Alex Kontos

17 posts by Alex Kontos

Introducing Waterfox Private Search (Beta)

Apr 30, 2025

Alex Kontos

Founder

Announcing Waterfox Private Search

Today, I’m excited to introduce Waterfox Private Search, now available in open beta. This represents an important step in our journey toward creating a more independent and privacy-respecting browsing experience.

Waterfox Private Search is a meta-search engine that I’ve developed with a clear goal: to eventually serve as the default search option for Waterfox, reducing our dependency on Microsoft and other intermediaries who typically serve as gatekeepers between you and your search results.

Why Build Our Own Search?

The search experience has become increasingly compromised over the years. What was once a straightforward interaction has become cluttered with intrusions that degrade the user experience and compromise privacy:

• Pop-ups constantly nudging you to install mobile apps (cough Google App cough)
• Full-page banners interrupting your search flow
• CAPTCHAs and bot filters creating friction
• Cross-correlation between your search behavior and advertising profiles

More fundamentally, the financial relationship between browsers and search engines creates misaligned incentives. When a browser receives revenue for setting a particular search engine as default, the browser’s interests become divided between serving users and serving search partners.

By developing our own search solution, we’re working to realign these incentives with your interests.

How Waterfox Private Search Works

Unlike traditional search engines that build profiles of your search history, Waterfox Private Search acts as a privacy-preserving proxy between you and search results. Each query is treated as completely fresh, as if it were coming from a new device.

This approach offers several key benefits:

• No persistent user profiles that track your search history
• Complete separation between advertising and search behavior
• Freedom from intrusive redirects and banners
• A cleaner, more straightforward search interface
• Protection from common tracking mechanisms

We’ve also included some features that enhance the search experience in ways big search engines often make difficult to access:

• Domain blocklists to filter out unwanted sites from your results
• The ability to switch between different search backends (coming soon)
• Custom themes and appearance options
• Advanced search operators made more accessible
• Control over links opening in a new tab

Beta Limitations

During this initial beta period, we’re using Google as our only search backend while we fine-tune our systems and gather user feedback. This allows us to focus on perfecting the core experience before expanding to multiple search providers. In future updates, we plan to add the ability to switch between different search engines according to your preference.

NO AI BULLSHIT

Let me be absolutely clear: Waterfox Private Search does not use AI to “summarise” content or redirect traffic away from original websites. We won’t steal views from content creators by scraping their work and presenting it as AI-generated summaries.

When you search for something, we’ll give you actual links to the real websites where information lives, not AI-generated approximations that may be inaccurate or deprive creators of their audience. The web is built on the idea of interconnected sites created by real people, and we respect that fundamental structure.

Sustainable and Fair Revenue Model

We’re planning two approaches to make Waterfox Private Search sustainable:

1. A free tier supported by privacy-friendly advertisements that don’t track your search history or build profiles about you. These will be contextual ads based solely on your current search, not your past behavior.

2. Eventually, a subscription-based tier that removes all advertisements completely for those who prefer an entirely ad-free experience.

I want to be transparent: the long-term viability of Waterfox Private Search as our default option depends entirely on our ability to monetise it in a sufficient, sustainable way. The reality of running a search service is that it requires significant resources – both in terms of infrastructure and ongoing development.

If we can’t generate enough revenue through privacy-respecting ads and subscriptions to support these costs, we may need to reconsider our approach. This is the challenge of building privacy-first alternatives to services that are traditionally funded through invasive data collection. We’re committed to finding a path that works, but it will require both innovation on our part and support from the community.

A Note About Ad Blockers

I understand that many Waterfox users are privacy-conscious and commonly use ad blockers. While I fully respect your right to control what loads in your browser, I’d like to gently ask that you consider disabling your ad blocker when using Waterfox Private Search.

The ads we show are contextual (based only on your current search, not your history), non-intrusive, and don’t track you across the web. They represent our primary means of making this service sustainable while respecting your privacy.

If you appreciate having a privacy-focused search alternative that isn’t controlled by big tech, allowing these minimally invasive ads is one of the most direct ways you can support the project’s continued development and independence.

The Path Forward

This beta release is just the beginning. We’re launching it now to gather feedback and refine the experience before eventually making it the default search option in Waterfox. This transition will be an important step in creating a more independent browser that isn’t financially dependent on search partnerships that can compromise user interests.

During the beta period, we’ll be closely monitoring performance, refining features, and addressing any issues that arise. While we currently don’t anticipate needing to implement CAPTCHAs or similar verification systems, we may need to introduce such measures if we encounter abuse of the service.

Try It Today

Waterfox Private Search is available now at search.waterfox.net. You can set it as your default search engine in Waterfox by following the Add a new search engine guide.

I invite you to try it and share your feedback. This is a community effort, and your input will help shape the future of private, independent search in Waterfox.

In a web increasingly defined by tracking, data collection, and AI overreach, this represents another step in our commitment to building tools that respect your privacy while delivering the functionality you need. As always, we’re developing this with transparency and user control as our guiding principles.

A Comment on Mozilla's Policy Changes

Feb 27, 2025

Alex Kontos

Founder

The Recent Policy Changes

As you may have read in Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox, there has been significant confusion and commentary surrounding Mozilla’s recent policy updates. The reaction from the tech community has been mixed, with many expressing concerns about potential privacy implications.

