Waterfox browser sold to ad company...

[M76]

It seems that the relatively popular mozilla based alternative browser Waterfox has been bought out by an advertisment company on the hush hush.
There has been no official announcement made by either party yet, but the deal is already completed.

https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/14/waterfox-web-browser-sold-to-system1/
Former director Alexandros Kontos mentioned in a reddit thread that he planned to publish a post on the Waterfox blog about the change in ownership.

Yeah, planned, it sure takes a long time to plan a blog post as the change apparently happened on December 13th.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

was probably part of the purchase deal that he wasn't allowed to go public with it before system1 did or some stupid shit given how the purchase of start page search went as well.

 

[LurkerLito]

Dam it. There is really only one alternative left that can run the amazing older plugins and that is palemoon I think.

 

[Armenius]

Welp, that's a shitty bit of news. Uninstalling now.

 

[GDI Lord]

Whoops.

 

[The Mad Atheist]

Don't think I head of them before, shame they decided to sell to their world masters.
Only browsers I use are Palemoon and Firefox for PCs, FF, Samsung browser, Brave, and Chrome on my phone. Might ditch the Samsung one because ad blocks crash it since last year.

 

[Ebernanut]

Welp first thing to do today is install a new browser.

This sucks but I always was a little uncomfortable running a browser someone put together as a hobby anyways.

 

[Dead Parrot]

Wonder if one of the reasons System 1 bought Waterfox is that Waterfox being in the UK post Brexit, allows them to avoid the EU GDPR suite of regulations?

 

[dgz]

was probably part of the purchase deal that he wasn't allowed to go public with it before system1 did or some stupid shit given how the purchase of start page search went as well.

Oh shit, someone bought ixquick? Gotta check who

 

[M76]

Wonder if one of the reasons System 1 bought Waterfox is that Waterfox being in the UK post Brexit, allows them to avoid the EU GDPR suite of regulations?

You can't avoid GDPR just because your seat is outside the EU, hence a ton of sites blocked access from EU countries for a while after GDPR came into effect.

 

[DukenukemX]

Goodbye WaterFox.

 

[GotNoRice]

Well Google is also an advertising company, so at worse, this makes it no worse than Chrome. Probably still better than Chrome since obviously whatever company that bought it does not have the resources that Google has when it comes to utilizing their browser for their own advantage in every possible way. Personally, I'll be sticking with Firefox.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Wow.

Start a privacy focused browser proect.

Sell it to a company that will use your private data.

Makes sense :/

 

[JAB Creations]

I worked at an advertising company a few years ago and it was not what I thought it would be. They actually made large efforts to run a legitimate business. Not every advertising business exists to sell your data.

Unless you're living in a tent out in the woods you have bills to pay. The fact that anyone can maintain a project as long as Alex has with minimal efforts is a testament to his dedication.

While it's important to be vigilant it's important to know how that differs from paranoia. All the software is open source and people can and do keep tabs on things. However the completely non-educated responses here are just ridiculous and immature. An educated response would come across as researching how System1 works. It's also important to remember that anyone can post news articles in this subforum and posting with bias or clickbait intention is extremely common here.

I use Waterfox. I'm still going to use Waterfox and eventually I'll replace my use of Waterfox when I release my own browser that will be backed by funding by my privately owned business. People need to stop demonizing what they don't understand or they'll never have any truly meaningful and positive impact on society.

 

[vegeta535]

Wow.

Start a privacy focused browser proect.

Sell it to a company that will use your private data.

Makes sense :/

Can you blame him? When a company backs up a Brinks truck full of money to your house would you think twice of selling?

 

[Meeho]

Pale Moon is better anyway.

 

[zehoo]

What a pity. But then you can't blame the guy for wanting to make a buck. I'm still uninstalling it though. (was my backup browser)

Lately I've been using Vivaldi. (I used to use Opera but had to leave when it was sold off.)

Pale Moon is better anyway.

I might give this a try as a new backup.

 

[M76]

I installed waterfox when firefox quantum was forced on us, and the flashgot extension stopped working. But unfortunately flashgot stopped working with waterfox soon after that as well, so I don't really have a reason to keep it around anyway.

 

[Meeho]

I might give this a try as a new backup.

I use Pale Moon as my main browser (>500 tabs 24/7) and Brave for compatibility backup.

 

[Armenius]

I worked at an advertising company a few years ago and it was not what I thought it would be. They actually made large efforts to run a legitimate business. Not every advertising business exists to sell your data.

Unless you're living in a tent out in the woods you have bills to pay. The fact that anyone can maintain a project as long as Alex has with minimal efforts is a testament to his dedication.

While it's important to be vigilant it's important to know how that differs from paranoia. All the software is open source and people can and do keep tabs on things. However the completely non-educated responses here are just ridiculous and immature. An educated response would come across as researching how System1 works. It's also important to remember that anyone can post news articles in this subforum and posting with bias or clickbait intention is extremely common here.

