Firefox - Windows optimized version

[mldee (Mike)]

I stumbled across an open-source version of Firefox, called "Palemoon" which I downloaded from my usual trusted site, the Internode "Majorgeeks" software mirror.

Palemoon is a carbon copy of Firefox, but is claimed to run 25% faster due to having the Linux and Mac code exorcised and the Win 7 code optimised. Believe it or not......

Anyway, I've been running it now for a week or so and it's certainly much faster and is totally visually and user - identical to the normal Firefox releases, and just as stable. Runs all my add-ons. It does not overwrite Firefox, so you can compare both for speed. My wife didn't even know I'd changed until I told her.

Worth a try if you like snappy screen operation.

Here's their website:http://www.palemoon.org/

[TerminallyTired (Jason)]

Not bad at all....

Thanks for the heads up.

TT

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Interesting indeed. I wonder if there is a version from which they have "exorcised" Windows code.... Of course, the Linux-only version has existed all along. I presume that the Mac (Unix) implementation is built on that? Hmm...

In any case, it's good to see platform-specific versions pop up from time to time. Although it's harder to develop an application that supports multiple platforms, the results are sometimes messier than they might otherwise be.

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

I gave this a try and my anti-virus software immediately reported that Palemoon contains malware.
Uninstalled it immediately!

Cheers
Chris

[mldee (Mike)]

Just checked mine with Spybot, and I run AVG resident, no problems reported. Spybot did report some tracking cookies (doubleclick, etc) in Internet Explorer and Firefox, but nothing specific to Palemoon.

If you can let me know the antivirus software and the malware name, I'll pass it on to the developers' website.

[mldee (Mike)]

As a follow up, I was feeling a tad guilty as I had started the thread. I went to the Palemoon website to check their FAQ and how to report problems.

The webpage for FAQ is http://www.palemoon.org/faq.shtml#My...ware_complains. They mention there that some antivirus heuristics modes give false positives. Without knowing the exact Malware mentioned by Chris, it may be that simple.

BTW, I have absolutely no connection to Palemoon, just liked the program when I saw it and wanted to pass the word along.

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

I'm running AVG resident, forget the name of the malware, something to do with a 'container'?

I reckon Firefox is pretty fast anyway, I'm on ADSL 2+ in country Victoria and it flys.

Cheers
Chris

[TerminallyTired (Jason)]

Kaspersky has no issues with latest defs.

The extra speed isn't as critical as the smaller memory footprint when you're processing 18mp subs whilst catching up on the latest iis posts.



L8r

TT

[RAJAH235]

No thanks.
I'll stick with the official release/s.
No probs with it since version 1.0 back in 2004.

[MikeyB (Michael)]

I tried it but can't notice any speed improvement over regular Firefox (my usual browser since it was first released).

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

Last Firefox release has been a dog for me - was going to roll back to another version or go to chrome - so happy to try this out - I think it might be a little quicker.