If you were unimpressed by the fairly unexciting appearance of Firefox 12 last week, then today does at least bring some browsing alternatives by way of the performance-optimised spinoff projects, Pale Moon 12 and Waterfox 12.

And although the lack of additions to the broader code base means they’re both essentially maintenance releases, there is still some interesting news here.

Pale Moon 12 notably has not moved to a silent install method, for instance, which means it won’t provide the maintenance service. The developer tells us there are several reasons for this, not least “the fact that Pale Moon has always been in favor of giving users the choice when and where to download and install an update to what is for most people the heart of their on-line experience”.

Pale Moon won't be shadowing Firefox quite as faithfully in future releases

Further, the Pale Moon 12 Release Notes also explain that “instead of following the rapid release schedule of Mozilla, the browser will use version 12, a properly matured build with essential functionality, as a base to make incremental updates upon.” Which, the document states, means there will be less need to “go off on the “Web OS”/”Metro”/”Desktop integration” tangent that goes against Pale Moon’s goals of being and remaining a web browser”, while giving the developer more time to implement things that he thinks are actually worth doing.

But this time, anyway, the Pale Moon 12 changes are relatively small. Updates to the status bar code, the HTML5 media controls and localisation of the status bar preferences into three additional languages (German, French and Spanish) being probably top of the list.

And if you prefer Waterfox 12, the custom 64-bit version of Firefox, then that’s also now available. Again, the lack of movement in the core code means that items like “Page Source now has line numbers” rank surprisingly highly on the “What’s New” list, but of course it still includes some useful security fixes, so if you’re already a Waterfox fan then it’s a very good idea to upgrade.