Waterfox Browser(waterfox.net)
waterfox.net
Waterfox Browser
https://www.waterfox.net/
104 comments
What's wrong with 2020? Generally the year displayed with a copyright is the year the work was first published. For a website, 2020 is a pretty recent initial publish. People don't just fully rewrite their website every year.
I would think it's whenever the page content was last updated, rather than first published.
I also think it's silly to put on your website, but I am not a lawyer and don't know if it has any actual purpose.
I also think it's silly to put on your website, but I am not a lawyer and don't know if it has any actual purpose.
Why would you change the copyright forward. A copyright 1994 means "This content exists since 1994, if you copied after that, there is proof I have made this before you"
That's not what ©1994 means. What it actually does is it establishes first publication date.
In US copyright law, there are three dates that control copyright: 120 years from creation (first fixation), 95 years from first publication, or life + 70 years. If any one of those terms expire [1], the work moves into the public domain.
Affixing an earlier copyright date affords no advantages. Pre-1976 copyright reform, flubbing the formalities means you lose copyright entirely. After that reform, you still keep copyright, but instead you lose out on some ability to recuperate losses, and you give your opponent extra legal ammunition in any copyright infringement cases.
[1] Strictly speaking, life + 70 years actually rules when the author is determined. If you read the law carefully, once the fixation/publication threshold is crossed, it is now the burden of proof of the copyright owner to demonstrate that life + 70 hasn't happened yet, and furthermore to demonstrate that the alleged infringer failed to do due diligence to determine the death date of the author. In practice, it could end up really being a lesser-of-all-three situation, but we aren't going to get any case law on this until 2074 at the earliest, since life + 70 doesn't start until 1978.
In US copyright law, there are three dates that control copyright: 120 years from creation (first fixation), 95 years from first publication, or life + 70 years. If any one of those terms expire [1], the work moves into the public domain.
Affixing an earlier copyright date affords no advantages. Pre-1976 copyright reform, flubbing the formalities means you lose copyright entirely. After that reform, you still keep copyright, but instead you lose out on some ability to recuperate losses, and you give your opponent extra legal ammunition in any copyright infringement cases.
[1] Strictly speaking, life + 70 years actually rules when the author is determined. If you read the law carefully, once the fixation/publication threshold is crossed, it is now the burden of proof of the copyright owner to demonstrate that life + 70 hasn't happened yet, and furthermore to demonstrate that the alleged infringer failed to do due diligence to determine the death date of the author. In practice, it could end up really being a lesser-of-all-three situation, but we aren't going to get any case law on this until 2074 at the earliest, since life + 70 doesn't start until 1978.
That's not what copyright is for or how copyright works.
Copyright renewal is a real thing. Copyright years generally get refreshed whenever the content changes.
Copyright renewal is a real thing. Copyright years generally get refreshed whenever the content changes.
> Copyright renewal is a real thing.
Not in most jurisdictions, no. What's your country where copyright renewal is still a thing? (no judgement here, despite all my hatred for copyright i'd rather have copyright renewal than copyright until 50y after death of all editors/compositors/authors as we have in Europe)
Not in most jurisdictions, no. What's your country where copyright renewal is still a thing? (no judgement here, despite all my hatred for copyright i'd rather have copyright renewal than copyright until 50y after death of all editors/compositors/authors as we have in Europe)
The United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_renewal_in_the_Unite...
Moreover, under United States law, new editions of a preexisting work are considered "derivative works" and in these cases "the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work." [1]
SIGNIFICANTLY, this U.S. government source explicitly mentions the following as cases of derivative works which allow for a new copyright:
* A new version of an existing computer program
* A revision of a website
The new copyright on the derivative work "covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work."
In other words, by creating a derivative work via updating an existing computer program or modifying a website, you absolutely gain a new copyright on any new material and you absolutely can and should update the copyright date under U.S. law.
People urging the contrary, at least insofar as they are talking about the United States or governments with similar copyright regimes are dead wrong, and jcranmer and garmaine are right and unfairly downvoted.
[1] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
Moreover, under United States law, new editions of a preexisting work are considered "derivative works" and in these cases "the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work." [1]
SIGNIFICANTLY, this U.S. government source explicitly mentions the following as cases of derivative works which allow for a new copyright:
* A new version of an existing computer program
* A revision of a website
The new copyright on the derivative work "covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work."
In other words, by creating a derivative work via updating an existing computer program or modifying a website, you absolutely gain a new copyright on any new material and you absolutely can and should update the copyright date under U.S. law.
People urging the contrary, at least insofar as they are talking about the United States or governments with similar copyright regimes are dead wrong, and jcranmer and garmaine are right and unfairly downvoted.
[1] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
> The United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_renewal_in_the_Unite...
Thanks, i was not aware that was still a thing!
Thanks, i was not aware that was still a thing!
Pretty much all jurisdictions. Even in Europe the copyright is extended if you alter a work.
The original copyright is not extended, no, unless i have some serious legal misunderstandings. For example, translations for a book will have a newer copyright, but the original text's copyright will not be extended by receiving a new translation.
