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The Fallen Hero - Pale Moon

It used to be fucking good - and still has several advantages over FF / Chrome such as independent development, lack of some antifeatures, less vulnerabilities, XUL addons support, better UI (also the only one that can use GTK2 instead of 3), smaller codebase, and more customizability. UPDATE: oh, and it consumes only 100MB RAM with one empty tab. I also want to compliment it on having very little spyware (which sounds funny, when the default in software should be no unsolicited requests - but in this fucked world, we have to take what we can get). On launch, Pale Moon connects only to its start page, which is Cloudflared and blocks TOR, so I couldn't reach it anyway - lol. That's nine requests. A while later come the requests for the addon blocklist and the update check. That's it, and it can all be easily disabled. Funnily, it seems none of those requests end up doing anything if using TOR, because CF denies them. This sounds like quite the significant flaw, preventing browser functionality because of your attitude towards anonymizing networks. Before we move on to other issues, please realize that this browser is still miles ahead of any of the other major ones due to having actual customizability, XUL addons, not being chained to big corpos (as much as the others, at least), GTK2 support, and actually disabling some "modern" things on purpose. However, it recently went off the deep end so much that I cannot in good conscience call it an "alternative" to anything anymore. Let me give some examples:

Blocking the AdNauseam extension due to allegedly causing "economic damage" to websites. But actually, it's the ads and trackers that are causing human damage and if extensions such as AdNauseam help kill the "economy" based on them, they should be praised instead of banned. Re-enabling AdNauseam requires fiddling with about:config.
NoScript was another extension added to the blocklist with the "rationale" that it breaks sites (that's how it achieves its security and other benefits - same as uMatrix or adblockers). There is a big scary warning but fortunately, you could still use the extension.
Pale Moon's website (including the addon search integrated into the browser) is behind the evil Cloudflare MitM. The CF-loving lead dev thinks it's fine for people to be violated by CF without being notified (or worse, a way to resist) and goes around sharing that message.
He also hates the TOR network because the people using it dare to protect their identities or stand up to their oppressive governments.
A contributor created a backup of Mozilla's XUL docs (that they want to delete in December 2020) and got dubbed an insect for it by Tobin, the other main developer.
He is also insulting long time contributors even in commit messages for petty reasons.
They both have hounded the OpenBSD packagers because they wanted to use system libs which would be "deviating from official configuration" - something the PM devs hate. They also hardcode compiler parameters, especially with libvpx to use specific opcodes instead of using whatever the user or operating system sets ${CFLAGS}/${CXXFLAGS} to, breaking portability with different CPUs and operating systems.
Pale Moon now has WebAssembly enabled by default, the whole point of which is pushing cancer such as "AAA games that have heavy assets", "VR and augmented reality" and "Live video augmentation" onto web browsers. Talk about scope creep! It pretty much turns your web browser into another operating system since it's literally assembly to which you can compile other languages and run all kinds of "apps". Of course, you can imagine all the new security vulnerabilities coming along with that. And just a year ago it was a not recommended technology ...
And the icing on the cake - they've now started forbidding direct addon downloads - much to the dismay of many users. Tobin has called wanting to actually have control over your extensions "obsessive packrat tendancies.." and Moonchild followed with "hoarding addiction". Now contrast that attitude with the quotes on their main page - "Your browser, Your way" or "offering full customization". Doesn't this sound familiar?
UPDATE Nov 2020: the straw that finally broke the camel's back - the removal of global custom user agent. Whereas the other malicious changes can be kind of justified with some twisted reasoning, this one is absolutely impossible without going directly against Pale Moon's stated goals, such as customization (the main page mentions it three times). See, Moonchild thinks that the global override is "a terrible Web Compat footgun" that the users shouldn't have access to. Of course, it's somehow fine to allow UA setting per site or request, despite it being terribly inefficient. Even then, a global custom UA actually helps web compatibility by sneaking past those UA-sniffing sites (which will not stop existing anytime soon). All of this is besides the point though - what matters is that the users should be able to shoot themselves in the foot if they so desire, and this recent change goes against that. For honesty's sake, let me say that Moonchild reverted the change - but only because of the huge backlash on the forums. The fact that this was an idea in his mind for even one second proves he doesn't give two shits about freedom, customizability, or user respect.
UPDATE April 2021: so I called Pale Moon a "sinking ship" some time ago. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it's clear it has actually sank now. The reason? You cannot install extensions from the Classic Addons Archive anymore - just because Sensei Moonkid decided so. Hope you got out in time!
UPDATE March 2022, Tobin left. Is this the event which sends Pale Moon to the grave?
UPDATE March 2023: Pale Moon addons store is now Cloudflared, and you cannot install extensions through TOR. Sure, Moonchild, go ahead and kill your browser if you're so eager to do so.

And with that, it's obvious that Pale Moon is a sinking ship. A few months ago I've said that the browser is in the "beginning stages of degradation". Now, the stage is clearly advanced, the cancer has metastasized and cannot be removed anymore. Pale Moon has become exactly what they've fought against for so long - Mozilla-lite. It's still a good enough piece of software (and the only decent one for browsing the modern web) - but one I cannot recommend anymore due to violating the most important principles (which for years have defined it). UPDATE February 2022: this used to contain a recommendation for Web Browser, a Pale Moon fork - but it's pretty much abandoned and the lone developer never went far enough with mitigations, anyway. Therefore I'm deleting the section but you can still check out the project.

Webbrowser