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Pale Moon is a Firefox fork without all the "modern UI" failures.

http://www.palemoon.org/

Windows only though.

http://www.palemoon.org/

Switched from Firefox to Pale Moon because of Version 29 and haven't looked back. It is excellent.

Luckily this isn't the bad old days where it was just IE and netscape, today you DO have options! There is Comodo Dragon (what I use, better security features and no phone home to Google) Chromium, SWIron, and Opera which my oldest boy swears is the greatest thing ever (boy is he still pissed they quit using presto) and on the gecko side there is Firefox, PaleMoon (the other browser I use, I prefer the UI over IceDragon and it seems snappier), SeaMonkey, IceDragon, if you need really low resource there is always Kmeleon which runs really well even on a P3 running Win98SE and if you want to avoid BOTH the Chromium and Gecko engines you can go with QTWeb which is just what it says on the tin, a cross platform browser that uses Webkit and the QT framework...quite nice actually and of course Safari if you are into Apple. There is one other....what was it? Oh yeah the big blue E thing. ;-)

So if you don't like the direction Google is going? Don't use their products. After they started getting nasty with the TOS and trying to ram G+ down our throats I dropped Google like a bad habit, I set up a throwaway Gmail I never use just for my Android phone (so they can't tie my desktop and mobile together) and use my main Gmail for a spam dump, switched to Bing for my search and Yahoo for my mail so no one company has access too all my online data and ya know what? couldn't be happier. What DOES really piss me off about Google is how they have become a drive by spammer, you have no idea how many Chrome "infections" I've had to clean off of customers PCs because some "freeware" had Chrome tied into it. We used to get seriously pissed at how McCrappee and Horton used to dump their stupid scanners onto us with freeware so why isn't everyone mad at how Google is spamming Chrome? An unwanted install that takes over defaults...hmmm...if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck?

Utterly correct, especially as long as there are alternatives.

If DRM is so precious to you, go use IE.

No! You will respect Mozilla's freedom to implement whatever they like in their browser, you do not have the right to strip them of that freedom no matter how much you think you do. So if you don't like their decision then don't use their browser, or better yet stop being so lazy and remove it yourself, they afforded you that freedom by making it open source.

There are even forks, PaleMoon for example. So why do you so badly want Firefox when it clearly is the wrong product for you?

I guess I have to find a browser that is DRM intollerant; any suggestions?

Pale Moon

So what about PaleMoon? Scuttle has it a bunch of people are headed over that way not least because of FF29 UI Shenanigans.

http://www.palemoon.org/ checked it out and it looks (sounds) good, I'll give that a try, didn't know there were so many different browsers out till this DRM thing.
I like what Palemoon has to offer, more so what it doesn't. No clue what this "FF29 UI Shenanigans" is all about

And what does Opera have to say about all this? How about Chromium and/or Komodo Dragon? (Non-Googly clones of Chrome.)

Opera's irrelevant now and shouldn't be considered an alternative, I'm still running Opera 12 but many sites are starting to complain. 20 (?) some years worth of bookmarks and this is the end of my building on it.

My biggest complaint while small is Opera always opened a new tab to the far right, everything else opens it next to the tab your in, old Opera had it right.

Chrome isn't an option, I have a problem when a program forces itself on me at every turn, and Opera is just a different interface for Chrome.

Leaving FireFox won't be hard at all, never really cared for it and always had to disable it's crash reporting. (something Palemoon has already done (whatever the reason)).

Thanks for the heads up.

The Pale Moon version of Firefox appears to have better management than Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search. A small UI detail like that is not, in itself, as important as the fact that Mozilla Foundation could make such a careless mistake.

3) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are at least 13 add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

4) Pale Moon management is independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Whoever writes the Pale Moon web site seems to be very knowledgeable and a good manager.

More information about Pale Moon: See the Pale Moon FAQ. Here is a quote:

"As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverting Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser -- having transformed it from an optimized build into a true "fork" of Firefox."

