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Waterfox Browser

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Re: Waterfox Browser

#22

Post by duskwuff »

Jowsey wrote: post #9
nextaccountic wrote: post #6

Is this related to Firefox? The name suggests it, but the page doesn't say

Its big thing originally was being a 64-bit port of Firefox. I assume it's still based on Firefox in some way, based on the name, but not really sure what it brings to the table anymore, besides some minor stuff you can already get with extensions.

Its thing nowadays is being a fork of a Firefox release old enough to still support XUL. Which means it's effectively a 4+ year old version of Firefox, with no renderer isolation and no support for most web features added in the last four years.

Re: Waterfox Browser

#23

Post by bscphil »

metagame wrote: post #13
Nicksil wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't ship ads in your web browser Well, Waterfox is owned by an advertising company.

Sure, and I'm not saying it's good for privacy. But Firefox in its default setting is also bordering unusable, inserting ads in the address bar! It's incredible that an advertising company does better than a for-profit owned by a non-profit in this regard.

Sorry, context for this? I take a pretty thorough scalpel to removing any traces of sponsored content from Firefox, and it never occurred to me that they might have ads in the address bar. Is there a previous discussion an announcement about this?

Re: Waterfox Browser

#24

Post by metagame »

bscphil wrote: post #23
metagame wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and I'm not saying it's good for privacy. But Firefox in its default setting is also bordering unusable, inserting ads in the address bar! It's incredible that an advertising company does better than a for-profit owned by a non-profit in this regard.

Sorry, context for this? I take a pretty thorough scalpel to removing any traces of sponsored content from Firefox, and it never occurred to me that they might have ads in the address bar. Is there a previous discussion an announcement about this?

They added it unannounced in the last update, Firefox 93. There was a small outrage on behalf of the dozens of people still paying attention to Firefox, but nothing came of it. If you're on a good distribution, you'll probably see it disabled by default.

Re: Waterfox Browser

#25

Post by ev1 »

bscphil wrote: post #23
metagame wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and I'm not saying it's good for privacy. But Firefox in its default setting is also bordering unusable, inserting ads in the address bar! It's incredible that an advertising company does better than a for-profit owned by a non-profit in this regard.

Sorry, context for this? I take a pretty thorough scalpel to removing any traces of sponsored content from Firefox, and it never occurred to me that they might have ads in the address bar. Is there a previous discussion an announcement about this?

You want both of these to be false.

browser.urlbar.suggest.quicksuggest.sponsored

browser.urlbar.sponsoredTopSites

Re: Waterfox Browser

#26

Post by bscphil »

metagame wrote: post #24
bscphil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, context for this? I take a pretty thorough scalpel to removing any traces of sponsored content from Firefox, and it never occurred to me that they might have ads in the address bar. Is there a previous discussion an announcement about this?

They added it unannounced in the last update, Firefox 93. There was a small outrage on behalf of the dozens of people still paying attention to Firefox, but nothing came of it. If you're on a good distribution, you'll probably see it disabled by default.

Honestly I have been disappointed beyond the capacity for outrage with Firefox. Do you know of any positive cases of a distribution that disables this?

Edit: just to add to this, my understanding is that Mozilla uses (abuses?) their trademark on Firefox to keep the distributions in line. If you distribute a version of Firefox that's been patched to remove anti-features, you can't call it Firefox.

Re: Waterfox Browser

#28

Post by progval »

overeater wrote: post #2

Several things make me skeptical about this browser. 1) Homepage is a bit uncared for. The Copyright shows "2020" at the bottom, the top screenshot looks doctored rather than being a real screenshot. 2) It's owned by an ad marketing platform, System1, as noted in the FAQ. On the plus side, the Github repository is active.

> the top screenshot looks doctored rather than being a real screenshot

It's SVG, so not a screenshot at all.

Re: Waterfox Browser

#29

Post by jikbd »

overeater wrote: post #2

Several things make me skeptical about this browser. 1) Homepage is a bit uncared for. The Copyright shows "2020" at the bottom, the top screenshot looks doctored rather than being a real screenshot. 2) It's owned by an ad marketing platform, System1, as noted in the FAQ. On the plus side, the Github repository is active.

The first screenshot is in fact not a screenshot but an svg file. I don’t see how that makes the website look more fishy, though…

Re: Waterfox Browser

#30

Post by throwaway134183 »

rapnie wrote: post #27
iszomer wrote: post #21

There's also LibreWolf.

Thanks. Didn't know about this one. The site is here: https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

Years ago together with another guy I created LibreFox. I came up withe the original concept that is still used (No telemetry, private search, uBlock Origin by default, default security and privacy settings).

We quickly heard from Mozilla's lawyers: "Eliminate the Fox from your name or we sue you!".

So we abandoned the project, but seeing the website you posted, my concept has lived on, and the gitlab seems to be pretty active as well!

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