It would be slightly more accurate to say that you receive a new copyright in any new material in the work, not that your copyright is extended on the old material. Under U.S. law at least, a significant alteration of a work results in a derivative work under law, and you are correct to say that it is entirely reasonable to place an updated copyright date on that work.
A from-to year format solves both problems.
The reviews are pretty great. Definitely legit.
> “It’s incredibly difficult for new browsers to penetrate the market, but there’s one such browser called Waterfox, which is attempting to gain a foothold into the market by claiming to be the fastest browser in existence by leveraging on the 64-bit architecture of the latest operating systems.” - Can A New Web Browser Break Into the Market? / London Datastore
Woah, they must be leveraging that new 64 bit technology everybody has been talking about!
> “In a week where we celebrate the best of the British technology industry, we speak to young developer Alex Kontos about building a successful web browser, a search engine that gives money to charity, Microsoft Edge and more.” - From bedroom coder to building a Google search engine rival / Trusted Reviews
Nice, they even give money to Microsoft Edge!
> “It’s incredibly difficult for new browsers to penetrate the market, but there’s one such browser called Waterfox, which is attempting to gain a foothold into the market by claiming to be the fastest browser in existence by leveraging on the 64-bit architecture of the latest operating systems.” - Can A New Web Browser Break Into the Market? / London Datastore
Woah, they must be leveraging that new 64 bit technology everybody has been talking about!
> “In a week where we celebrate the best of the British technology industry, we speak to young developer Alex Kontos about building a successful web browser, a search engine that gives money to charity, Microsoft Edge and more.” - From bedroom coder to building a Google search engine rival / Trusted Reviews
Nice, they even give money to Microsoft Edge!
> they must be leveraging that new 64 bit technology everybody has been talking about!
Waterfox is a project that has been around for long enough (~2011) that 64-bit was actually a thing people cared about.
> they even give money to Microsoft Edge!
They are saying they covered several topics in the interview, of which one was charity, and another was Microsoft Edge.
Waterfox is a project that has been around for long enough (~2011) that 64-bit was actually a thing people cared about.
> they even give money to Microsoft Edge!
They are saying they covered several topics in the interview, of which one was charity, and another was Microsoft Edge.
They are from the last decade or so - I linked them when I was a young lad and as you can tell the website is quite outdated now (and being updated in the meanwhile - takes time though!).
Just thought it was a nice way to get people familiar with Waterfox since - at least at the time (years ago now) I wasn't too sure how to introduce people to it.
> Nice, they even give money to Microsoft Edge!
I never did, that's just the structure of the sentence mentioning that they also talk about Edge in the article.
Just thought it was a nice way to get people familiar with Waterfox since - at least at the time (years ago now) I wasn't too sure how to introduce people to it.
> Nice, they even give money to Microsoft Edge!
I never did, that's just the structure of the sentence mentioning that they also talk about Edge in the article.
> the top screenshot looks doctored rather than being a real screenshot
It's SVG, so not a screenshot at all.
It's SVG, so not a screenshot at all.
[deleted]
As pointed out in another comment [0], apparently it’s extremely outdated. Other comments describe it as unstable and lacking Apple Silicon builds. If you’re just looking for a version of Firefox without the user-hostile parts, this ain’t exactly it.
From my months-old research such a thing doesn’t really seem to exist yet, but I definitely think it should. It could perhaps initially be shipped as a set of patches to be done on top of an existing Firefox installation.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28816443
From my months-old research such a thing doesn’t really seem to exist yet, but I definitely think it should. It could perhaps initially be shipped as a set of patches to be done on top of an existing Firefox installation.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28816443
This doesn’t paint a clear picture.
There are two versions of Waterfox: Classic, based on Gecko 56 that has backported security patches (but is not recommended to be used unless you are desperate to use XUL extensions) and the 3rd Generation (G3) based on ESR releases.
Waterfox Classic is based on XUL and while we back port security patches as best we can, I always try motivate existing users to migrate to the newer versions. I’m not going to force an upgrade on Classic users as it will break their current setup and instead leave it their choice.
We follow the ESR release currently for “current” versions (the default download on the website) and since ESR78 didn’t support ARM on macOS there were no builds for it.
Now that we have the beta out for the ESR91 version, ARM support for macOS is available: https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/releases/tag/G4.0.0b2
I’d like to think that Waterfox G3+ does fit in your criteria.
There are two versions of Waterfox: Classic, based on Gecko 56 that has backported security patches (but is not recommended to be used unless you are desperate to use XUL extensions) and the 3rd Generation (G3) based on ESR releases.
Waterfox Classic is based on XUL and while we back port security patches as best we can, I always try motivate existing users to migrate to the newer versions. I’m not going to force an upgrade on Classic users as it will break their current setup and instead leave it their choice.
We follow the ESR release currently for “current” versions (the default download on the website) and since ESR78 didn’t support ARM on macOS there were no builds for it.
