Waterfox web browser sold to System1

[Karlston]

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.

System1 is hiring a Web Browser Developer to join our team. This is a diverse role that will involve “hacking” on the Mozilla platform, mostly on the backend. You will work with experts who know the Mozilla platform inside-out, while being a key contributor to novel open-source products which already have a passionate and growing user base.

 

Key goals for this role: Keep a “classic” version of the browser up-to-date with security patches; update components where possible and create better compatibility with legacy add-ons for the newer version of the platform that supports them. Build system work is required for this role sometimes, but that’s one of the fun parts!

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.

 

She discovered an ownership change in Waterfox Limited on December 13, 2019. Michael Bland was appointed director of Waterfox Limited on that day and Alexandros Kontos' role as director was terminated. System1 lists Michael Blend (note the e in the lastname) as chairman and co-founder.

 

No announcement has been made yet on the official Waterfox website or by System1. A thread on Reddit provides insights on the deal.

 

Alex mentioned in the thread that he planned to publish a post on the Waterfox blog about the change in ownership. According to his replies, "nothing is going to change for Waterfox". He is going to help with the development of the web browser according to his replies.

 

The blog post that he plans to publish later today may reveal additional information and insight.

Closing Words

There are apparent similarities between the Startpage and Waterfox deals. A level of secrecy surrounds these deals which leads to all sorts of speculations. Kontos mentioned on Reddit that transparency is important to him and it will be interesting to see if all important details of the deal are revealed in the upcoming blog post.

 

It is too early to come to a final conclusion but if history repeats itself, answers won't be provided to some of the most pressing questions.

 

 

Source: Waterfox web browser sold to System1 (gHacks - Martin Brinkmann)

[halvgris]

my problem with pale moon, srw iron and waterfox was the lack of updates

from the official chrome release. things might change now.

 

[stylemessiah2]

Stopped using Waterfox aways back, it was great when it was one of only 2 64bit builds, and then while the classic extension were a thing, but when they tried to perist in keeping them going it kinda lost the plot for me, only so long you can try and thumb your nose at progress....

 

Now i use mainstream Firefox and Chromium, and yes, now Edge

[steven36]

On 2/14/2020 at 6:47 PM, halvgris said:

my problem with pale moon, srw iron and waterfox was the lack of updates

from the official chrome release. things might change now.

 

Selling  out to a ad analytics   company  didn't improve  it all the  last update   broke  drm  for Netflix and others even and  Alex  said he will fix in the next update you have to roll back  or use another browser for it. ,  Waterfox and Palemoon don't dont have nothing to do  with Chrome FYI  they backport security updates from Mozilla . And  Sw Iron is only one you named that is Chromium it  is Hoaxware. It's not open source (even though they claim that it is) and doesn't do anything that you can't do with standard Chrome settings. Not a privacy browser at all. Use Brave or UnGoogled Chromium if you want a privacy  based browser that is  Chromium.   It has no benefit  of being able  to use legacy addons like Palemoon  ,  Basilisk and  Waterfox classic . Waterfox Classic can use some web extensions and most XUL  ones it's based on Firefox 56  ,Basilisk is based on Firefox 52  it only works with  Legacy addons  if you dont  need Legacy addons or privacy like i do for some things on Linux  you may as well just  use  Firefox  or a main stream Chromium based browser .  I been using  forks of Firefox for years with no security problems on my end . One thing is Alex was still a kid when he started Waterfox  and  now hes  older and System1 offered him money and he sold out.

 

Alex has been working with System1 every since he made Bing the default search . Small projects like  Waterfox Microsoft want give them  the time of day  so they have go thorough a middle man  that  is a big outfit like System1 to monetize  with Bing .  He never was going  to make much money off of it like Mozilla does on Firefox  does with Google  and others there big enough to get 1st party contracts so he sold the Branding .

 

As long as it's still open source they really  cant do nothing to a browser without the public  knowing about it's not like when they took over startpage were it  is a closed source search engine were you can't  see how there monetizing it . People just have to watch to see  if they make any changes to the code . I never used  waterfox for privacy no way i only used  it because of changes Firefox made  i dont like . Firefox  up tell now you can edit  any  not good for privacy changes they made  in the about config . It was other reasons i dont really prefer it  on Linux anymore  it still my default browser  on Windows  because  i dont need poweruser addons like i do on Linux  i can make due with what they have  because i use different apps on Windows . He only sold the Branding  because anyone is free to fork it under a different name  the code is at github .