"R.Wieser" wrote

| That Pale Moon did not have *any* such information was an instant turn-off
| for me.
|

I use PM as my main browser. I disable script,
frames, 3rd-party files, etc. When I need to have
more functionality I use FF with NoScript. It's
easier that way than to keep changing settings
for different websites. I think of them as basically
2 copies of the same browser.

Unfortunately, PM ended support for XP some
time ago. I don't remember whether they had
any specific reason.

Basically, PM is a fork of FF that skips a lot of
extras in order to make it more lean. As far as I know
they don't make any changes to the build. They just
leave out things like parental controls that many
people won't need. I've found it to be notably
quicker in the past, but I haven't bothered to
compare it to more recent FF versions.

By contrast, something like K-Meleon has
its own way of doing things. It's based on the Mozilla
code but they make their own package. For instance,
in PM and FF I can replace the "throbber" by putting
GIFs in the chrome folder and adding 2 lines to
userChrome.css. In K-Meleon it had to be an AVI
and I don't think it involved adding anything to
userChrome.css.

Unfortunately, being open source, all of these
things keep changing. PM ended XP support.
K-Meleon has been outdated for years now. It
was my main browser for awhile but they just
stopped working on it. Then suddenly it went
from v. 1 to v. 74. Then development slowed
again. Kids!

Along the way, the FF throbber stopped working
and I had to settle for their uniquely uninspiring
circle of dots. (Though I don't mind so much because
these days I rarely have a chance to even look at
the animation before the page is finished loading.)
My PM throbber is still a tiny animation of the Cape
Neddick lighthouse in Maine, searching the bay for
a webpage, with its powerful spotlight.

The Mozillians make hundreds of milions of dollars
per year now, mostly on bribes from Google to trick
people into using Google search. They've joined the
big boys. They need to look more "professional".
So they can't be having people doing homey things
like making their own throbber icons. The pros do
grown-up things, like raking in bucks and supporting
corporate spyware with new features like push and
geo-location.

Does PM still allow changing the throbber? Probably
not but I don't know since I'm using the last XP
version.

So I suppose it's somewhat academic to talk
about differences between Mozilla browsers, when
differences between versions of one Mozilla
browser can sometimes be greater and more
disruptive.