Now that we have the beta out for the ESR91 version, ARM support for macOS is available: https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/releases/tag/G4.0.0b2
I’d like to think that Waterfox G3+ does fit in your criteria.
Thanks, that’s great to know! Maybe you should clarify that in the website, since people still seem to think Waterfox == Outdated Firefox with XUL.
> If you’re just looking for a version of Firefox without the user-hostile parts
LibreWolf seems like an attempt at this: https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/
LibreWolf seems like an attempt at this: https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/
I don’t think it is. If it is, it’s pretty bad at it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28816990
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28816990
Hmm. You're right that they are trying to do more than just that, they're trying to make a browser with an "off by default" policy for anything potentially privacy impacting. Personally, I haven't done any more than check it out, but I did end up switching back most of their changed settings.
I think the end game for this probably ought to be an interface that appears post-install and asks you to choose a set of privacy-friendly options (which may break things), or enable all web technologies (which may impact privacy). That seems the user-respecting thing to do to me.
Still, though, I'm glad that privacy-by-default, no unexpected connections out of the box, is something that someone is working on.
I think the end game for this probably ought to be an interface that appears post-install and asks you to choose a set of privacy-friendly options (which may break things), or enable all web technologies (which may impact privacy). That seems the user-respecting thing to do to me.
Still, though, I'm glad that privacy-by-default, no unexpected connections out of the box, is something that someone is working on.
I must be out of the loop here... What are the user-hostile parts of Firefox you mention?
For the purposes of this comment, user-hostility means decisions that have negative utility for Firefox users as a whole, while benefiting Mozilla in some way (usually financial).
* There is disgusting clickbait and spam on the new tab page by default, thanks to bundling Pocket's article recommendations. Many of these are sponsored suggestions (a euphemism that means "advertisement"), but ironically these are scarcely more annoying than the actual suggestions.
* The top sites feature on the new tab page, intended to provide easy access to the sites you use the most, is now infested with sponsored recommendations like Amazon and Ebay.
* The URL bar is now infested with sponsored suggestions, even if you have searching from that bar turned off!
* The have made major blunders in their handling of "experiments" and telemetry. They broke all extensions because they failed to update a certificate (after shipping Firefox with a signing requirement for extensions that can't be disabled), and shipped an extension directly to users via their hotpatching feature that implemented a sponsored tie-in with a TV SHOW which manipulated the text on web pages, a major breach of trust in their use of hotpatching.
More minor or borderline cases:
* They have shipped many of these anti-features and stuff that belongs in user-installable extensions as part of the source code of Firefox itself. This bloats the browser, makes it harder for potential forkers to remove the code, and makes it harder for them to reverse course in the future should they decide to undo their disastrous series of decisions.
* They default to Google as a search engine because Google pays them lots of money, not because they believe that's the best search engine for their users to use. They were using Yahoo a few years ago.
* They generate pointless UI churn, presumably because their design team has nothing else to do. Most of these features have been received poorly by the majority of Firefox users invested enough to speak out, suggesting that they have some other motive than making their users happy.
* Needless removal of features that arguably do belong in a browser: detection of RSS feeds, compact mode for the GUI, the ability to use CSS to restyle the browser interface (now hidden behind a "deprecated" toggle)
* On top of everything else, the horrible communication from Mozilla has made everything so much more hostile than it already was. They outright denied at first, for example, that the "new tab suggestions intended to improve the user experience" were advertisements.
* The mobile transition has been a disaster. They've had like 4 or 5 different "editions" of Firefox over the last few years as they tried to decide what their strategy was, and now that they've set on one, they deprecated the only version of their browser that supported add-ons on mobile without a replacement, and now almost 30 versions later the overwhelming majority of addons are still not supported. And the justification for all this, refactoring to make the browser faster, didn't materialize. I tested both the old and newest browser on objective benchmarks and saw a difference of less than 10%, and the UI of the new browser was noticeably slower.
* There is disgusting clickbait and spam on the new tab page by default, thanks to bundling Pocket's article recommendations. Many of these are sponsored suggestions (a euphemism that means "advertisement"), but ironically these are scarcely more annoying than the actual suggestions.
* The top sites feature on the new tab page, intended to provide easy access to the sites you use the most, is now infested with sponsored recommendations like Amazon and Ebay.
* The URL bar is now infested with sponsored suggestions, even if you have searching from that bar turned off!
* The have made major blunders in their handling of "experiments" and telemetry. They broke all extensions because they failed to update a certificate (after shipping Firefox with a signing requirement for extensions that can't be disabled), and shipped an extension directly to users via their hotpatching feature that implemented a sponsored tie-in with a TV SHOW which manipulated the text on web pages, a major breach of trust in their use of hotpatching.
More minor or borderline cases:
* They have shipped many of these anti-features and stuff that belongs in user-installable extensions as part of the source code of Firefox itself. This bloats the browser, makes it harder for potential forkers to remove the code, and makes it harder for them to reverse course in the future should they decide to undo their disastrous series of decisions.
* They default to Google as a search engine because Google pays them lots of money, not because they believe that's the best search engine for their users to use. They were using Yahoo a few years ago.
