Pale Moon Defaults

Digerati

Digerati

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Note, this is for users who have Pale Moon as their default browser - but curious about Chrome, Edge and FF users too.

I think there is a bug somewhere, just not sure where, so I am starting here first so I can gather some more information and insight before posting on the Pale Moon forums, or the MailWasher forums.

I have set in Windows 10, Pale Moon to be my default browser. Yet when I open a separate preview window of an email in MailWasher Pro (my spam blocker) and click on a link in the email message, the webpage opens with Internet Explorer. :huh:

If I click on a link in Outlook, my desktop, Word, or anywhere else, the page opens in Pale Moon like it should.

This made me think the problem was with the way MailWasher Pro renders (if the right word) messages in its separate preview pane but the same links in MailWasher's normal preview pane open fine in Pale Moon so I don't understand why it would be different. :huh: Why would the program open the "default" browser in one preview, but a non-default browser in another? :huh:

Thinking MailWasher was coded wrong, I was going to post this issue over at FireTrust (MailWasher's parent site and support forum) when I decided to check one last time, the default settings in Windows 10. That's when I found several defaults were indeed still set to Internet Explorer. So I told W10 to once again, set all defaults to PM, but again, some remained for IE. :huh: :huh: :huh:

If you go to Control Panel > Default Programs > Associate a file type or protocol with a program, sort by Current Default, and scroll down, do you still see several file types/extensions set for IE?

I have the following still set to Internet Explorer:

[table="width: 250"]
[tr]
[td].mht[/td]
[td]MHTML Document[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td].mhtml[/td]
[td]MHTML Document[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td].partial[/td]
[td]Partial Download[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td].svg[/td]
[td]SCG Document[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td].website[/td]
[td]Pinned Site Shortcut[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td].xrm-ms[/td]
[td]XrML Digital License[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td].xsl[/td]
[td]XSL Stylesheet[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]​
The only one that makes total sense to me is Pinned Site Shortcut.

So I am asking other PM users if they see those same IE settings. If so, then it is not just me. But I still wonder why PM did not assume those duties. Are they IE exclusive extensions or is there a bug in PM preventing it from picking those up too? Or is there is bug in MailWasher?

Any insight will help - I hope, or confuse me more! :r1:
 
I installed PaleMoon v27.3.0 x64 right now on Win10Homex64 (v1607b14393.1066 - Anniversary update), maximum level of UAC, DEP alwaysOn.
It wanted to set itself as default browser, but it didn't succeed.
I had to set it as default in Control Panel\Programs\Default Programs\Set Default Programs.
Then I selected pale moon and choose defaults for this program; it shows:
extensions: .htm, .html, .shtml, .xht, .xhtml
protocols: ftp, http, https
Then I selected MSIE11 (my previous default browser) and choose defaults for this program; it shows:
extensions: .mht, .mhtml, .partial, .svg, .url, .website
protocol: mk, res




After using Control Panel\Programs\Default Programs\Set Associations, and set associations to pale moon for each previous MSIE default extension, I reached the following result.
I'm not sure by the way if pale moon will work with those extensions.

 
Last edited:
Thanks for that detailed report. It seems you got some of the same results as me. PM was able to set itself as the default on my system. But like you not for all extensions. I don't understand why. Perhaps, as you suggest, it is because PM does not support those? I don't know - way out of my wheel house.
 
To be honest, when installing the 64bit version, the websetup says: "IMPORTANT! 64-bit browsers have a few known drawbacks in terms of compatibility with third-party plugins. For full support for third-party plugins, download the 32-bit version!".

Maybe we should try that first to say something doesn't work with pale moon.

I had the same problem with notepad++ and the compare plugin: the plugin doesn't work with the 64bit version of notepad++, but it works with the 32bit version of it.
 
For full support for third-party plugins, download the 32-bit version!".

