forks after today's news. It seems that Pale Moon, at the very least, is a true fork, but I don't have a whole lot of confidence that it would be right for me. In particular, it seems that they take a _very_ old-school approach to media on the Web [1], they really only bother with XUL addon compatibility [2], and an attitude that they should only open-source what is legally required of them [3]. There's nothing wrong with these views, but they don't work well for me. I just want my browser to work, with the extensions I like, and until now the way to go about that has been to stick with regular Firefox. Looks like that might not work for very long either. [1] "Media support is a regularly-discussed topic for Pale Moon users, [...] This is, however, not a goal of Pale Moon because of the inherent shift of focus from document content to media content." https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml [2] "If you still like to develop JetPack add-ons for Pale Moon, you will likely have to make a completely separate extension specific for Pale Moon targeting." Ibid. [3] "There is no requirement or even reason why I should be forced to also release helper applications that are in no way tied to browser operation as Open Source as well." http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7818 http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7818
smalley 11y ago
I think that's what the Pale Moon (https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/) folks were doing some time ago. I'm pretty sure they support most of the original firefox extensions without the signing etc.
- cmcnally 11y ago
  I have been using Pale Moon x64 as my daily browser for years now. I have run into a few issues with extension compatibility, (ex: Greasemonkey has issues with versions newer than 1.15.1) but support is generally pretty good. I see it as a viable alternative to Firefox, but it could benefit from a little more mainstream support.
- cauterized 11y ago
  Too bad there's no Mac version.
  - richardboegli 11y ago
    Pale Moon for Mac OSX 24.7.1 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=41 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=41 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099556
ionforce 11y ago
Would such a thing even be sustainable? Forks are free. Good, maintained, used forks are another.

At this point, would it make sense to fork Firefox?

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

There's already GNU IceCat. Pale Moon is quite popular among Windows power users, I've read.

jd3 11y ago
Ridiculous. I've never heard of power users using Pale moon. it seems like the current `hot fad' in comparison to products like SeaMonkey, which power users have always used since the de-coupling of the Mozilla Suite (netscape suite) in 2005. my personal thoughts on pale moon can be found here[0]. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/3ay037/pale_moon_to_switch_from_gecko_to_goanna/csh6ond https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/3ay037/pale_moon_t...
- steve-howard 11y ago
  I still use Firefox, but I looked at the status of some of the forks after today's news. It seems that Pale Moon, at the very least, is a true fork, but I don't have a whole lot of confidence that it would be right for me. In particular, it seems that they take a _very_ old-school approach to media on the Web [1], they really only bother with XUL addon compatibility [2], and an attitude that they should only open-source what is legally required of them [3]. There's nothing wrong with these views, but they don't work well for me. I just want my browser to work, with the extensions I like, and until now the way to go about that has been to stick with regular Firefox. Looks like that might not work for very long either. [1] "Media support is a regularly-discussed topic for Pale Moon users, [...] This is, however, not a goal of Pale Moon because of the inherent shift of focus from document content to media content." https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml [2] "If you still like to develop JetPack add-ons for Pale Moon, you will likely have to make a completely separate extension specific for Pale Moon targeting." Ibid. [3] "There is no requirement or even reason why I should be forced to also release helper applications that are in no way tied to browser operation as Open Source as well." http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7818 http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7818

smalley 11y ago

I think that's what the Pale Moon (https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/) folks were doing some time ago. I'm pretty sure they support most of the original firefox extensions without the signing etc.

cmcnally 11y ago
I have been using Pale Moon x64 as my daily browser for years now. I have run into a few issues with extension compatibility, (ex: Greasemonkey has issues with versions newer than 1.15.1) but support is generally pretty good. I see it as a viable alternative to Firefox, but it could benefit from a little more mainstream support.
cauterized 11y ago
Too bad there's no Mac version.
- richardboegli 11y ago
  Pale Moon for Mac OSX 24.7.1 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=41 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=41 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099556

ionforce 11y ago

Would such a thing even be sustainable? Forks are free. Good, maintained, used forks are another.