I remember using Waterfox when it was new. I moved away from it when Firefox started pushing 64 bit builds natively, and I've stuck with it since then. Recently though it does seem as if they might be going down a dark path, so perhaps I'll consider switching again. I remember Waterfox was hard forked after Quantum became a thing, in order to keep support with XPI - is that still the case?
The hard fork was "Waterfox Classic", which just became unsustainable to maintain.
Rather than support for XPI (which is just the packaging for Firefox webextensions), the current version of Waterfox does still support bootstrapped extensions - in theory anyone can still write one, with access to all the privileged JavaScript APIs typically not accessible to MV2/MV3 webextensions.
It's not widely used though, there are two repos I'm aware of that take advantage of this:
The ads on default search partner is a fine compromise - reality is that projects need money, and if this helps them (and makes it less dependant on donations) then great! As long as the ad blocking happens elsewhere, it is fine.
Reminds me of Netscape Navigator adding a popup blocker, but also adding the ability to allowlist sites - so that it could have the Netscape website allowlisted by default.
I am surprise there is no mention of Librewolf here. The differences of Librewolf and Waterfox is pretty hard to grasp, I am digging a little bit but so far I guess I would say using any of them is still way better than the main alternatives.
Librewolf is, to me, the way better alternative as this is really in the FOSS mindset : a tool for everyone to use and by anyone to contribute. Seeing their plateform alone (Lemmy/Matrix/Codeberg, they also have a reddit community it seems) you can already see this is an other world than Waterwolf's bluesky/reddit/github. To be fair I can understand the SNS part but the github is a big redflag to me.
As usual I can see people that are very probably sincere in their goals not realizing the way they are going will lead to the usual enshitification: company focus, brave dependency, etc.
I note that Waterfox seems to legally originate from UK and it is refreshing to have an ecosystem that is not centralized in 1 country : for the sake of everyone it is better not to rely to much on 1 legislator (see age verification for instance).
Librewolf and Waterfox have always had different goals. Waterfox has always had a more opinionated take on defaults and privacy. Essentially the goal has been keep the web as private as possible without breaking it (I know Librewolf is more aggressive there and that sometimes leads to website breakages) and I think I've managed that well, especially with the implementation of Oblivious DNS by default.
The upside of Librewolf being a community project is also IMO its downside - there isn't any accountability and with the current climate around the world becoming more hostile to online services, I think governance is hugely important, which is why I've tried to collate everything as much as I can: https://www.waterfox.com/docs/policies/company-information/
At the end of the day, if something goes wrong, at least with Waterfox I can be held accountable.
Had the pleasure of working with Alex while at System1. Great guy. If I remember correctly I got one tiny change merged into Waterfox that's probably since been undone in the years since :-).
I get the scepticism but IMO the reaction at the time was rough and I partially get why.
System1 is a search syndication company. Their business is contextual ads on search results - no PII, no tracking profiles, no behavioural targeting. It's functionally the same model as DuckDuckGo. If I'd sold to DDG, I don't think anyone would've batted an eyelid.
I get it, the timing (privacy browser sold to company with "ad" in its description) looked terrible in a headline and I take responsibility for not communicating it better at the time, which I feel like wouldn't have led to such a massive furor.
You’re right 100% The guy literally sold his browser to an online advertising company and then bought it back. Why do you think startpage is the default? Look up the online advertising company that owns it and then look up who he sold the browser to before taking it back.
Did you read the same article as me? The word is singularly used in the context of how do you earn money as a project, i.e. sustain the effort. It's a bit of a leap to imply this is impure unless they made some contract stating the opposite or are doing something dark.
Oh yeah, the part where he sold the browser to an online advertising company that just happens to run startpage is purity huh? Damn, Google and Chrome must be saints
You must be one of those guys who reads Philip Morris “articles” on the benefits of smoking and concludes there’s no evidence for harm.
I mean first thing I do in any browser is change the search engine so it's not like it affects me in any way. I don't expect opensource projects to never make deals that give them some money, I just want them to be fully transparent when they do. Waterfox is transparent and clearly states who and how they sell their user data to.
So they’re just shilling their own search product on their own browser. No different from Google and Chrome. Except with some corporate bootlicking from running dog lackeys.
He literally sold it to an online advertising company lol.
EDIT: haha, the best defence of this guy you guys can muster is "If you don't pay me, I'll sell your data to online advertising companies" and that this is some kind of good thing.
I'm impressed by how thoroughly you ignored the question of whether your own inaction was partly responsible for the outcome that occurred later, and which you dislike.
It has persuaded me that your own inaction was totally unrelated to this outcome.
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