* They generate pointless UI churn, presumably because their design team has nothing else to do. Most of these features have been received poorly by the majority of Firefox users invested enough to speak out, suggesting that they have some other motive than making their users happy.
* Needless removal of features that arguably do belong in a browser: detection of RSS feeds, compact mode for the GUI, the ability to use CSS to restyle the browser interface (now hidden behind a "deprecated" toggle)
* On top of everything else, the horrible communication from Mozilla has made everything so much more hostile than it already was. They outright denied at first, for example, that the "new tab suggestions intended to improve the user experience" were advertisements.
* The mobile transition has been a disaster. They've had like 4 or 5 different "editions" of Firefox over the last few years as they tried to decide what their strategy was, and now that they've set on one, they deprecated the only version of their browser that supported add-ons on mobile without a replacement, and now almost 30 versions later the overwhelming majority of addons are still not supported. And the justification for all this, refactoring to make the browser faster, didn't materialize. I tested both the old and newest browser on objective benchmarks and saw a difference of less than 10%, and the UI of the new browser was noticeably slower.
I'm so confused. Pretty much everything you describe is them making money. Would you rather them not be in business? Be a subscription browser? I don't understand.
Hmm. I haven't made a claim that they should not or must not do this. Your argument amounts to the claim that they must do these things because they have no other choice. I have ... not a lot to say on this point, honestly. What you say might be true.
However, it doesn't bear at all on the question of whether the actions are user hostile. Any change known to the developers to negatively impact the utility of end users is user hostile. Maybe a program like Firefox can't exist in 2021 without being ... essentially adware ... and if so I think that's sad, but it's not a reason to redefine our terms to make it not user hostile to begin with!
However, it doesn't bear at all on the question of whether the actions are user hostile. Any change known to the developers to negatively impact the utility of end users is user hostile. Maybe a program like Firefox can't exist in 2021 without being ... essentially adware ... and if so I think that's sad, but it's not a reason to redefine our terms to make it not user hostile to begin with!
Previous discussions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20047170
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800634
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10554083
And the one on acquisition by System1:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22338321
It's my choice for "sandbox" browser - as in doing all stuff that I wouldn't want to do on Vivaldi.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20047170
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800634
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10554083
And the one on acquisition by System1:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22338321
It's my choice for "sandbox" browser - as in doing all stuff that I wouldn't want to do on Vivaldi.
What do you mean by "stuff that I wouldn't want to do on Vivaldi"?
Vivaldi is set to be very strict when it comes to ads and tracking, and that affects sometimes how sites works. I've set Waterfox to be more "liberal"; it's for dirty-dirty stuff and dirty stuff. I'm also using it as a kind of sentiment I feel to Gecko engine. I'm not using Firefox since v60 - one of updates damaged my profile in an unrecoverable way.
Vivaldi is also a web browser: https://vivaldi.com/
The problem is, it's very old, and with Firefox, the good stuff comes with the last versions.
Especially, modern Firefox is wicked fast, while just a few versions before, it was less so. The difference is _staggering_.
I think there is a space for add ons to setup Firefox to be more privacy focused. It's easier to maintain than a fork: compiling on so many targets such a huge software is very hard.
Especially, modern Firefox is wicked fast, while just a few versions before, it was less so. The difference is _staggering_.
I think there is a space for add ons to setup Firefox to be more privacy focused. It's easier to maintain than a fork: compiling on so many targets such a huge software is very hard.
On my phone, I have the newest version of Firefox Fennec and IceCatMobile (ancient and barely supported) - they both launch and function at, as far as I can see, exactly the same speed. Where is this speedup you mention actually found?
While I do use Firefox on mobile, I'm talking about the desktop version, like most people do.
The latest rendering improvements are showing great results, and hardware acceleration on Linux is now on part with Windows, so it's fantastic to use on a modern laptop.
The latest rendering improvements are showing great results, and hardware acceleration on Linux is now on part with Windows, so it's fantastic to use on a modern laptop.
Does Firefox do hardware acceleration for videos yet? It still does it in software by default on Linux as far as I know, unless this has changed recently?
Don't know, videos are seemless but I got a very powerful CPU.
I use Waterfox and Waterfox Classic, along five other browsers, on a 2008 iMac.
Waterfox is stable and workable for me. I use Vimium-FF for keyboard things.
My use case: I only visit a few sites, including this one, and rarely click the article links here.
I really like it, it is like a Firefox which has been through obedience school, and now knows how to behave itself.
Definitely in my top-10 favorite post-2015 browsers.
Waterfox is stable and workable for me. I use Vimium-FF for keyboard things.
My use case: I only visit a few sites, including this one, and rarely click the article links here.
I really like it, it is like a Firefox which has been through obedience school, and now knows how to behave itself.
Definitely in my top-10 favorite post-2015 browsers.
> I use Waterfox and Waterfox Classic, along five other browsers
Interesting - would you mind sharing what you use the others for?
Interesting - would you mind sharing what you use the others for?