Pale Moon migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

Questions about Firefox:

The management of Firefox is apparently looking for ways to abuse users so that it can make more money. See this Slashdot story: Mozilla Ditches Firefox's New-Tab Monetization Plans. Apparently Firefox management wanted to adopt that method of abuse and found that it wasn't possible. This story we are reading now: Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox discusses another example.

Have you seen $311,000,000 of yearly development of Firefox? Mitchell Baker is the "Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". She is a lawyer with no technical knowledge, apparently.

See The State of Mozilla: 2012 Annual Report -- Frequently Asked Questions. Quoting: (Seriously, this is copied from the site.) "Mozilla's consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2012 was $311M (US), up approximately 90 percent from $163M in 2011."

Who gets the money? How it is spent? The amount of money is shocking to me. When someone clicks on an ad, Google may get 10 cents or 50 cents or $1.50. The cost to Google of linking to an ad is maybe .01 cent? It's easy money, pai

The Pale Moon version of Firefox appears to have better management than Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search. A small UI detail like that is not, in itself, as important as the fact that Mozilla Foundation could make such a careless mistake.

3) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are at least 13 add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

4) Pale Moon management is independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Whoever writes the Pale Moon web site seems to be very knowledgeable and a good manager.

More information about Pale Moon: See the Pale Moon FAQ. Here is a quote:

"As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverting Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser -- having transformed it from an optimized build into a true "fork" of Firefox."

Pale Moon migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

Questions about Firefox:

The management of Firefox is apparently looking for ways to abuse users so that it can make more money. See this Slashdot story: Mozilla Ditches Firefox's New-Tab Monetization Plans. Apparently Firefox management wanted to adopt that method of abuse and found that it wasn't possible. This story we are reading now: Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox discusses another example.

Have you seen $311,000,000 of yearly development of Firefox? Mitchell Baker is the "Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". She is a lawyer with no technical knowledge, apparently.

See The State of Mozilla: 2012 Annual Report -- Frequently Asked Questions. Quoting: (Seriously, this is copied from the site.) "Mozilla's consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2012 was $311M (US), up approximately 90 percent from $163M in 2011."

Who gets the money? How it is spent? The amount of money is shocking to me. When someone clicks on an ad, Google may get 10 cents or 50 cents or $1.50. The cost to Google of linking to an ad is maybe .01 cent? It's easy money, pai

The Pale Moon version of Firefox appears to have better management than Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search. A small UI detail like that is not, in itself, as important as the fact that Mozilla Foundation could make such a careless mistake.

3) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are at least 13 add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

4) Pale Moon management is independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Whoever writes the Pale Moon web site seems to be very knowledgeable and a good manager.

More information about Pale Moon: See the Pale Moon FAQ. Here is a quote:

"As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverting Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser -- having transformed it from an optimized build into a true "fork" of Firefox."

Pale Moon migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

Questions about Firefox:

The management of Firefox is apparently looking for ways to abuse users so that it can make more money. See this Slashdot story: Mozilla Ditches Firefox's New-Tab Monetization Plans. Apparently Firefox management wanted to adopt that method of abuse and found that it wasn't possible. This story we are reading now: Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox discusses another example.

Have you seen $311,000,000 of yearly development of Firefox? Mitchell Baker is the "Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". She is a lawyer with no technical knowledge, apparently.

See The State of Mozilla: 2012 Annual Report -- Frequently Asked Questions. Quoting: (Seriously, this is copied from the site.) "Mozilla's consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2012 was $311M (US), up approximately 90 percent from $163M in 2011."

Who gets the money? How it is spent? The amount of money is shocking to me. When someone clicks on an ad, Google may get 10 cents or 50 cents or $1.50. The cost to Google of linking to an ad is maybe .01 cent? It's easy money, pai

The Pale Moon version of Firefox appears to have better management than Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search. A small UI detail like that is not, in itself, as important as the fact that Mozilla Foundation could make such a careless mistake.

3) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are at least 13 add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

4) Pale Moon management is independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Whoever writes the Pale Moon web site seems to be very knowledgeable and a good manager.

More information about Pale Moon: See the Pale Moon FAQ. Here is a quote:

"As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverting Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser -- having transformed it from an optimized build into a true "fork" of Firefox."

