How to Install Pale Moon on Debian

Pale Moon is an open-source web browser built on the Goanna engine, a fork of Firefox’s Gecko. It provides a lightweight, customizable browsing experience that uses fewer system resources than mainstream browsers while maintaining compatibility with many modern web standards. Common use cases include running on older hardware, accessing legacy web extensions, and browsing with a traditional interface that avoids the frequent UI changes found in Firefox and Chrome. By the end of this guide, you will have Pale Moon installed and integrated into your Debian system with desktop menu entries and update capability.

Update Debian Before Pale Moon Installation

Before installing new software, update your package index to ensure you have the latest security patches and dependency information. This step prevents potential conflicts during installation.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Install Pale Moon Browser

Pale Moon for Linux is distributed as an xz-compressed tarball that you extract and run from any location. The official method installs to your home directory with system-wide integration through symlinks and desktop entries. This approach keeps the installation self-contained while providing automatic updates through Pale Moon’s internal updater.

Install Required Dependencies

First, install the utilities needed to download and extract the tarball:

sudo apt install curl xz-utils -y

Download Pale Moon Tarball

Pale Moon distributes Linux builds through their archive server, which allows automated version detection. The following commands automatically fetch the latest version and download the appropriate tarball:

ARCH=$(uname -m)
MAJOR=$(curl -fsSL "http://archive.palemoon.org/palemoon/" 2>/dev/null | grep -oP '\d+\.x/' | sed 's/\.x\///' | sort -n | tail -1)
VERSION=$(curl -fsSL "http://archive.palemoon.org/palemoon/${MAJOR}.x/" 2>/dev/null | grep -oP '\d+\.\d+\.\d+(\.\d+)?/' | sed 's/\///' | sort -V | tail -1)
echo "Downloading Pale Moon $VERSION for $ARCH"
curl -fsSL -o /tmp/palemoon.tar.xz "http://archive.palemoon.org/palemoon/${MAJOR}.x/${VERSION}/Linux/palemoon-${VERSION}.linux-${ARCH}-gtk3.tar.xz"

The script automatically detects your system architecture (x86_64 or i686) and downloads the appropriate build. Pale Moon provides builds for both 64-bit and 32-bit systems. The GTK3 version provides better integration with modern desktop environments. If your system uses an older desktop environment, replace gtk3 with gtk2 in the download URL.

Extract Pale Moon to Home Directory

Next, extract the tarball to your home directory. This creates a palemoon folder containing the browser files:

tar -xf /tmp/palemoon.tar.xz -C ~/

Once extraction completes, verify the contents:

ls ~/palemoon/

Expected output showing the browser files:

application.ini  browser  chrome.manifest  defaults  dependentlibs.list  dictionaries  fonts  gtk2  icons  icudt63l.dat  libfreeblpriv3.so  libhunspell.so  liblgpllibs.so  libmozavcodec.so  libmozavutil.so  libmozgtk.so  libmozsqlite3.so  libnspr4.so  libnss3.so  libnssckbi.so  libnssutil3.so  libplc4.so  libplds4.so  libsmime3.so  libsoftokn3.so  libssl3.so  libxul.so  license.txt  palemoon  palemoon-bin  palemoon.res  platform.ini  plugin-container  precomplete  removed-files  run-mozilla.sh  update-settings.ini  updater  updater.ini

Create System Integration

To run Pale Moon from anywhere in the terminal and integrate it with your desktop environment, create symlinks for the executable and icons. First, create the symlink to the Pale Moon binary:

sudo ln -sf ~/palemoon/palemoon /usr/bin/palemoon

Next, create symlinks for the application icons so they appear in your application menu:

sudo ln -sf ~/palemoon/browser/chrome/icons/default/default16.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/palemoon.png
sudo ln -sf ~/palemoon/browser/chrome/icons/default/default32.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/palemoon.png
sudo ln -sf ~/palemoon/browser/chrome/icons/default/default48.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/palemoon.png
sudo ln -sf ~/palemoon/browser/icons/mozicon128.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/palemoon.png