The thing I do by far the most is testing my own websites.
I love the Web and I believe strongly in Any Browser, so I regularly test in a whole variety of browsers to ensure compatibility.
I try to dogfood this as much as possible. For example, I'm posting this with Firefox 3.6.
I love the Web and I believe strongly in Any Browser, so I regularly test in a whole variety of browsers to ensure compatibility.
I try to dogfood this as much as possible. For example, I'm posting this with Firefox 3.6.
Not much information on the home page on why to use this and not Firefox. As this is derivative of Firefox, then what does it add over Firefox?
Here's a bit more information, though i do believe that there indeed could be more clarity about the project's goals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfox
It appears that Waterfox is one of the few ways to use the legacy extensions that Firefox removed the support for and to use a browser that Mozilla doesn't have control over.
I'd maybe also look at GNU IceCat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat
It's actually curious to see a discussion about a fork of Firefox, since a little bit ago i personally felt that there might just be a rise of more forks and attempts to abandon Mozilla due to their recent behaviour: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28785896
It appears that Waterfox is one of the few ways to use the legacy extensions that Firefox removed the support for and to use a browser that Mozilla doesn't have control over.
I'd maybe also look at GNU IceCat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat
It's actually curious to see a discussion about a fork of Firefox, since a little bit ago i personally felt that there might just be a rise of more forks and attempts to abandon Mozilla due to their recent behaviour: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28785896
It doesn't ship ads in your web browser, unlike Firefox. It allows you to install WebExtensions from any source (even if you don't sign them with Mozilla!), unlike Firefox.
I wouldn't recommend it, but that's just because I wouldn't recommend any web browser right now.
I wouldn't recommend it, but that's just because I wouldn't recommend any web browser right now.
>It doesn't ship ads in your web browser
Well, Waterfox is owned by an advertising company.
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.
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
browser.urlbar.suggest.quicksuggest.sponsored
browser.urlbar.sponsoredTopSites
For aesthetics and anti-stupidity's sake, might I also recommend:
browser.urlbar.trimURLs
False.
It is possible that I'm so culturally eccentric that the obstruction of useful information fails to appeal to me.
browser.urlbar.trimURLs
False.
It is possible that I'm so culturally eccentric that the obstruction of useful information fails to appeal to me.
Thanks.
They were already off for me, and I don't remember being asked about enabling them after an install...
They were already off for me, and I don't remember being asked about enabling them after an install...
There were stories about it a few days ago. It's US only thing, for now.
They won't ask or inform you of this it just gets enabled. (Currently just in US). HN discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28804588
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.
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.
Arch Linux seems to have disabled it. Both the config flags are false for me and I haven't touched that.
They do not. You can check their build files yourself here: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/tree/packages...
Indeed, it would be rather surprising if they did, as I'm an Arch user as well and they have not disabled the sponsored new tab suggestions or the Pocket article recommendations. Hard to say what would be beyond the pale for the Arch maintainers.
From what I can tell from this thread, they are currently selectively enabling this for certain users. Maybe it just hasn't been enabled for you yet, or you're in a region (non-US) that doesn't get it enabled?
Indeed, it would be rather surprising if they did, as I'm an Arch user as well and they have not disabled the sponsored new tab suggestions or the Pocket article recommendations. Hard to say what would be beyond the pale for the Arch maintainers.
From what I can tell from this thread, they are currently selectively enabling this for certain users. Maybe it just hasn't been enabled for you yet, or you're in a region (non-US) that doesn't get it enabled?
I've never seen ads in the address bar and when I checked the about:config for those two items they were both false. I installed it from the Pop OS! repository.
It isn't a patch to Firefox just configuration.
It isn't a patch to Firefox just configuration.
As far as I can tell, they do not. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that their Firefox package is just taken directly from Ubuntu, and they only apply a single theming option on top of that: https://github.com/pop-os/default-settings/blob/master_focal...
Whoa, borderline unusable because of something Chrome has effectively been doing for a long time?
https://imgur.com/a/baXZDrN
https://imgur.com/a/baXZDrN
Yes, actually. Chrome is unusable adware. Firefox is borderline unusable adware, and it takes a long time to remove all of the proprietary components and proprietary services from it. Waterfox is probably doing something to snatch your data, but it probably won't outright impede your use of the browser. Epiphany exists, but they still aren't shipping with WebExtensions a year after implementing them because it goes against the "GNOME way" or some garbage knockoff-HIG.
There really isn't a good web browser.
There really isn't a good web browser.
Yes, that's one of the many reasons Chrome is unsuable.
The main point, which many people are looking for, is that it’s a version of Firefox maintained by anyone except Mozilla.
It had earlier 64bit builds, but that was then and … now it seems mostly for the niche that are pissed off at the new Firefox tabs and the audacity that Mozilla wants to partner directly with advertisers instead of having Google be the middleman.
Firefox also has some telemetry which Waterfox cuts out.
Firefox also has some telemetry which Waterfox cuts out.
There's also LibreWolf.