Pale Moon migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

Questions about Firefox:

The management of Firefox is apparently looking for ways to abuse users so that it can make more money. See this Slashdot story: Mozilla Ditches Firefox's New-Tab Monetization Plans. Apparently Firefox management wanted to adopt that method of abuse and found that it wasn't possible. This story we are reading now: Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox discusses another example.

Have you seen $311,000,000 of yearly development of Firefox? Mitchell Baker is the "Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". She is a lawyer with no technical knowledge, apparently.

See The State of Mozilla: 2012 Annual Report -- Frequently Asked Questions. Quoting: (Seriously, this is copied from the site.) "Mozilla's consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2012 was $311M (US), up approximately 90 percent from $163M in 2011."

Who gets the money? How it is spent? The amount of money is shocking to me. When someone clicks on an ad, Google may get 10 cents or 50 cents or $1.50. The cost to Google of linking to an ad is maybe .01 cent? It's easy money, pai

Settle, I was merely replying to the chain of comments:

Turns out most people may actually like these changes.

(How exactly do we prove this by the way?)

and here's the stats to prove it!. Oh wait...

Given the sheer number of users and the small number of downloads of the linked addon, most people don't care enough to provide feedback either way so they continue as is. I stand by that. UX feedback in the past from "the rest of us who do care" is proof enough that Mozilla isn't listening to all of it (the TFA being an exception by the looks of it – clearly we didn't yell loud enough WRT the current UX situation).

But I'm with you. I like the usability of where we've come from. I don't like small, constant (annoying) changes to UI that require addons, userchrome, about:config, et al. I'm not enjoying the current trend. I knew 29 was coming, I tried it, I didn't like it. I tried the addon, but as I've read somewhere else in here, it's the 'what's next' perspective that concerns me. I don't owe Mozilla anything, nor do they owe me. I jumped; but I'm keeping it in the family for the moment: Pale Moon.

Good questions. I'm not certain of the answers. I have only just begun to use Pale Moon because I have complained about the Firefox memory-hogging for several years, and nothing has been done. I plan to run tests on Pale Moon using Session Manager add-on sessions that cause Firefox to crash.

The Pale Moon site owner says that there have been considerable changes. See the Pale Moon FAQ. Here is a quote:

"As Pale Moon has developed, so has the amount of individual code for the browser, steadily diverting Pale Moon from its sibling in the direction aimed for in this browser - having transformed it from an optimized build into a true "fork" of Firefox."

Firefox managers are apparently poor communicators and very poor managers. The subject of this Slashdot story is one example. Maybe the money Google gives Mozilla Foundation has corrupted the entire company.

Whoever writes the Pale Moon web site seems to be very knowledgeable and a good manager.

Mitchell Baker is the "Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". She is a lawyer with no technical knowledge, apparently.

See The State of Mozilla: 2012 Annual Report -- Frequently Asked Questions. Quoting: (Seriously, this is copied from the site.) "Mozilla's consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all subsidiaries) for 2012 was $311M (US), up approximately 90 percent from $163M in 2011."

Have you seen $311,000,000 of development of Firefox? The amount of money is shocking to me. When someone clicks on an ad, Google may get 10 cents or 50 cents or $1.50. The cost to Google of linking to an ad is maybe .001 cent? It's easy money, from a company that makes money from having Firefox use Google as its default search engine.

I would be very interested to know who gets the money, and how it is spent.

The Pale Moon browser is a better version of Firefox. Pale Moon appears to have better management than the Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.

3) Pale Moon has backup software. Firefox has only Mozbackup, which works well, but isn't Mozilla Foundation software.

4) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

5) Pale Moon is completely independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

The Pale Moon browser is a better version of Firefox. Pale Moon appears to have better management than the Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.

3) Pale Moon has backup software. Firefox has only Mozbackup, which works well, but isn't Mozilla Foundation software.

4) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

5) Pale Moon is completely independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

The Pale Moon browser is a better version of Firefox. Pale Moon appears to have better management than the Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.

3) Pale Moon has backup software. Firefox has only Mozbackup, which works well, but isn't Mozilla Foundation software.

4) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

5) Pale Moon is completely independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.

We need a new Firefox, someone "pure" again.

Indeed! Australis (FF29 in general) has very nearly pinched my last nerve with Firefox. What the fuck is going on at Mozilla? The last two versions have run like complete and utter shit on my systems, from freezing windows to outright random crashes. What happened to my lightweight and reliable browser? >

Pale Moon

Take a look at Pale Moon browser. It's built with FireFox source, but with a rational user interface layout.

I'm sick of fighting to keep Firefox looking and working like Firefox if all they're going to do is take away the things that I actually use it for. It's just too much effort.

You're not alone. I'd recommend PaleMoon, it's based on Firefox but the devs seem more sane. It even has a 64-bit version. Better than SeaMonkey IMO. I've used FF since v1, this is the first time I'm seriously moving to something else, in this case PaleMoon, because they seem to be focussed on what users originally came to Firefox for in the first place.

I am seriously fed up with this shit.

As are many others, you're not alone. I'd recommend PaleMoon then, it's based on Firefox but the devs seem more sane. It even has a 64-bit version. Better than SeaMonkey IMO.

I think there is a real need for a fork of firefox and a sane team to maintain it

Give PaleMoon a try, it's based on Firefox but the devs seem more sane. It even has a 64-bit version. Better than SeaMonkey IMO.

Firefox has joined the growing list of applications that can never be updated because the new version sucks.

Yes it can.. update to PaleMoon. :) It's based on Firefox, but the devs seem more sane. It even has a 64-bit version.

Me too.

I'll tell them I no longer like FF by moving away of FF and uninstalling it on 1 Mac, 3 Win, 2 Linux (home) and 2 other Win (pro).

I think I'll try Iceweasel or Pale Moon.

I'd like to quote this from Pale Moon info page:

In addition, later versions of Pale Moon aim to provide more freedom of choice than Mozilla about how people want to browse the web, which tools or extensions they wish to use, and which feedback users want to see; efficiency, after all, should not stop at the engine of a browser, but extend to all parts of it, including the user interface.
Specifically, Firefox 4 and later have redesigned the user interface after the visions of the Mozilla Firefox product directors and user experience team to provide a more minimalist interface; unfortunately also removing essential functions and making a few less logical design choices, confusing minimalism with cleanliness.
Later on, with "Australis", much more has been changed, breaking in many ways with previous versions, standard user interface conventions and ergonomics, as well as proper visual integration with the operating system.

I took a look at Pale Moon and I am still not sure if it's a good idea or not.

There are a few points of departure and while most sound good a couple sound really bad. First off "disabled accessibility features." This sounds like a pointless stab in the face to our blind friends. I hope it's not as bad as it sounds, but disabling accessibility features does not sound like a sane design choice at all. And optimising for 'modern' cpus only is something I expect a talented but green 16 year old to think is a good idea, but it usually is not. Modern CPUs are already optimized to run ancient code to begin with so it's rare to see this actually improve performance significantly, and it will cause the program to break on old hardware or even on extremely new hardware when you try to use it in a VM (which typically simulates an older processor.)

If you know anything more about what accessibility options, exactly, they removed, and how practical it would be to try to re-enable and recompile it, please do let me know. So far I find very little information on their page.

I forgot to mention Pale Moon, an interesting version of Firefox. It has adult supervision! What! Where did they find an adult?

Two examples: In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.

Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; no problem there except with some unusual add-ons.

Pale Moon is completely independent. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation.

I forgot to mention Pale Moon, an interesting version of Firefox. It has adult supervision! What! Where did they find an adult?

Two examples: In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.

Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; no problem there except with some unusual add-ons.

Pale Moon is completely independent. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation.

Some of us dropped FF a while ago, because a lot of features keep being buried even deeper into about:config http://www.palemoon.org/screen... All the core updates, with correct UX, best of both worlds (at least on Windows).

It's a fork of FF engine with the older interface (from around version 26 I believe).

http://www.palemoon.org/
I would love to see that website hit rate stats over the next few weeks... :)
Note, A Linux versions exists, but is hard to find. http://www.palemoon.org/contri...

