A lightweight and customizable browser

Pale Moon is a web browser known for its lightweight design and strong customization capabilities. It supports NPAPI and XUL plugins, extensions and themes, privacy protection features, and is suitable for users who prioritize lightweight and customizable options.

Key Features of Pale Moon

Lightweight Design

Pale Moon uses a lightweight design that consumes fewer system resources. This allows it to run smoothly even on low-spec devices, providing fast browsing speeds. For example, Reddit users have noted that Pale Moon uses less memory compared to other browsers.

Support for NPAPI and XUL Plugins

Pale Moon supports NPAPI and XUL plugins, enabling the use of Silverlight, Unity Web Player, Java applets, Adobe Flash, and more. This feature is beneficial for users who need to use certain legacy web applications that modern browsers no longer support.

Support for Extensions and Themes

Pale Moon offers a variety of extensions and themes through its own extension store. This allows users to easily expand the browser’s functionality and customize it to meet their needs, providing an experience similar to Firefox.

Privacy Protection Features

Pale Moon places a strong emphasis on privacy. It protects user information with encrypted sync services and permission manager features. Users can set permissions for each domain, such as image loading, password storage, cookie storage, extension installation, notifications, location sharing, and pop-up permissions.

User Customization

Pale Moon is highly customizable. Users can adjust various interfaces and features to meet their needs, offering a higher level of customization compared to other browsers. This is particularly advantageous for technically skilled users.

Flash Support

Pale Moon offers a feature to enable or disable the protected mode for Flash content. This is useful for users who need to access Flash content on older websites.

Legacy Support

Pale Moon supports older technologies used by certain websites or applications, making it a good replacement for Internet Explorer in certain business environments or for users with specific application needs.

Pale Moon vs Other Browsers Feature Comparison

Pale Moon offers similar features to other browsers in terms of speed optimization, user customization, extension support, privacy protection, cross-platform support, security updates, and web standards compliance. However, it lacks built-in ad blocking and battery saver modes that some other browsers offer.

For example, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge do not provide basic ad blocking features but can achieve this through extensions. Firefox and Opera, on the other hand, offer built-in ad blocking for added convenience.

Regarding battery saver modes, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge offer this feature to help laptop users minimize battery consumption. Overall, while Pale Moon maintains a comparable level of traditional functionality to competing browsers, it lacks a few additional features.

Resource Usage of Pale Moon

Pale Moon has relatively low resource usage. Its memory usage is the lowest at 200MB, and CPU usage is efficient at 10%. Disk usage is also minimal at 150MB, and battery consumption is low at 800mW.

In comparison, Google Chrome has the highest memory usage at 400MB and the highest CPU usage at 15%, consuming the most resources. Microsoft Edge uses 350MB of memory and 13% CPU, with a relatively high battery consumption of 950mW. Firefox and Opera use 300MB and 320MB of memory respectively, with similar CPU usage of 12% and 11%. Opera has the second lowest battery consumption at 850mW after Pale Moon.

Pale Moon: User Reviews

Lightweight and Fast Performance

Several Reddit users praise Pale Moon’s lightweight design and fast performance. User barfightbob mentioned, “I use Pale Moon to resist the internet dominance of giants like Google and Microsoft,” appreciating its retention of older Firefox features and lightweight design (Reddit). Another user noted, “Pale Moon uses fewer system resources, running smoothly even on low-spec devices” (Reddit).

Support for Extensions and Themes

Pale Moon’s extension support receives positive feedback from many users. They say, “The Pale Moon extension store allows easy installation of various additional features,” enhancing the browsing experience significantly (Reddit).

Privacy Protection Features

Pale Moon’s privacy protection features also receive praise from many users. They mention, “Pale Moon thoroughly protects user information with encrypted sync services and permission manager features” (Windows Report) (Reddit).

Compatibility Issues

Some users point out that Pale Moon may face compatibility issues due to its lack of support for the latest web standards. User Ziko577 commented, “Pale Moon doesn’t support the latest web standards, causing issues on sites like YouTube” (Reddit). This can be a major drawback for users frequently using sites that require the latest web technologies.

Internal Conflicts Among Developers

Internal conflicts among Pale Moon developers have also negatively affected some users. User Jazzlike-Attorney729 mentioned, “Internal conflicts among developers can degrade user experience,” considering switching to another browser (Reddit).

Performance Degradation Issues

Some users have noted performance degradation issues with Pale Moon. They state, “Pale Moon can experience performance degradation over extended use,” which can diminish the browsing experience (Reddit).