Waterfox is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

that is forked from

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

and developed by System1. There are official Waterfox releases for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

Divisions

Waterfox

Waterfox shares core features and technologies like the

Gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from . Geckos a ...

browser engine and support for Firefox Add-ons with Firefox.

Waterfox Classic

Waterfox Classic is a version of the browser based on an older version of the

engine that supports legacy

XUL XUL ( ), which stands for XML User Interface Language, is a user interface markup language developed by Mozilla. XUL is an XML dialect for writing graphical user interfaces, enabling developers to write user interface elements in a manner sim ...

and

XPCOM Cross Platform Component Object Model (XPCOM) is a cross-platform component model from Mozilla. It is similar to Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). It features multiple language bindings ...

add-on capabilities that Firefox removed in version 57.

Vulnerability

Waterfox Classic has multiple unpatched security advisories. The developer states that "''changes between versions so numerous between ESRs making merging difficult if not impossible''".

History

Waterfox was first released by Alex Kontos on March 27, 2011 for 64-bit Windows. The Mac build was introduced on May 14, 2015 with the release of version 38.0, the Linux build was introduced on December 20, 2016 with the release of version 50.0, and an Android build was first introduced on October 10, 2017 in version 55.2.2. From July 22, 2015 to November 12, 2015, Waterfox had its own search-engine called "Storm" that would raise funds for charity and Waterfox. Storm was developed with over £2 million of investor funding and powered by

Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Microsoft Bing, Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google Search, Google until 2019. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yah ...

. In December 2019, System1, an advertising company which portrays itself as privacy-focused, acquired Waterfox.

References

External links

* {{Web browsers 2011 software Free software programmed in C++ Free web browsers Gecko-based software MacOS web browsers Mozilla Portable software Software that uses XUL Software using the Mozilla license Web browsers based on Firefox Android web browsers Linux web browsers Windows web browsers