It's a fork of FF engine with the older interface (from around version 26 I believe).

http://www.palemoon.org/
I would love to see that website hit rate stats over the next few weeks... :)
Note, A Linux versions exists, but is hard to find. http://www.palemoon.org/contri...

Well the great thing about today is you don't HAVE to take Moz's shit, you DO have plenty of choices.

I use Comodo Dragon and Pale Moon, but if you don't like those there is Comodo IceDragon, Waterfox, SWIron, hell if you don't want to use anything Chromium or Gecko based there is QTWeb which is webkit and QT. Cross platform and works pretty nice IMHO, works great from a flash too. And if your machine is needing an ultra light browser or which will run on really old Windows versions there is always Kmeleon which by following their docs and adding a couple of files can run on Win98 if you need it to and which flies on anything newer.

So as you can see you DO have more choices, hell I left off plenty of others like Safari and Opera and Chrome but I figured it would be better to list some you may not have tried. Give 'em a go, I bet you'll find one you like. Oh and FYI but nearly all the above? MUCH more conservative when it comes to UI changes. I've been on Dragon since V4 (currently on V31) and the only UI change of note was moving the option button from the right edge to the left. Oh and the reason I use Pale Moon over ICeDragon? I like its UI better and the way its built with the browser targeted at newer CPU features. Nice thing about choice, I can go for the browser with the little things I like..

Exactly. You are working on researching one problem, but during that time are asked to look into 6 other issues.

Firefox is now (v 27.01) more unstable that it was before, and it has always been the most unstable program in common use.

Try the Pale Moon version of Firefox. Mozilla Foundation is run by a lawyer with no technical experience. The Pale Moon people seem more knowledgeable. Also, there is a 64-bit version of Pale Moon.

Firefox crash statistics:
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/home/products/Firefox/versions/27.0
(Mozilla Foundation does not allow direct links from Slashdot.)

Many crashes do not start the Crash Reporter. Those statistics show only the crashes that do.

It can actually be pretty fast if tweaked a bit.

And you can soup up a Yugo, too.

It can actually be pretty fast if tweaked a bit.

if you haven't already.

Pale Moon is like Firefox without Asa's retarded design choices.

Give it a try: http://www.palemoon.org/

What we really need is "Firefox Classic": a maintainable fork that takes the Firefox code base and strips it down to the essentials, without social networking add-ons or any of that garbage. Sort of like how Firefox itself originally forked off of the Mozilla Application Suite, come to think of it.

You should have a look at Pale Moon. It is not exactly what you asked for but it is a slightly slimmer version of Firefox that still has compatibility with the plugins.

Put the permanent status bar back in FireFox so I don't need an extension

Have you tried Pale Moon? - It's a Windows-optimized version of Firefox (no version for Linux, more's the pity). The developer has reverted many of the "features" of Firefox's Australis, including the statusbar, and the community is fairly responsive and active. The developer even seems to hang around the forums occasionally. I expect, as the Firefox developers seem determined to turn Firefox into something that is Not-firefox, it will eventually become a fork when the codebases diverge too much.

Revert the GIMP's atrocious Save As.../Export As... abomination

I agree, though Iwouldn't quite call it an "abomination;" I see what they are trying to do. Unfortunately, it
a) feels like an "MS defaulting to DOCX in order to force people to use their new version" stunt;
b) turns off the "average user," who may not know the difference between save and export, and don't care; and
c) makes it harder for me to recommend it to new users, hand them a copy and expect them to "just use it."
It's true, unfortunately, that the GIMP team won't listen to constructive criticism.

As for Gnome, I switched to KDE after Gnome 3 and Unity and haven't gone back.

Looking back, I've jumped ship with Windows Firefox and with Gnome and I've stopped evangelizing the GIMP after unwelcome changes made all of them them harder to use. I love F/LOSS, but sometimes it's hard to participate when you know you're going to be ignored.

Pale Moon is a Firefox variant that largely keeps a traditional browser layout and has the latest security patches. It works with the few plugins I use, including NoScript.

