I have been using Waterfox for some time now, and I generally really like it, and since it appears to be using QT I do not have that annoying mismatch I tend to have with Firefox and Librewolf. However I did recently become aware that it’s owned by an ad company, my general question is have they done anything spooky yet? also while this might come off as a general paranoia are the accounts I logged in using Waterfox safe
They recently became independent again https://www.waterfox.net/blog/2023/07/03/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox
- Who owns Waterfox?
System1 now own Waterfox, but Alex Kontos is still leading the direction of Waterfox and will be for the foreseeable future.
ref. https://www.waterfox.net/docs/faq
System1 operates the most dynamic Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform
ref. https://system1.com/
tldr: still seemed to be owned by a marketing/advertising company or am i missing something ?
FAQ is probably just outdated.
As far as i can see the blog post some people are referncing only states
Waterfox is independent again.
But doenst say what that means exactly or who now controls or owns it. So until i see any other information, i will continue to assume that it is owned and controlled by system1. But If anyone, knows something more, please be so kind and share your sources.
edit: Seems i overlooked some information. See post @[email protected] below. So the question would be now: Is the new “BrowserWorks” company trustworthy. Guess as long as sources are open (ref. https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox) and we can follow the development … we’ll see in time.
edit2: Might also be very interesting to know how this company intends to make money.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/independent
Also it’s clearly states at the bottom of the site
BrowserWorks, an independent company. Company No. 14843353.
You can look up it in the government database https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14843353Nature of business (SIC) 62012 - Business and domestic software development
Interesting … might be worth keeping an eye out on them.
They recently became independent again https://www.waterfox.net/blog/2023/07/03/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox
woooo!
since it appears to be using QT I do not have that annoying mismatch I tend to have with Firefox
I’m interested because I’m a KDE fanboy: I’ve looked at some screenshots and I’m seeing regular old Firefox. What’s QT about it?
QT is the gui framework that all KDE apps are built in
Yeah no thanks, I knew that. My question is what is QT about it. In the screenshots it doesn’t integrate into KDE at all. It’s just plain Firefox.
Mine seems to intergreat, has the KDE title bar and such, rather than Firefox which is just the GNOME ones
No Firefox uses GTK.
You can disable SSD (server side decorarion) to get the in-line buttons, in the “customize appearance” screen bottom left.
Oh cool!
System1 is the same company that owns StartPage as well, interesting. Glad to hear WaterFox is independent again though.