Maybe we should try that first to say something doesn't work with pale moon.
Click to expand...
I understand your point but personally, I think 32-bit needs to go away. But it keeps lingering about because we (consumers) don't insist everything be coded for 64-bit. By far, the vast majority of systems these days use 64-bit operating systems. Tablets seem to be the exception. I don't want to "enable" 32-bit any more than I want to enable continued XP support. Things should just work in 64-bit as well as, if not better than in 32-bit.
 
I got the same exact results with the x86 version.

No matter if I ran palemoon as an administrator or not, every times it asked me if I wanted to set it as default browser.
After I clicked yes, it brought me to settings, home, default apps, choose default applications (suggesting I should have set it as default application from there).
And every times it ignored the setting.
After I used the previous procedure to set it as default (in Control Panel\Programs\Default Programs\Set Default Programs), it didn't ask me that anymore.

The obvious conclusion is either palemoon doesn't support those extensions or the developer forgot to add them.
And that there's a bug in setting it as default browser, at least with my settings (Maximum level of UAC and/or DEP always on).
 
Moi?!

I'm not so sure it isn't just W10 being too restrictive. With the 'extensions', I take it you mean the file extensions, perhaps some of them are IE (perhaps now Edge as well) specific, as Pale Moon seems not to be able to lay claim to them, eg; .partial = Mozilla's .part, .xrm-ms = MS Windows security license/certificate, .website = Windows Pinned Site Shortcut?
 
Only if all three browsers were built from identical code to produce exactly the same end result. PM and FF are very likely to target exactly the same results, barring any newer multimedia/social/webRTC/DRM/etc. stuff added by more recent Mozilla additions. Chrome is where FF is aiming, so they may be more similar currently, though Chrome may well use some less documented methods to try to gain an 'advantage' (I've had some very disturbing things happen while Chrome is running in the background on W7, I'll not give it drive space now).
 
Reply from the Pale Moon developer, Moonchild:

The file types indicated are not part of the set of file type Pale Moon normally associates itself with.

- mht/mhtml is a special "archived website" format. This is not a format Pale Moon uses.
- .partial is a custom temporary file extension. You shouldn't expect any program to be able to meaningfully open it.
- .svg is a vector image format. Although Pale Moon can render them, it does not and will not associate itself with known image file extensions. It also doesn't claim e.g. png, jpg, bmp ico, etc that it can open. Pale Moon assumes you will want to use dedicated image viewers for that.
- .website is a proprietary format
- .xrm-ms is a Microsoft-specific format (never even heard of it before now)
- .xsl is an XML style sheet. it is not meaningful to open the style sheet without its linked .xml file, so that will not be associated with the browser.

So all of this is as expected; None of the formats are normal/common web browser associated file formats.
Click to expand...
 
Well, to complicate my understanding of all this, Pale Moon is working perfectly now and I have no idea why. The only changes to my system recently were yesterday's Windows Updates that forced a reboot. It could not have been the reboot alone because I was experiencing these issues since I changed to PM as my default browser a few months ago.

Anyway, thanks for the interests and explanations. I learned some new things and that is always good.
 
Okay, I was able to reproduce the problem again. In Mailwasher Pro (MWP), as a security measure HTML code is automatically stripped from emails for previewing in plain text. In that mode, links correctly call up Pale Moon. But MWP provides the user the option to view selected, trusted messages in HTML mode. When clicking links in HTML mode, that is when MWP calls up Internet Explorer to view the HTML.

So, for example, in plain text preview mode, the following will open just fine in Pale Moon: Newegg.com - You Are About to Enter Another Deal-Dimension

But in HTML preview mode, the same link is shown as The Twilight and it opens in IE.

Yet in this post, both those links open correctly in Pale Moon. :huh:

In reference to the Windows defaults Pale Moon did not assume and left with IE, and with Moonchild saying, "None of the formats are normal/common web browser associated file formats", I am assuming this is a MWP problem so I started a thread over at Firetrust. However, because I am a long time MWP beta tester and I am using a pre-release version of MWP, my thread is in the private beta testers forum. Unless you are a registered beta tester there, you will not have access to view it. But I will report any findings back here, if anyone is curious.

Thanks again for helping me sort this out.
 

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