Thank you. I just made a thread on [H] asking about an FF alternative. This is perfect. (FF removed display images flag from the settings, now must be done via permissions on per page basis. Or a 3rd party addon. Wanna browse in text mode? Eat shit with firefox!

I used FF for almost a decade, this was the last straw.

Pale Moon claims to be open source software but appears to be distributing as binary-only

You should really do your homework better...
Source code here:

http://www.palemoon.org/archived.shtml

IANAL but I would think the Mozilla Foundation licensing department might be interested in looking into this project...

The MPL allows combining MPL code with proprietary code (as long as you provide the MPL sources under the MPL license). Since the binary is partially derived from proprietary code, they can add additional license conditions to that.

Pale Moon is a Firefox variant that largely keeps a traditional browser layout and has the latest security patches. It works with the few plugins I use, including NoScript.

Pale Moon is a Firefox variant optimized for Windows and modern processors, but also keeps most of the missing features and interface complained about here on Slashdot. It also works with NoScript and the handful of other add-ons I've tried.

Contrary to what Mozilla has done with their redesign of the user interface, Pale Moon will continue to provide a familiar set of controls and visual feedback similar to previous versions, including grouped navigation buttons of a decent size, a bookmarks toolbar that is enabled by default, tabs next to page content by default (easily switchable) and not in the least a functional status bar, to name a few things.

Palemoon?

I can recommend Palemoon.instead of Waterfox.
Its compiled for new (SSE2) cpu's and some "redundant and optional code" is disabled.

Palemoon is also x64. It is unaffected by this change.

http://palemoon.org/

I've been using Pale Moon (a Firefox derivative) for about a year now as my primary browser, and I'm very happy with it. It has some stuff stripped out of it that seems to make it more stable, and there's a 64-bit version. http://www.palemoon.org/ for more info.

Pale Moon ( http://www.palemoon.org/ ) is a long-standing fork of Firefox produced by Moonchild Productions, which is distinguished by being optimized for efficiency and speed in 64 bit Vista and Windows 7. There are 32 bit versions as well. Firefox does not provide a 64 bit version at this time. If you've never heard of Pale Moon, check it out. It is now my main browser of choice. Here is a review: http://www.softwarecrew.com/2012/08/pale-moon-15-building-a-better-browser/.

Perhaps this browser will give you your "Firefox" experience without the upgrade "bugging" that Mozilla is introducing.

Noooo it is NOT having "security vulnerabilities" because the Pale Moon devs are fixing holes and porting patches themselves so that is not a problem, and they have already said in their forum they are sticking with the V12 UI because they don't like what the Moz roadmap looks like.

Could you link me to this? Here is a post which implies that they have not forked, and are planning to port FF15. I could not find any discussion about porting security fixes on the bulletin board.

Isn't that the point of FOSS? If you don't like the direction you can fork? Well that is what they did, they forked.

Indeed (*), and if that's what they're actually doing, more power to them. I just hope you and others on /. don't get burned assuming that this software is secure.

(*) Although I should point out that this guy is not, in my view, acting in the best FOSS faith, regardless of whether he's complying with the license. In addition, if he is backporting security fixes and not releasing the resultant source, he may be in violation of the MPL.

I've seen with my own eyes the difference on an Athlon X2 I keep at the shop. FF is a little piggy core hog while Pale Moon isn't slamming the shit out of the cores. [...] FF sucks major ass on older chips like Pentium Ds and Athlon X2s while PM is snappy.

If you have a reproducible benchmark or testcase, I'd be really interested to see what's going on. We use SSE extensively on hot paths in Firefox, and our assumption has been that having the compiler insert it elsewhere (as PM does) would not be a win. If that's not correct, I'd like to know.

Noooo it is NOT having "security vulnerabilities" because the Pale Moon devs are fixing holes and porting patches themselves so that is not a problem, and they have already said in their forum they are sticking with the V12 UI because they don't like what the Moz roadmap looks like.

Could you link me to this? Here is a post which implies that they have not forked, and are planning to port FF15. I could not find any discussion about porting security fixes on the bulletin board.

