Let’s discuss the steps to install Pale Moon browser on Debian 11 Bullseye Linux using command terminal.

The Pale Moon web browser is a fork of Firefox. The program initiated and maintained by Moonchild Productions, like the original program, is licensed under the MPL. However, special rules apply to the distribution of the binary version: Redistribution of Pale Moon. In addition to Linux, it’s also available for Windows and Mac (unofficially), and the Android version has been discontinued.

Pale Moon is based on the look of older versions of Firefox (FF 28 and earlier). Old plugins for Firefox incl. plugins that use the NPAPI interface are mostly supported, new Firefox plugins (“Web Extensions”) do not work with Pale Moon, and support is not planned.

The design of “Pale Moon” and the basic structure are now also based on the latest version of Firefox. The browser is quite thin, uses the Goanna engine, and should start up much faster than its predecessor. Extensions and persona themes should also continue to work under “Pale Moon” without any issues.

Steps to Install Pale Moon Browser on Debian 11

Users of other Linux operating systems based on Debian 11 Bullseye can also follow the steps below to install the Pale Moon browser.

1. Add the Pale Moon Repository

Unlike FireFox, packages to install the Pale Moon browser cannot be installed using the default Debian 11 repository. Therefore, we have to add the one available and recommended by the developer’s official website. Here is the command.

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/stevenpusser/Debian_11/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home:stevenpusser.list

2. Add a public GPG key

After adding the repository, also add the GPG key used by the creator of the repository. This allows our system to authenticate the packages we receive that they are from the correct source and that they have not been altered by anyone.

curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:stevenpusser/Debian_11/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/home_stevenpusser.gpg > /dev/null

3. Update Debian 11 Bullseye

Then run the system update command which will update the APT package index cache and inform the system about the latest repository and added packages.

sudo apt update

4. Install Pale Moon on Debian 11

Finally, run the APT package manager and install this fork of Firefox to have its old look but with the latest base version update.

sudo apt install palemoon

5. Launch the browser

Once the installation is complete, go to the application launcher by clicking on Activities and search for the Pale moon browser. When its icon appears, click to perform the same.

6. How to update

In the future, if you wish to install the latest available version of the Pale browser on your system, we can do so by simply running the system update command. This is because we used the repository to install it.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

7. Uninstall or remove Pale Moon – Debian 11

If you don’t like the browser interface or any other feature and want to completely uninstall the browser from your Debian Linux PC, here are the commands to follow:

sudo apt autoremove --purge palemoon

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home:stevenpusser.list

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