Pale Moon Version 28.16.0 Released With Security Updates

Pale Moon has been updated to version 28.16.0.  This is a development and security update.

Note: Included in the updates are DiD* patches.

*DiD stands for "Defense-in-Depth" and is a fix that does not apply to an actively exploitable vulnerability in Pale Moon but prevents future vulnerabilities caused by the same code when surrounding code changes, exposing the problem.

Note for Linux users: With CentOS 6 going end-of-life, this version will be the last for which we will be building 32-bit Linux official binaries to download. While your distribution may choose to continue offering 32-bit versions of the browser, built from source by the maintainers, we won't be offering any further official 32-bit Linux binaries on our website. Please check with your distribution's package maintainers to know if further 32-bit support will be available on your particular flavor of Linux.

Changes/fixes:

• Aligned CSS tab-size with the specification and un-prefixed it.
• Updated Brotli library to 1.0.9.
• Updated JAR lib code.
• Optimized UI code, resulting in smaller downloads and less space consumed on disk.
• Changed the default Firefox Compatibility version number to 68.0 (since versions ending in .9 makes some frameworks unhappy, refusing access to users)
• Cleaned up HPKP leftovers.
• Disabled the DOM filesystem API by default.
• Removed Phone Vibrator API.
• Fixed an issue where the software uninstaller would not remove the program files it should.
• Fixed a devtools crash related to timeline snapshots.
• Fixed an issue in Skia that could cause unsafe memory access. DiD
• Fixed several data race conditions. DiD
• Fixed an XSS vulnerability where scripts could be executed when pasting data into on-line editors.
• Linux: Fixed an overflow issue in freetype.
• Security issues addressed: CVE-2020-26960, CVE-2020-26951, CVE-2020-26956, CVE-2020-15999 and several others that do not have a CVE designation.
• Unified XUL Platform Mozilla Security Patch Summary: 4 fixed, 4 defense-in-depth, 3 rejected, 20 not applicable.

Implementation notes:

• Windows binaries should all be properly code-signed again.
• The uninstaller issue might only appear if you have not used the internal updater to update the browser after installation.
• The DOM Filesystem and dir picker APIs are, in practice, not used on websites. We've disabled these web-exposed APIs because they are not entirely without potential risk, and intend to remove them in a future version unless there is a demonstrable need to keep them as optional (unsupported) APIs in the platform.
• One of the rejected security patches deals with entering a single word in the address bar. Standard browser behavior in that situation is for browsers to do a normal network lookup of that word in case it is a LAN machine name (other browsers also do this) which may "leak" your entered search term to the LAN. If you want to avoid this, please always use the search box for entering web searches, as it's unambiguous what to do with single words in that case.

 Pale Moon includes both 32- and 64-bit versions for Windows:

• 32x:  Pale Moon - x32 builds
• 64x:  Pale Moon - x64 builds

Update

To get the update now, select "Help" from the Pale Moon menu at the upper left of the browser window.  Select About Pale Moon > Check for Updates.

Release Notes

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...