Isn't that the point of FOSS? If you don't like the direction you can fork? Well that is what they did, they forked.

Indeed (*), and if that's what they're actually doing, more power to them. I just hope you and others on /. don't get burned assuming that this software is secure.

(*) Although I should point out that this guy is not, in my view, acting in the best FOSS faith, regardless of whether he's complying with the license. In addition, if he is backporting security fixes and not releasing the resultant source, he may be in violation of the MPL.

I've seen with my own eyes the difference on an Athlon X2 I keep at the shop. FF is a little piggy core hog while Pale Moon isn't slamming the shit out of the cores. [...] FF sucks major ass on older chips like Pentium Ds and Athlon X2s while PM is snappy.

If you have a reproducible benchmark or testcase, I'd be really interested to see what's going on. We use SSE extensively on hot paths in Firefox, and our assumption has been that having the compiler insert it elsewhere (as PM does) would not be a win. If that's not correct, I'd like to know.

If you are on Windows try Pale Moon which has forked away from FF as of V12 because they too grew tired of UI changes. it also has the SSE flags set at compile so its snappier than FF. if you decide instead to go to the Chrome side I'd suggest Comodo Dragon which is Chrome without the phone home.

I've switched to Palemoon portable, http://www.palemoon.org/

o It's noticeably quicker than Mozilla Firefox.
o It comes with proper StatusBar by default.
o It has a few improved default settings, less memory bloat.
o No silent, forced, auto-updates that may suddenly brake things.

Drawbacks,
- It's Windows only. No native version for Linux, BSD, Mac etc.

I also have Opera USB portable ready in case i get bored.
http://opera-usb.com/

May I make a suggestion? Look at Pale Moon for your brother as the LTS won't give you as long as you think, not with the way they've been spinning version numbers like a top, whereas Pale Moon has stopped any UI "enhancements" and version 12 because they too don't care for the direction Mozilla is taking. as a bonus its compiled for newer CPUs with the SSE flags so it actually gives it a nice kick in the pants.

As for what has been going on with OSes lately...sigh. if I wanted a God damned cell phone for a desktop i would have a damned desktop, just a cell phone! Why the fuck do they think everyone wants to have a cell phone UI everywhere? The only thing I have EVER agreed with SJVN on is that the new UIs all suck and nooo, not because we are 'scared of change" or any other bullshit, I've been through plenty of desktop UIs, from Win 3.x and 9x through BBox through KDE and Flux, no its because its all about the bling and aping fricking smartphones instead of actually designing for the fricking form factor. Its just the opposite of the retarded 'Hey lets make phones into teeny tiny desktops!" that MSFT did with WinCE for a damned decade, only now its "Hey lets make desktops into supergigantic smartphones".

Its all just a big giant clusterfuck and I'll be glad when these things bomb big time so they can actually focus on making desktops that work again, instead of feeling like my monitor should be touch and have a slide out keyboard just to deal with the mess.

Well part of your problem is the browsers friend, safari bites, Chrome has too much phone home crap, and FF is a memory piggy. If you want to keep gecko I'd suggest replacing it with Pale Moon which is optimized for more current CPUs such as yours, Chrome should be replaced with Comodo Dragon and for webkit I'd go with QTWeb which has built in ABP, but on the first two first thing I'd do is install ABP, as i bet half your problem is those damned bloated ass web ads slowing you down.

Because I can tell you that with that ancient Sempron I can get up to 14 or 15 tabs in Dragon or QTWeb without any real dragging, around 9 for Pale Moon, whereas FF would start sucking at barely 6. On my home machine which i'm on now, which is an AMD Phenom II X6 with 8Gb of RAM frankly I can pile on the tabs for as long as i want in Dragon or QTWeb, again without any real stutter or jerking.

You just have to remember you can take the fastest machine on the planet and pile on those damned blinking flashing web ads and make it feel like a 486 running Win98, the code they use for those things are just bloated as hell. Not to mention I can tell you that infected ads are probably the number 2 source of infected PCs, just under the "ZOMFG U got teh viruz! Quick run this Security tool to clean it ZOMFG!" infections.