LibreWolf may be a great and private browser for simple websites, but it’s definitely not your gateway to modern web applications. It locks down so much through a configuration override that a good chunk of modern web functionality just won’t work (WebRTC, for example). I gave up after about 5 times of looking up a problem and changing the configuration file without an end in sight.
They go a bit far for my taste.
They go a bit far for my taste.
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!
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!
I still think that WindWolf or WaterWolf would have been better. Like it though :)
By reading the subtitle 'a perfect ballance between privacy and usability' i think that it wont have privacy and might be less user friendly that other browsers.
Also, the statement that you try to collect less data doesn't says anything about privacy.
Also, the statement that you try to collect less data doesn't says anything about privacy.
I've used a recent version of WF yesteryear on Mac and Windows, both with the firewall installed and guess what. The Firewall started notifying numerous outgoing connection attempts even before I opened any webpage! WF was obstinately trying to record each and every info about me into a network of servers. But that's not the end of the story. I've installed the classic version of WF so that it would run on my older Mac. What could be worse than an unashamed privacy infringement? WF Classic froze the whole operating system, the keyboard went unresponsive so I had to do a hard shutdown! You know each hard power off could destroy the SSD. Luckily for me the SSD survived the hard off but one thing is proven for sure: WF is to be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately with the way Gecko is structured, the browser requires a lot of connections to the Firefox Remote Settings Server, for:
* OpenH264 Codec for H264 playback
* Widevine (if you enable DRM, it's disabled by default on Waterfox)
* Extension blocklists
* Phishing/malware website blocklists
* Certificate downloads and HSTS Preload Lists
* Captive portal detection
* And a few other security related bits and bobs I can't remember off the top of my head.
I did try to migrate to offline dumps so these things would only get updated at browser update time, but it causes a few issues with the browser doing so.
> WF was obstinately trying to record each and every info about me into a network of servers.
That would be rather shocking to me if it's true - the browser should be making requests to download things, but not upload anything? If this isn't the case do let me know what is going where as that is most definitely not by design!
> WF Classic froze the whole operating system, the keyboard went unresponsive so I had to do a hard shutdown! You know each hard power off could destroy the SSD.
That is definitely not ideal, but unfortunately Classic is very long in the tooth now and compatibility is getting harder with each release.
Sorry you had those issues though, definitely not what we want happening.
* OpenH264 Codec for H264 playback
* Widevine (if you enable DRM, it's disabled by default on Waterfox)
* Extension blocklists
* Phishing/malware website blocklists
* Certificate downloads and HSTS Preload Lists
* Captive portal detection
* And a few other security related bits and bobs I can't remember off the top of my head.
I did try to migrate to offline dumps so these things would only get updated at browser update time, but it causes a few issues with the browser doing so.
> WF was obstinately trying to record each and every info about me into a network of servers.
That would be rather shocking to me if it's true - the browser should be making requests to download things, but not upload anything? If this isn't the case do let me know what is going where as that is most definitely not by design!
> WF Classic froze the whole operating system, the keyboard went unresponsive so I had to do a hard shutdown! You know each hard power off could destroy the SSD.
That is definitely not ideal, but unfortunately Classic is very long in the tooth now and compatibility is getting harder with each release.
Sorry you had those issues though, definitely not what we want happening.
Curious to know why is it so complicated to build a web browser?
Yes, they're probably the most complex piece of software humans have ever created. That being said, it seems like it would be possible to create a browser that handles all of the most common use cases, so ~90% of your browsing experience.
Sure, maybe you need years and dozens of engineers for the final 10% but who cares about that bit? Wouldn't people be willing to accept this feature tradeoff for a new, user-friendly browser?
Yes, they're probably the most complex piece of software humans have ever created. That being said, it seems like it would be possible to create a browser that handles all of the most common use cases, so ~90% of your browsing experience.
Sure, maybe you need years and dozens of engineers for the final 10% but who cares about that bit? Wouldn't people be willing to accept this feature tradeoff for a new, user-friendly browser?
Which complex parts would you omit?
If you omit video playing, you've prevented people from using YouTube and Netflix. If you omit compositing graphics on top of this video, you've again prevented YouTube and Netflix from showing UI.
If you omit canvas and SVG, fancy modern parallax scrolling sites will not load.
If you omit WebGL, another half of modern sites which just use it for a rotating logo won't load.
Etc, etc... you really can't release a non-100% feature-full browser these days.
If you omit video playing, you've prevented people from using YouTube and Netflix. If you omit compositing graphics on top of this video, you've again prevented YouTube and Netflix from showing UI.
If you omit canvas and SVG, fancy modern parallax scrolling sites will not load.
If you omit WebGL, another half of modern sites which just use it for a rotating logo won't load.
Etc, etc... you really can't release a non-100% feature-full browser these days.
That would have been more possible a decade ago when the web browsers were less compatible and sites relied on the lowest common denominator feature set. With the increase in compatibility sites now rely on libraries that each depend on a different 90% of the feature set. Breaking interactions between those dependencies has a cascade effect that leads to really, really, really frustrating experiences today. e.g. a UI that looks perfect and has interaction effects working but a background interaction fails silently. A decade ago compatibility issues were more common but IME they were less frustrating because there was usually a rendering artifact or foreground error that made it clear the author just didn't support your browser.
