Waterfox
Utilize Waterfox for a high-speed, private browsing experience on 64-bit systems. Built on Firefox, it taps into Intel's C++ compiler for optimal performance, supports legacy extensions, allows full customization, and blocks ads by default, ensuring utmost control and security.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- Android Tablet
- Flathub
Features
Properties
- Privacy focused
- Customizable
- Lightweight
- Support for Themes
Features
- Firefox-based Browsers
- Support for 64 bit
- Privacy enhanced
- Optimized Firefox
- Support for Firefox extensions
- Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
- Legacy addons support
- No Tracking
- Classic extension support
- Optimized for Windows
- Cloud Sync
- Block Trackers
- Dark Mode
- Ad-free
- Automated speed adjustments
- Portable
- Integrated Password Manager
- Works Offline
- No registration required
- Picture in Picture
- Specific for 64-Bit
- Website Translation
- Spell Checking
- Support for Gestures
- Text to Speech
- Based on Gecko engine
Tags
- Firefox Extension
- No AI
- gecko-engine
- Firefox
Waterfox News & Activities
Recent News
- POX published news article about Waterfox
Waterfox pushes back against Mozilla's AI vision and advocates for privacy-first browsingIn a sharply‑worded post titled “No AI Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter”, Waterfox lead ...
- POX published news article about Mojeek
Mojeek is now available in the list of preselected search engines for the Waterfox browserMojeek, an independent and privacy-focused web search engine, has been officially added to the list...
- Danilo_Venom published news article about Waterfox
Waterfox regains Independence abandoning the advertising company System1In a recent blog post, the creator of Waterfox, Alex Kontos, announced that the popular web browser...
Recent activities
- bunnie liked Waterfox
- sebastianpaczoski updated Waterfox
- gwrvan-barre updated Waterfox
klim added Waterfox as alternative to Ora Browser
UniqueGo added Waterfox as alternative to Norton Private Browser- kondohmei123 liked Waterfox
Featured in Lists
A list with 809 apps by AmileyaRyver without a description.
Software that values your privacy.
Just a list of some of the apps I use at home
What is Waterfox?
Waterfox is an open-source, privacy-focused browser based on the popular open source browser with a red panda as a mascot. It is designed to be a drop-in replacement for said browser that offers enhanced privacy features, performance improvements, and customizability while maintaining compatibility with existing extensions.
Why Waterfox Power-user browsing without the data trade-off Waterfox pairs a privacy-first foundation with the kind of deep customization normally reserved for extensions and hidden flags. These are the highlights our community cares about most.
Key Features :
- Privacy-focused: Removal of telemetry and tracking, with bare minimum of data collection for operation.
- Performance-oriented: Optimized for modern systems
- Customizable: Support for classic and modern extensions
- Cross-platform: Available for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android
- Modern: Regular updates to stay current with web standards
Waterfox Videos
Waterfox information
Developed by
BrowserWorks Ltd. Licensing
Open Source and Free product.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 3.8Alternatives
81 alternatives listedNews
3 news article related to WaterfoxSupported Languages
- English
- Danish
- German
- Spanish
- French
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Lithuanian
- Hungarian
- Dutch
- Norwegian Nynorsk
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Swedish
- Vietnamese
- Czech
- Greek
- Russian
- Ukrainian
- Arabic
- Thai
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Korean
AlternativeTo Categories
Web Browsers, Education & ReferenceGitHub repository
- 5,038 Stars
- 389 Forks
- 634 Open Issues
- Updated
Comments and Reviews
Best Firefox-fork out there, no telemetry & faster than Mozilla's browser.
Waterfox is now owned by System1, an ad / data collection company, so you can bet it has telemetry now. I would avoid it like the plague.
Waterfox cut ties with System1 a year ago.
What about the support for extensions? And if EFF is privacy concerned, why Firefox is not enough and we "need" Waterfox? 🦊-fan here, but no blind, want to learn from others about the gap.
I'd leave zero stars if I could.
Waterfox is owned by System1, an ad / data collection company, so I would avoid it like the plague. If you are looking for a hardened / more private version of Firefox, Librewolf is very good, though.
For the record, Waterfox is independent again now.
Kind of like Ungoogled Chromium in that it's Firefox minus the Mozilla telemetry and services, except Waterfox feels like a complete application instead of one with a bunch of gaps.
Using it is about the same as using Firefox. Less stuff breaks than in
LibreWolf (which goes a lot further in its privacy protection). Waterfox tracks Firefox's ESR releases, so it can run behind the main browser in terms of features, but they seem to track security updates quickly. It's compatible with Firefox Add-ons, and the one Firefox service it does use is Sync, which is end-to-end encrypted.
The Android version is solid. When I first tried it out, in-browser translations were missing, but they're back now.
Real installers with updaters for Windows and Mac (unlike LibreWolf), Flatpak and tarballs for Linux (but not ARM Linux yet). The Flatpak has the usual issues talking to
KeePassXC
It changes some of my settings after each restart. I like it otherwise, but its hard for me to trust.
It's still early days for me with Waterfox. I recently picked it up after someone reported to be that it is now independent of System1.
As it's based on Firefox ESR updates can be a little slow, but that's not an issue for me. I'm happy as long as I get a snappy and minimal web browser using the Gecko engine. So, yes. It's a breath of fresh air where the market is "flooded" with Chromium browsers.
It's not vastly different from Firefox, but I do like that it's got all the usual Mozilla telemetry disabled (more private), using DNS over Oblivious HTTP (even more private), improved performance, and a collab with Tree Style Tab for a Waterfox sidebar.
I have been using Waterfox for a couple of days and, so far, have not faced any stability issues. Plus, it works with Firefox Sync. Yay!
Using for years. Not always been up to date, but always very stable and friendly.
No telemetry? Empty start page, empty profile without sync, but it's still try periodically start connection to 34.117.65.55 and others servers. It's actually push.services.mozilla.com server. NonGNU compiler. No trust, sorry.
You could report that to their issue tracker, hopefully they will provide more insight as to what's exactly happening on your side.