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I'm aware that it used to be owned by an ad company System1. But I found this post by the founder where he said that it's now an independent project.

https://www.waterfox.net/blog/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox/

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[-] loomy@lemy.lol 7 points 8 hours ago

just ignore it.

use librewolf, mullvad, or tor browser.

[-] MajesticElevator@lemmy.zip 2 points 12 hours ago

I’m wondering if I should use it as well. I know LibreWolf isn’t for me

[-] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I am curious why Librewolf isn't for you?

Overall I've had no issue with librewolf. It's runs just like Firefox without some of the bloat. The very few sites I've found don't work, don't work on FF either (usually payment/online stores with popups and shit). Download whatever extension, change the settings and even sign into Firefox cloud. Yes, you'll make your "fingerprint" more unique but, the other security improvemts/defaults make it a worthy trade off.

Biggest annoyance is by default cookies/logged in sites are wiped on close. That can easily be changed globally, or white list what you want to save site settings for. Signing out of websites is a good habit anyway, especially ones with payment attached.

The neat part is there's a lot options to pick from, some of them are doing cool things like the one outta Japan Floorp looks interesting.

[-] unicornBro@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 hours ago

I use it for everyday things like schoolwork and gmail and it works great so far. I still have Librewolf on the side but it seems like it's for more privacy and that you're not supposed to change it too much for example adding more extensions or it defeats the purpose of it.

[-] MajesticElevator@lemmy.zip 3 points 11 hours ago

Yea, it feels like the tor browser of clear web

[-] jinwk00@lemm.ee 4 points 18 hours ago
[-] GreyCat@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago

Yeah Tuff, give me some fresh dirt.

[-] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I'm pretty sure System1 divested themselves of it.

They still own Startpage and Startmail, though.

[-] petri@sh.itjust.works 5 points 13 hours ago

phew and thats how i accidentally discovered just now about Startpage being owned by a marketing company, somehow i missed that news

From Wikipedia

In October 2019, Startpage received a significant investment from Privacy One Group, a subsidiary of System1.

i guess now i will have to pivot search to somewhere else, i went from DuckDuckGo to Startpage years ago now i will look around for something else

[-] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 5 points 13 hours ago

I use SearXNG. I would highly recommend.

[-] petri@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

thanks, i heard and tried it already many times but:

  • I need to self-host (fine for doing it locally but im wary of opening it to access outside the network and be open to external threats since i wouldnt know how to properly handle that so i went for trying to selfhost 4get for being more lightweight)
  • find a trustworthy instance (don't know how, i dont mind much on what instance i choose for YouTube frontend proxies but for searches i want to be more careful, maybe if there was a search extension to randomize instance between EU-based instances i'd feel more comfortable since its what made me pivot to Startpage years ago as it was purely a EU-based company)

Wasn't the whole reason to use Waterfox because Firefox didn't support 64x at the time? It supports it now, so why would you still use Waterfox?

[-] stardustsystem@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

It got a big boost when Mozilla updated their ToS a couple months ago to say they could use your browser data to train their AI.

Well, it's not that they said they would, it's that they updated their terms so that they could if they wanted to. For some (myself included) that was enough.

[-] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 8 points 18 hours ago

Waterfox try to remove some blobs of Firefox out of the box, so it's better for the normal user

[-] comfy@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 hours ago

Waterfox try to remove some blobs of Firefox out of the box, so it’s better for the normal user

How is removing blobs better for the normal user?

[-] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 minutes ago

Because it makes a healthier base to work with or to simply use it without caring

Increasing privacy (and sometimes security)

[-] sunth1ef@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago

I have found that Waterfox is slightly, slightly faster on both Windows and Android and am loving it so far.

this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
51 points (100.0% liked)

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