Think re-writing 100% compatibility with MS windows and how much a of pain in the butt that would be. Wine has been at it for 28 years and they still haven't really managed.
A web browser these days is arguably of similar complexity.
A web browser these days is arguably of similar complexity.
The problem is that due to complexity accrued over time, the 10% of features you speak about are likely going to be core to the operation of the web's most popular sites (FAANMG). And not supporting those sites means not supporting a huge swath of the population who consider those sites critical.
Has Waterfox gotten its act together? Last I checked on it it had a reputation of being slow and unstable,and its users were mostly people who needed XUL support. Of course those same people said it didn't have much life left in it but it's obviously still here.
I tried it out, and it's very fast on some websites, but freezes the tab for a few seconds when trying to display others. A bit later (in 15 minutes or so) it completely froze the system toward the end of watching a video leaving the audio buffer to repeat. This is the first time my current Linux laptop has crashed since I got it over half a year ago, so I think it's not a great result for the browser.
> I tried it out, and it's very fast on some websites, but freezes the tab for a few seconds when trying to display others. A bit later (in 15 minutes or so) it completely froze the system toward the end of watching a video leaving the audio buffer to repeat. This is the first time my current Linux laptop has crashed since I got it over half a year ago, so I think it's not a great result for the browser.
This is very similar to the behavior I saw "random freezes during page load/render" on a different OS.
Overall, it was very fast on my system, except for this specific slowdown activity.
This is very similar to the behavior I saw "random freezes during page load/render" on a different OS.
Overall, it was very fast on my system, except for this specific slowdown activity.
> Last I checked on it it had a reputation of being slow and unstable,and its users were mostly people who needed XUL support.
In my testing with it, I found it to be very fast, and a little unstable but the XUL support was a big plus.
In my testing with it, I found it to be very fast, and a little unstable but the XUL support was a big plus.
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I keep it installed because the old pre-webextension version of downthemall can download some things the new version doesn't. But I only use it like once a month or so. I don't see any reason for me to use it on a regular basis.
If you're interested, DownThemAll has been ported to support newer Gecko versions: https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master...
Waterfox G3+ supports installing bootstrapped/XPCOM extensions :-)
Waterfox G3+ supports installing bootstrapped/XPCOM extensions :-)
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.
> 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
Okay, hilarious. “Impressive that they’re keeping it up to date while maintaining XUL support”, I thought. Never mind.
Okay, hilarious. “Impressive that they’re keeping it up to date while maintaining XUL support”, I thought. Never mind.
> besides some minor stuff you can already get with extensions
Waterfox supports extensions that are no longer supported by Firefox.
Waterfox supports extensions that are no longer supported by Firefox.
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Will there be an AArch64 build for macOS?
I stopped using Waterfox back in like 2010-2012(not sure the exact year) and switched to Cyberfox. Then to Chrome, back to Firefox.
I don't see any point in using Waterfox in 2021.
I don't see any point in using Waterfox in 2021.
this is so cool!
no mobile ? any learnings here as you attempt to build browsers for the app stores.
I have been using Waterfox Classic as my default browser on half a dozen boxes since 2017, on Ubuntu, openSUSE, Windows 10 and macOS. AMA. :-)
I customised Firefox fairly heavily, with an assortment of over a dozen addons I'd just accumulated over the years. Firefox Quantum broke all but 2 of them and destroyed the program's usefulness to me.
Waterfox imported my profile intact and allows me to keep my customisations.
I have a vertical tab bar on the left (flat _not_ hierarchical) which is also merged with the bookmarks toolbar, also flattened. I have two download managers, one for ordinary small downloads in a tab, and another that can resume downloads, segment and parallelise large downloads, detect and bypass redirect pages and so on. Another addon automatically detects [Next] links and preloads the content into the first page, so you a big single page instead of multiple sub-pages. Another supplies anonymous login details from a shared public database. Another sorts and dedupes my several thousand bookmarks.
Oh, and on Ubuntu with Unity, Waterfox's menu bar automatically appears in my top panel. Firefox for some baffling reason hides its menu bar, but if enabled, it doesn't go into the top panel and instead wastes a strip of my laptop's fairly small screen.
And so on and so on. Firefox Quantum destroyed all this and delivers an IMHO fairly poor user experience which is as bad as Chrome's and in no way preferable to Chrome.
I have found some workarounds, for instance a vertical tab bar, but I have to enable a setting that enables user customisation, then I have to add a subdirectory to my profile and put some CSS in it in order to hide the crappy horizontal tabs and the pointless header row in the sidebar. It's a pain. WebExtensions are sad crippled little things compared to the power of XUL and they don't allow you to to really change the UI of the browser.
