Now that Mozilla is ditching 10.13, the last of the giants to do so, it is time to look for a replacement. I thought this thread could act as a meeting point and collaborative effort.
This Apple discussion document is a great start, but a bit outdated: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250003586
Pale Moon wasn't mentioned there, but it still supports High Sierra. Pale Moon started as a fork of Firefox in autumn 2009 for those who were displeased by the direction Mozilla took with version 4, and has evolved to become its own thing with its own set of add-ons. It has a small but loyal userbase, and the same could be said about the developers. Considering how many web browsers of this size has decayed and been abandoned (Camino is the first that comes to mind) I think the longevity and solidness of Pale Moon through all of its lifehood gives it a great appeal.
My experience with Pale Moon on Windows XP ca 2018 to 2022 was excellent. My experience with PM on Mac OS 10.13 last autumn to this spring was less excellent, using version 32.5.0. It did work on web pages that neither Safari 13.1.2 nor Firefox 104.0.1 could fully handle, but did so with heavy processor usage and decent memory leaking, which eventually lead to it crashing. The overall experience felt less solid, with some minor memory leaking and and occasional hickups and sluggishness. I barely used it for anything but that problematic web page, but I do want to remember I experienced some issues even on other pages. It felt outdated, like being back to the early 00s. But I kinda like that! And it ran websites the other ones did not, so that's an improvement after all.
PM still supports XUL and NPAPI. However, they will soon require AVX CPUs, so not too old Macs can run it in the future. AVX is available on Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture and onwards, meaning Mac models from 2011. As of today, Pale Moon requires Mac OS 10.7 Lion (Snow Leopard just left out, sniff sniff). There are versions for Linux and FreeBSD as well. https://www.palemoon.org/
Waterfox have I heard from various places is a good browser in pretty much every way. Keeping compatibility with old add-ons, good privacy, lightweight, and more. However, everything I have come across seems outdated. It seemed to me Waterfox has been split in two, one that has moved forward with all the latest that is run by some company, and one that keeps compatibility with older OSs and add-ons but is quite dated that is community run with open source code, called Waterfox Classic. Turns out I was right: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/04/w...l-continue-but-as-a-separate-project-from-g4/
Waterfox modern requires Mac OS 11, but Waterfox Classic version 2022.11 works on High Sierra, although I couldn't find the requirement. Developers of Classic kindly ask users to leave the default search engine Bing enabled without any adblocker to financially support the project. If this is what it takes to keep this thing afloat, then I definitely think we should do it. Get it here: https://classic.waterfox.net
Personally I shy away from anything that Google touches, so I don't know anything about that.
I use a Firefox plugin that I really need: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-UK/firefox/addon/privatkopiera/ Unfortunately recent versions (0.4.x) doesn't install on Waterfox Classic. Is there possibly a workaround? Or another browser for 10.13 that can handle this plugin?
What other browsers are available for 10.13?
Considering High Sierra is the last bastion for most Macs between 2008 to 2011, arguably the peak of Macintosh computers, there ought to be a decent force to keep these beauties alive for some more time, similar to how many, me included, clung on to Snow Leopard with ArcticFox, SpiderWeb and InterWeb by wicknix.
This Apple discussion document is a great start, but a bit outdated: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250003586
Pale Moon wasn't mentioned there, but it still supports High Sierra. Pale Moon started as a fork of Firefox in autumn 2009 for those who were displeased by the direction Mozilla took with version 4, and has evolved to become its own thing with its own set of add-ons. It has a small but loyal userbase, and the same could be said about the developers. Considering how many web browsers of this size has decayed and been abandoned (Camino is the first that comes to mind) I think the longevity and solidness of Pale Moon through all of its lifehood gives it a great appeal.
My experience with Pale Moon on Windows XP ca 2018 to 2022 was excellent. My experience with PM on Mac OS 10.13 last autumn to this spring was less excellent, using version 32.5.0. It did work on web pages that neither Safari 13.1.2 nor Firefox 104.0.1 could fully handle, but did so with heavy processor usage and decent memory leaking, which eventually lead to it crashing. The overall experience felt less solid, with some minor memory leaking and and occasional hickups and sluggishness. I barely used it for anything but that problematic web page, but I do want to remember I experienced some issues even on other pages. It felt outdated, like being back to the early 00s. But I kinda like that! And it ran websites the other ones did not, so that's an improvement after all.
PM still supports XUL and NPAPI. However, they will soon require AVX CPUs, so not too old Macs can run it in the future. AVX is available on Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture and onwards, meaning Mac models from 2011. As of today, Pale Moon requires Mac OS 10.7 Lion (Snow Leopard just left out, sniff sniff). There are versions for Linux and FreeBSD as well. https://www.palemoon.org/
Waterfox have I heard from various places is a good browser in pretty much every way. Keeping compatibility with old add-ons, good privacy, lightweight, and more. However, everything I have come across seems outdated. It seemed to me Waterfox has been split in two, one that has moved forward with all the latest that is run by some company, and one that keeps compatibility with older OSs and add-ons but is quite dated that is community run with open source code, called Waterfox Classic. Turns out I was right: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/04/w...l-continue-but-as-a-separate-project-from-g4/
Waterfox modern requires Mac OS 11, but Waterfox Classic version 2022.11 works on High Sierra, although I couldn't find the requirement. Developers of Classic kindly ask users to leave the default search engine Bing enabled without any adblocker to financially support the project. If this is what it takes to keep this thing afloat, then I definitely think we should do it. Get it here: https://classic.waterfox.net
Personally I shy away from anything that Google touches, so I don't know anything about that.
I use a Firefox plugin that I really need: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-UK/firefox/addon/privatkopiera/ Unfortunately recent versions (0.4.x) doesn't install on Waterfox Classic. Is there possibly a workaround? Or another browser for 10.13 that can handle this plugin?
What other browsers are available for 10.13?
Considering High Sierra is the last bastion for most Macs between 2008 to 2011, arguably the peak of Macintosh computers, there ought to be a decent force to keep these beauties alive for some more time, similar to how many, me included, clung on to Snow Leopard with ArcticFox, SpiderWeb and InterWeb by wicknix.
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