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Pale Moon 27.0 is out

Pale Moon 27.0 is the latest version of the popular web browser that introduces several important changes, as well as new and updated features.

We reviewed some of the changes previously here on Ghacks, and suggest you check out the article as we won't cover some of them in detail in this release review.

Pale Moon 27.0 is available for download on the official Pale Moon website already. If you have Pale Moon installed already on your device, you may select Pale Moon > Help > About Pale Moon > Check for Updates, to run a manual check for the update. This should get picked up by the browser's automatic updating module, and downloaded and installed then.

Pale Moon 27.0

pale moon 27

Please note that Pale Moon 27.0 is no longer compatible with Windows XP. If you use the operating system, your only option to keep on using the browser is to stay on version 26 of it.

It is also important to note that Pale Moon 27.0 is only available in English currently. Localized versions will be released when the localization work is done.

One of the major new changes of the new browser version is better media support. Pale Moon 27.0 supports Media Source Extensions (not the DRM part Encrypted Media Extensions) and mp4 media files that are delivered in fragments.

pale moon 27 mse

There is also a new option for MSE for WebM videos, but it is not enabled by default as the implementation has a couple of issues right now that need to be resolved first.

Both options should improve the browser's compatibility with many HMTL5 based web streams significantly.

Since EME is not supported, it is still not possible to watch media on commercial streaming services using HTML5. Pale Moon users may however use Adobe Flash for that if they install the plugin on their device.

Other changes and feature additions of interest are support for DirectX 11 and Direct2d 1.1, full support for HTTP/2, and support for SSL / TLS connections to proxy servers.

Many changes and improvements are for "under the hood" systems of the browser. The rendering engine Goanna was updated to version 3.0 and the JavaScript engine was updated as well to support new features.

Both should reduce the number of compatibility issues that users of previous Pale Moon versions experienced in the past on certain sites.

pale moon cache

Pale Moon's caching system has improved as well. You may want to clear the cache right after the upgrade to Pale Moon 27.0 to take full advantage of it.

  1. Select Pale Moon > History > Clear Recent History from the menu.
  2. Click on details, check all items you want cleared (make sure cache is selected).
  3. Select Everything as the time range.
  4. Hit the clear now button.

The team has implemented all relevant security fixes for issues in Firefox 50 or earlier versions. This improves Pale Moon security. Several libraries have been updated to their latest version.

A new download option is available that lets you control whether to save zone information when downloading files.

internet zone information

Zone information mark the file as "downloaded from the Internet" when enabled (which it is by default. You can switch the setting in the options to never if you don't want that to happen anymore (Pale Moon > Options > General).

Removed features

Several features were removed from the latest Pale Moon version:

  1. The internal PDF reader is gone. You need to use a third-party tool or browser plugin to read PDF documents.
  2. Developer Tools are no longer included in Pale Moon. The team notes that they are available as a browser extension.
  3. Removed support for add-on SDK extensions (JetPack extensions). JetPack add-ons downloaded from Mozilla's addon site are not compatible anymore with Pale Moon.

Continued support

Pale Moon will continue to support several features that Firefox may not support for much longer or is not supporting anymore at all.

This includes NPAPI plugins, extensions that use binary/XPCOM components, full browser themes, unsigned and signed extensions, and sync 1.1.

Now You: What's your take on the changes in Pale Moon 27?

 

This article was first seen on ComTek's "TekBits" Technology News

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