My impression is that today's Firefox developers don't really know or understand what people did with the tools that turn-of-the-century Mozilla provided us with. Since they didn't have a clue what was possible, they decided to rip the whole lot out and fob us off with pathetic Chrome-style extensions, Chrome-style tabs, and Chrome-style lack of customisability.
So I switched to a power user's browser that still lets me do this stuff.
There is no cost to me and contrary to what other commenters claim I can see no performance difference whatsoever. I have kept Firefox around on my Linux boxes because Github bitches about Waterfox, and apart from being much more clunky, Firefox 93 gives me nothing at all. No better speed, no better stability, about 1% of the selection of addons and they're crippled things.
TBH I thought this would be a temporary thing, but it's been four years now and Waterfox Classic is still going strong.
Mozilla, OTOH, has totally lost its way and seems to be flailing.
I customised Firefox fairly heavily, with an assortment of over a dozen addons I'd just accumulated over the years. Firefox Quantum broke all but 2 of them and destroyed the program's usefulness to me.
Waterfox imported my profile intact and allows me to keep my customisations.
I have a vertical tab bar on the left (flat _not_ hierarchical) which is also merged with the bookmarks toolbar, also flattened. I have two download managers, one for ordinary small downloads in a tab, and another that can resume downloads, segment and parallelise large downloads, detect and bypass redirect pages and so on. Another addon automatically detects [Next] links and preloads the content into the first page, so you a big single page instead of multiple sub-pages. Another supplies anonymous login details from a shared public database. Another sorts and dedupes my several thousand bookmarks.
Oh, and on Ubuntu with Unity, Waterfox's menu bar automatically appears in my top panel. Firefox for some baffling reason hides its menu bar, but if enabled, it doesn't go into the top panel and instead wastes a strip of my laptop's fairly small screen.
And so on and so on. Firefox Quantum destroyed all this and delivers an IMHO fairly poor user experience which is as bad as Chrome's and in no way preferable to Chrome.
I have found some workarounds, for instance a vertical tab bar, but I have to enable a setting that enables user customisation, then I have to add a subdirectory to my profile and put some CSS in it in order to hide the crappy horizontal tabs and the pointless header row in the sidebar. It's a pain. WebExtensions are sad crippled little things compared to the power of XUL and they don't allow you to to really change the UI of the browser.
My impression is that today's Firefox developers don't really know or understand what people did with the tools that turn-of-the-century Mozilla provided us with. Since they didn't have a clue what was possible, they decided to rip the whole lot out and fob us off with pathetic Chrome-style extensions, Chrome-style tabs, and Chrome-style lack of customisability.
So I switched to a power user's browser that still lets me do this stuff.
There is no cost to me and contrary to what other commenters claim I can see no performance difference whatsoever. I have kept Firefox around on my Linux boxes because Github bitches about Waterfox, and apart from being much more clunky, Firefox 93 gives me nothing at all. No better speed, no better stability, about 1% of the selection of addons and they're crippled things.
TBH I thought this would be a temporary thing, but it's been four years now and Waterfox Classic is still going strong.
Mozilla, OTOH, has totally lost its way and seems to be flailing.
"No telemetry / We don't need to know what you do within your browser."
OK, good.
"Limited Data Collection / We try and take the bare minimum amount of information to keep things running smoothly. "
Wait, what? So which is it?
OK, good.
"Limited Data Collection / We try and take the bare minimum amount of information to keep things running smoothly. "
Wait, what? So which is it?
If I were to take a guess (just reading charitably, I haven't actually used Waterfox): they're probably trying to say that the browser doesn't make any requests whose sole purpose is to report your information to them. No telemetry. But browsers do have to send some network requests to their developers for stuff like automatic updates, and they do have to log some of the information received—for example, to tell if someone is trying to hack the update server—but they'll try and keep that to a minimum.
My little snitch popped up like 20 times for callbacks to mozilla and other hosts..
I am thankful for Little Snitch and Open Snitch existence.
If those tools didn't exist I will not connect to Interned at all.
Started fighting macOS telemetry and refused transition to Linux partially because of absence of LS alternative. Since Open Snitch I happily run my personal computer with PureOS. https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch
The amount of system mothership calling on any platform is mind boggling. And everything has "rational" and "it is inevitable" attached to it. My Firefox looks like Christmas Tree from extensions and my about:config is taking too long to set properly. What a beautiful future we are creating. :)
Started fighting macOS telemetry and refused transition to Linux partially because of absence of LS alternative. Since Open Snitch I happily run my personal computer with PureOS. https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch
The amount of system mothership calling on any platform is mind boggling. And everything has "rational" and "it is inevitable" attached to it. My Firefox looks like Christmas Tree from extensions and my about:config is taking too long to set properly. What a beautiful future we are creating. :)
My guess would be automated crash reports. Those are too good to ignore, and usually don't include much PII.
But its a guess. Would be nice to have devs pitch in here.
But its a guess. Would be nice to have devs pitch in here.
Ambitious, but absolutely not "the fastest browser in existence"
Strangely the fastest Firefox based, until recently at least, the latest Firefox release also seems quite an improvement
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.