Waterfox web browser sold to System1
It appears that the Waterfox web browser has been sold to System1 recently, the same company that bought the Startpage search engine some time ago. To be precise, Startpage was bought by Privacy One Group Ltd which System1 owns. System1 is an advertising company that tries to "make advertising better and safer, while respecting consumer privacy".
[...] Privacy expert Liz McIntyre, who was involved with Startpage prior to the ownership change, noticed in October 2019 that System1 was looking to hire a web browser developer. She decided to keep an eye on potential web browser sales as it was likely that System1 was interested in buying an established web browser with a user base instead of building one from scratch.
The job description provides insight on the potential target: It revealed that development would focus on the Mozilla platform and that a key goal was to keep a classic version of the browser up-to-date.
[...] There are not that many browsers that match the description which made the most popular ones, Waterfox and Pale Moon, the most likely target for a sale.
See also: Waterfox has joined System1
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday February 16 2020, @11:45PM (4 children)
when I hear the word system postfixed by a character, I reach for my reset button.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday February 16 2020, @11:55PM (3 children)
Anyway waterfox is not keeping the thing secret,so I am not going to stop using waterfox together with the other browsers (which one depends on the situation), unless more sinister things happen.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Monday February 17 2020, @04:52AM (2 children)
I can also see why he's done it, single-handedly running a project that tries to de-crapify the mess made by a 1,000-person company must be a really thankless task, so having a bit of support behind him after years of mostly going it alone would be a blessing. If it's a choice between no Waterfox and having it funded by a third-party commercial organisation, I'd rather have the latter.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday February 18 2020, @12:20AM (1 child)
Yeah I'm also a happy user, and as long as they don't keep fucking with it and forcing UI and privacy changes on updates, I'll stay one. I don't need anything else other than what the browser provides, except for only critical security updates.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday February 18 2020, @07:51AM
That's the value proposition of Waterfox, browsing the way you want and XUL rather than Google's whatever-it-is API where half the plugins don't work any more and the ones that do are severely disfigured because Google doesn't want you doing things any way other than their way. Examples are NoScript's loss of right-click context menu to control scripts, DownThemAll's inability to download anywhere other than the system Downloads folder, Unplug's inability to work at all, etc etc, virtually every plugin that the authors have made the huge effort to port to the new API is still broken because Google don't want you doing things in anything other than the One True Google Way.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @11:52PM (7 children)
A safe place to turn with all these browsers being sold to advertising companies,.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @12:00AM (6 children)
GNU IceCat?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @12:14AM (5 children)
Not since Stallman took a job with Microsoft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @12:47AM (4 children)
fake news. RMS was invited and gave a lecture at MS.
https://stallman.org/articles/microsoft-talk.html [stallman.org]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by barbara hudson on Monday February 17 2020, @12:54AM (3 children)
Christ no! They saw your toe jam eating video. EVERYONE saw your toe jam eating video. Seduction? No chance with anyone who Isn't homeless and on crack.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @04:32AM (2 children)
Don't kink shame. Whatever two consenting adults want to do in private is up to them.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @04:42AM
Sure but the rainbows branded RMS a transfobe over the Leah Libreboot meltdown.
(Irrespective of his more recent 'transgressions' over a certain MIT mailing list)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @05:52AM
Some men even pretend to be women.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @01:13AM (6 children)
All 6 of their users must be disappointed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Monday February 17 2020, @01:53AM (2 children)
Other then the built in MS stuff, I have four browsers installed at the moment on this box. One of them is indeed "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0 Waterfox/56.3"
(Chrome, Firefox, and Dissenter are the other three)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @02:53AM (1 child)
Post your name and address so we can destroy your livelihood and life for using the meanie browser.
(Score: 2, Funny) by RandomFactor on Tuesday February 18 2020, @03:31AM
Oh come on, lots of people use Chrome.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday February 17 2020, @02:41AM
I've found it's a GREAT browser: hoping nothing changes...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by slashnot on Monday February 17 2020, @08:33PM (1 child)
That's funny but in reality more people should be using these niche browsers, if for no other reason than to compartmentalize their browsing. I use Vivaldi (Chromium, but without the Google), Palemoon, Waterfox and others. Each has a different purpose for me - one for online shopping, one for webmail, one for research, etc. This way, my online shopping habits don't get mixed with cookies related to my research.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Tuesday February 18 2020, @03:34AM
Palemoon I had on hear some months back. Vivaldi I have not tried.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @03:42AM (3 children)
From https://www.waterfox.net/about/ [waterfox.net]
I guess that as long as such data/telemetry is sent to System 1, they won't even need to change the verbiage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @12:25PM (1 child)
Nice loophole! I like the way you think. May I subscribe to your newsletter?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @05:01PM
No.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @12:29PM
The wording would fail because it is written "sent back". So first, data should come from system1.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @02:55PM (1 child)
Did they buy the developers or what? Was the name trademarked and they bought it? I don't get it.
Apart from that I think it sounds silly to buy an open source browser fork the System1 strategy seems good, right in the path of Google. First you have a website which is the portal to "teh intarweb", then you expand to the window higher up (a browser).. I'm just waiting to see if they are going to buy a Window Manager next.
(Score: 1) by grahamperrin on Saturday February 29 2020, @01:00PM
> Did they buy the developers or what? …
https://old.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/f6qauu/-/fiakg6h/?context=2 [reddit.com] might help to put things in perspective.
tl;dr Waterfox gained funding; gained a development team; and the founder continues to control the browser's future.