General Discussion • Pale Moon's PR Problem

Hey everyone, new Pale Moon user here.

I've been looking at web browsers for a while, and Pale Moon is actually a fine web browser. It has more personality than most other browsers out there, and in most ways it's quite different from virtually all other browsers; it takes a very traditional approach to its UI, it is completely privacy-respecting out-of-the-box with DDG, virtually no unsolicited network requests, and no telemetry, and it is a lot less bloated than the Chromium and Firefox forks, which are basically all web browsers used on the desktop. It's also not only completely independent from the Google ecosystem, but exists in spite of it in some ways.

All of this alone should be enough for Pale Moon to get attention. The privacy and design advantages of a browser have been more than enough to get people interested in a web browser; Brave, Vivaldi, etc. So what gives?

I am specifically referring to an overall interest in Pale Moon's development. This is truly its own browser; it uses its own engine; many have the chance to contribute to a browser that has the chance to be truly great. So why hasn't Pale Moon caught on again, as things on the Internet often do, and attract more attention from developers across the browser/OSS community at large? Why hasn't Pale Moon's dev team grown?

I think that to answer this question, we should look at three things:

• How Pale Moon is perceived in these communities, the stigma around Pale Moon (otherwise what is the point of discussion)
• What role Pale Moon's limits in supporting modern web "standards" actually play in its perception
• What role Pale Moon's past drama on the development side has played in its perception
• The relatively new Helium browser, because it fundamentally introduces no new features or advantages in the browser itself; its appeal is based around its development model and philosophy, or maybe just that the devs have basic competence. Also, because of this, Helium has as much hype behind it as even some major browsers, seemingly out of nowhere. (so yeah I think it's worth talking about, but definitely secondary to the above points)

And I do think all this is at least somewhat important to discuss for reasons you can imagine. Personally, for me:

• I like this browser; I want to see this browser do well.
• Moreover, as a user of Pale Moon, I don't have to worry about the dev team having major plans that aren't in the interest of its users, because Pale Moon always aims to avoid this. So, as a Pale Moon user, my primary concern isn't about pushing for or against new features, but rather has to do with its proactive development, to help make strides in its technical merits.
• Pale Moon's development is heavily dependent on community contributions.

So, why does Pale Moon have the reputation that it does outside of this community? how can we turn around this situation and attract new potential contributors to the project, so that all of its users can benefit?