Finally, create a desktop entry so Pale Moon appears in your application menu:

sudo tee /usr/share/applications/palemoon.desktop > /dev/null <<EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Pale Moon Web Browser
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer
Exec=palemoon %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=palemoon
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;Internet
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;x-scheme-handler/chrome;video/webm;application/x-xpinstall;
StartupNotify=true
EOF

Update the icon cache to ensure the icons display correctly:

sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor

Optional: Register with Default Browser Selector

On Debian, you can register Pale Moon with the update-alternatives system. This allows you to set Pale Moon as the system default browser and makes it available to applications that use x-www-browser or gnome-www-browser:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-www-browser x-www-browser /usr/bin/palemoon 100
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser gnome-www-browser /usr/bin/palemoon 100

The priority value of 100 determines precedence when multiple browsers are registered. Higher values take priority.

Verify Installation

Confirm Pale Moon is accessible by checking the version:

palemoon -v

Expected output:

Pale Moon 33.x.x

The version number shown is a placeholder. Your output displays the actual installed version.

Launch Pale Moon Browser

After installation, you can launch Pale Moon through your desktop environment or terminal.

Launch from Applications Menu

Search for “Pale Moon” in Activities and open it from the applications list. If the icon does not appear immediately, log out and back in to refresh the application menu.

Launch from Terminal

Alternatively, start Pale Moon from any terminal:

palemoon

Manage Pale Moon Browser

Update Pale Moon

Pale Moon includes an internal updater that automatically checks for and applies updates when you run the browser. Because the installation resides in your home directory (which your user account can write to), updates apply without requiring administrator privileges.

To manually check for updates, open Pale Moon and navigate to Help → About Pale Moon. The dialog displays your current version and checks for available updates.

If you prefer to update manually by downloading a new tarball, delete the existing installation directory first and repeat the installation steps:

rm -rf ~/palemoon

Then download and extract the new tarball following the installation steps above. The symlinks you created earlier remain valid because they point to the same location.

Remove Pale Moon Browser

To completely remove Pale Moon from your system, first remove the update-alternatives registrations if you created them:

sudo update-alternatives --remove gnome-www-browser /usr/bin/palemoon
sudo update-alternatives --remove x-www-browser /usr/bin/palemoon

Next, remove all installed files and symlinks:

sudo rm -f /usr/bin/palemoon /usr/share/applications/palemoon.desktop
sudo rm -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/*/apps/palemoon.png
rm -rf ~/palemoon

Remove User Data

Warning: The following command permanently deletes all Pale Moon user data including bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords, and extensions. Export any data you want to keep before proceeding.

To remove your Pale Moon profile data:

rm -rf ~/.moonchild\ productions

Also remove any file associations created by Pale Moon:

rm -f ~/.local/share/applications/userapp-Pale\ Moon-*.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

Troubleshooting

Pale Moon Fails to Start with Library Errors

If Pale Moon displays library errors when launching, you may be missing GTK dependencies. Check the error output for specific library names:

~/palemoon/palemoon 2>&1 | head -10

For GTK3 builds, install the GTK3 libraries:

sudo apt install libgtk-3-0 -y

If you downloaded the GTK2 build instead, install GTK2:

sudo apt install libgtk2.0-0 -y

Icon Does Not Appear in Application Menu

If the Pale Moon icon is missing from your application menu after installation, update the icon cache and refresh your desktop:

sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor

Then log out and back in, or restart your desktop environment. Some desktop environments cache the application list and require a session restart to detect new entries.

Browser Cannot Update Automatically

The internal updater requires write access to the Pale Moon installation directory. If you installed to a location other than your home directory (for example, /opt), automatic updates fail. Either reinstall to ~/palemoon/ or update manually by downloading new tarballs.

Additional Resources

If you are exploring alternative browsers for Debian, these related guides may help:

• Install Firefox on Debian for the mainstream Mozilla browser
• Install Waterfox on Debian for another Firefox-based privacy browser
• Install Brave on Debian for a Chromium-based privacy browser

Conclusion

You now have Pale Moon installed on Debian with full desktop integration. The browser receives updates automatically through its internal updater, keeping you current without manual intervention. Pale Moon’s lightweight design makes it suitable for older hardware while its extension support provides customization options for power users.