Which FF derivative is recommended?

[Alexo]

I am trying to decide between Pale moon and Waterfox.

[cbaker_admin]

Personally, I have only used Pale Moon. I might give Waterfox a try someday just to see what does that other Fx clones don't.

[Alexo]

My understanding is that Waterfox will support both kinds of extensions.

[BackerUpper]

I'd suggest Pale Moon. Excellent support and information on its forum. You could also keep an eye on the development of Basilisk, which will be 'closer' to Firefox than Pale Moon, if that's what you are looking for.

[Alexo]

I prefer a browser that will support both XUL and Webextensions.

[BackerUpper]

That's not a simple task to achieve... perhaps Basilisk will do that, it's not clear. And Waterfox, it's not really clear where it's going either.

[Sun42]

That's not a simple task to achieve... perhaps Basilisk will do that, it's not clear. And Waterfox, it's not really clear where it's going either.

After Mozilla abandoning their addons, I did a lot of testing - Waterfox now has the most up-to-date code base of ff56, and it support e10s (which is no good if you have legacy extension that aren't compatible, but many are).

But Waterfox is x64 only, so to save memory on my laptop I'm now using Basilisk which doesn't support e10s, but has a x86 build, too. From all three candidates - including Pale Moon - Baislisk seems the most promiging, as I'm not sure how long the Waterfox maintainer can keep up backporting ff57+ code.

Btw Pale Moon might catch up again, that's because the more modern Basilsik is totally not the successor at all

[gracious1]

There is no "catching up" involved. Pale Moon is a true fork, and it is going in its own direction. IIt will eventually be ported from the Mozilla platform to the Unified XUL Platform (UXP). Basilisk is not "more modern". Both are modern browsers, actively maintained, with different target audiences.

Here is more information:

• A glossary of terms, which is a good place to get started.
• A comparison between Pale Moon and Basilisk
• A succinct explanation of UXP & Tycho, which also points out that Basilisk has a different target audience from Pale Moon
• A bulleted list that clarifies a lot of points.
• Another comparison (somewhat simplified)

[gracious1]

Personally, I have only used Pale Moon. I might give Waterfox a try someday just to see what does that other Fx clones don't.

I have used both on Ubuntu, and I prefer Pale Moon.
Waterfox is too sluggish on my system, although not as frustratingly so as Fx (even Fx ESR).
Additionally, your description of "clone" is apt, because PM is noticeably different from all the others right off the bat with it non-Australis interface. Personally, I call it Borealis just to show how different it is from the Fx interface. But it isn't different in just UI of course.

[illiadnot]

maybe I need glasses, but this seems to be the 'newest' Basilisk question... ??

for those newbies worried, Basilisk may look like 'Australis' ----- BUT it *will* take *.xpi installs!!

Note: the following is from 2015! when firefox still used XPI.. and pale moon can use them!
just try https://codefisher.org/toolbar_button/ for much more colorful icons! :D

I am a basilisk newbie myself, and I hear pale moon may soon get its 'features', but note its only a few hard working guys doing it.. so give them some patience!!! :D

https://www.basilisk-browser.org/