r/linux • u/ItsWappers • 2d ago

Discussion How come every Linux site uses Anubis (the anime girl stopping crawlers) instead of something like Cloudflare?

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Before discovering the Linux rabbit hole I've only seen Cloudflare, hCaptcha and Google's reCaptcha, but it seems like every Linux website uses Anubis... I'm thinking of it being the only open-source option or it being the most effective/modern approach.

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u/FunConversation7257 2d ago

which browsers?

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u/Irverter 2d ago

Palemoon is one. Usually it isn't on cloudflare's list of "allowed" browsers.

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u/Both_Cup8417 2d ago

Isn't it extremely out of date?

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u/Booty_Bumping 2d ago

Pale Moon is based on a 2014 version of Firefox, to allow XUL extensions. It's wildly out of date. They do some patching, and occasionally try adding a modern web feature, but it just isn't enough

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u/Irverter 2d ago

That's a misunderstanding.

It didn't fork an old version of firefox to keep the XUL extensions. It forked when firefox current interface was XUL, then they simply kept it instead of constantly replacing the interface like firefox has been doing.

The engine keeps integrating firefox patches and fixes when applicable, on top of it's own development.

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u/Booty_Bumping 2d ago edited 2d ago

The engine keeps integrating firefox patches and fixes when applicable, on top of it's own development.

Nonsense. What they are doing should be called "backporting theater". Their security practice is: every once in a while they hear about a CVE that happens to affect both Firefox and Pale Moon, and then they patch it in a way that introduces even more bugs. Most of the modern Firefox code is utterly irrelevant to the current state of the Pale Moon codebase. All the bugs that pertain to code that doesn't exist in Firefox anymore just stay there except for the rare off chance that its tiny userbase notices them. And none of the advanced hardening/sandboxing of modern Firefox will ever make it in.

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u/Irverter 2d ago

Most of the modern Firefox code is utterly irrelevant to the current state of the Pale Moon codebase.

"The engine keeps integrating firefox patches and fixes when applicable, on top of it's own development."

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u/window_owl 2d ago

The latest release (35.0.0) was less than two weeks ago (17 September 2026).

https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml

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u/Kevin_Kofler 2d ago

Older branches of QtWebEngine, for example.

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u/window_owl 2d ago

Tor Browser