I use Waterfox. I'm still going to use Waterfox and eventually I'll replace my use of Waterfox when I release my own browser that will be backed by funding by my privately owned business. People need to stop demonizing what they don't understand or they'll never have any truly meaningful and positive impact on society.

Sounds like something an employee of an advertising company would say 🙃.

I use Pale Moon as my main browser (>500 tabs 24/7) and Brave for compatibility backup.

This is my setup now. Transitioning to Pale Moon was painless.

 

[schoolslave]

Can you blame him? When a company backs up a Brinks truck full of money to your house would you think twice of selling?

Yes, there's this bizarre concept called having principles.

 

[PeaKr]

Palemoon user for a decade now, i rarely have any issues. When I do its usually my strict security config. PM me if you want a copy. It wasn't the advertising but all the tracking and spying. I mean logging your mouse movements, come on man. With every new version of ff or chrome they muddy up the settings or ad features you'll never use while inventing ways to watch your every move. Too bad about Waterfox being bought by an advertising company, dunno where I'll go next if they buy Palemoon.

 

[Derangel]

Yes, there's this bizarre concept called having principles.

Everyone has a price. Also, principles don't pay bills. I don't blame the guy for selling.

 

[schoolslave]

Everyone has a price. Also, principles don't pay bills. I don't blame the guy for selling.

 

[Derangel]

View attachment 223995

And what's that have to do with what I said?

 

[schoolslave]

And what's that have to do with what I said?

Here's a hint - you should blame him and his lack of integrity for selling a project founded on principles to an adtech company.

 

[Derangel]

Here's a hint - you should blame him and his lack of integrity for selling a project founded on principles to an adtech company.

Principals don't pay bills.

 

[clockdogg]

Principals don't pay bills.

In principle, I agree with you. But, if you're willing to dip into the principal + interest, it can pay the bills.

 

[JAB Creations]

Sounds like something an employee of an advertising company would say 🙃.

Seriously, how old are you?

 

[GoldenTiger]

Principals don't pay bills.

Yes they do. Principles though? Not necessarily.

 

[Derangel]

Yes they do. Principles though? Not necessarily.

Lol. You'd be surprised of often I do that with words like principal and principle.

 

[M76]

Here's a hint - you should blame him and his lack of integrity for selling a project founded on principles to an adtech company.

I don't blame him for selling, but I do blame him for cowering in the undergrowth keeping it from the users for 2 months (and who knows how much longer if it wasn't leaked)

 

[M76]

Lol. You'd be surprised of often I do that with words like principal and principle.

Pay the bills with them?

 

[Mazzspeed]

Just stick with Firefox...

 

[BoiseTech]

Welp, that's a shitty bit of news. Uninstalling now.

This was my response to PIA being sold.

 

[Darunion]

Either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.

I would have sold as well. You could hold out but what if it becomes worthless later or you hand it off to someone else and they sell it?

 

[Ebernanut]

It doesn't bother me that he sold it but the manner in which he did it does bother me.

Quietly selling it to an advertising and online tracking company after years of pushing it as a more privacy oriented option is sleazy even if it is his to do what he wants with. It doesn't really surprise me and it's a risk whenever you use privately maintained software so I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it but it is underhanded.

Pale Moon was close to what I wanted but I couldn't but I couldn't get a couple of plugins working so I ended up back on Firefox. It sucks how limited customization is with css tweaks(not to mention more of a pain) but all the other plugins I use are working or have alternatives now.

 

[M76]

Quietly selling it to an advertising and online tracking company after years of pushing it as a more privacy oriented option is sleazy

Yes, cashing out is understandable, but this is throwing all your followers under the bus, like a suicide pact where the cult leader forgets to take the pill.

 

[LurkerLito]

Yes, cashing out is understandable, but this is throwing all your followers under the bus, like a suicide pact where the cult leader forgets to take the pill.

Problem is he probably didn't have a choice in the matter. The company was looking to buy it for a premium price probably. Given they are an advertising company and are generally disliked by the people using the product, you can pretty much guarantee that there is no way there wasn't a clause in the contract that nothing could be disclosed till after the sale went through. I know I wasn't happy with the news, I also feel a bit betrayed, but I can't say I don't sympathize. Put it this way, I don't know how much he was offered, but if someone wanted to buy your product for $3 million and keep quiet vs $1.5 million and you don't have to keep quiet till the sale goes through, which one would you choose?

 

[schoolslave]

Problem is he probably didn't have a choice in the matter. The company was looking to buy it for a premium price probably. Given they are an advertising company and are generally disliked by the people using the product, you can pretty much guarantee that there is no way there wasn't a clause in the contract that nothing could be disclosed till after the sale went through. I know I wasn't happy with the news, I also feel a bit betrayed, but I can't say I don't sympathize. Put it this way, I don't know how much he was offered, but if someone wanted to buy your product for $3 million and keep quiet vs $1.5 million and you don't have to keep quiet till the sale goes through, which one would you choose?

I wouldn't choose either if it means going against everything my project was built on.