I think it’s important to highlight a clarification Mozilla later added to their announcement:

UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.

A Communication Disconnect

This situation reveals a recurring issue in how Mozilla communicates with its user base. I believe this represents a fundamental disconnect in communication strategy. Internally at Mozilla, I’m certain there were extensive discussions, agreements, disagreements, and careful consideration about how to phrase and present these changes. The team likely developed a clear understanding of the what, where, and why behind these policy updates.

However, when it came time to present this information to users, Mozilla seems to have forgotten that we—the external community—were not privy to those internal discussions. Critical context, nuance, and rationale that informed their decision-making process were missing from the initial announcement. What may have seemed perfectly clear to those inside Mozilla appeared ambiguous and concerning to those of us on the outside.

Waterfox’s Approach to Privacy Policy Stability

For Waterfox, the policy has remained consistent and straightforward, with minimal changes over time.

I’ve done my best to be transparent about if and when Waterfox communicates with remote servers, giving users control over these interactions whenever possible. This philosophy reflects my belief that a browser should be predictable in its behavior and respectful of user choices regarding privacy.

Forks: Different Approaches to User Privacy

The ecosystem includes several forks that take different approaches to user privacy and interaction. Some make more aggressive privacy choices by default, while others like Waterfox aim to balance privacy with functionality in a transparent way. These forks serve an important role in the browser ecosystem by providing options for users with specific requirements.

But -critically- what’s often overlooked in discussions about browser privacy is the importance of formal governance structures and accountability mechanisms. While Firefox and forks like Waterfox operate within established legal and organisational frameworks, there are numerous browser projects without any formal governance documents, legal entities, or accountability structures.

Open source software is fundamentally about freedom—the freedom to modify, distribute, and use software as one sees fit. However, when it comes to something as security-critical as a web browser—software that mediates our most sensitive online interactions—the existence of a responsible organisation with clear policies becomes a crucial differentiator.

Browsers without formal governance may offer appealing features or privacy claims, but users have little recourse if those promises are broken. There’s no entity to hold accountable, no legal framework within which to address grievances, and often no transparency about decision-making processes.

Balancing Freedom with Responsibility

This is what I think makes Waterfox fundamentally different from many alternatives. The very fact that we maintain clear policies, respond to user feedback, and operate within legal frameworks creates an accountability that many browser projects simply don’t have.

As the browser landscape continues to evolve, I think that having a clearly defined governance structure and transparent policies isn’t just good practice—it’s an essential component of user trust. While open source gives developers the freedom to fork code and create new projects at will, users deserve to know who is responsible for the software they rely on daily and how decisions about their privacy are made.

The existence of formal policies, even imperfect ones, represents a commitment to users that their interests matter.

BrowserWorks Is Part of the Browser Choice Alliance

Nov 26, 2024

Alex Kontos

Founder

As the founder of BrowserWorks, I’m proud to announce our participation in the newly formed Browser Choice Alliance (BCA), uniting with fellow browser developers to advocate for genuine user choice in the Windows ecosystem.

Why This Matters to Waterfox Users

Since Waterfox’s inception, I’ve been committed to providing a privacy-focused browsing experience that gives users choice. However, Microsoft’s increasingly aggressive tactics on Windows have made it harder for users to discover, choose, and stick with alternative browsers like Waterfox.

The Challenge We Face

Microsoft employs various techniques to funnel users toward Edge, including:

• Creating obstacles for downloading alternative browsers
• Reverting default browser settings during updates
• Forcing links to open in Edge
• Using manipulative messaging to discourage browser choice

These practices don’t just affect Waterfox – they impact the entire web ecosystem and limit users’ fundamental right to choose their preferred tools for accessing the internet.

Our Vision for the Future

By joining the Browser Choice Alliance, we’re taking a stand for:

• True user choice in browser selection
• Transparent and fair competition
• Privacy-respecting default settings
• An open and diverse web ecosystem

What’s Next

The BCA is calling for regulatory action, including the designation of Microsoft Edge as a “gatekeeper” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. We believe this oversight is crucial for maintaining a competitive browser market that drives innovation and protects user choice.

How You Can Help

• Share your experiences with Microsoft’s browser tactics
• Support browser diversity by trying alternatives
• Stay informed about BCA initiatives through our updates
• Spread awareness about the importance of browser choice

Thank you for your continued support of Waterfox and our mission to provide a privacy-focused browsing experience.

→ Browser Choice Alliance Announcement Post

→ Vivaldi Announcement Post

Waterfox × Tree Style Tab: A Collaboration for the Waterfox Sidebar

Feb 15, 2024

Alex Kontos

Founder

I’m happy to announce a collaboration with Tree Style Tab (TST), the popular Firefox add-on that brings a unique and powerful tab management experience to Waterfox. This partnership, made possible by the sponsorship of the Waterfox project, is bringing a native sidebar solution for Waterfox users, offering improved, advanced functionality without the need for third-party extensions.

What’s coming to Waterfox?

Inspired by the web browsers of yore, and something I’ve been wanting for quite a while are tab previews in the vertical sidebar. This will be the default view when enabling the sidebar.

You are also able to toggle the sidebar to be on the left or the right side of the browser window.

Keeping to its namesake, you are also able to have a tree style tab previews.

And of course, when the tabs become too numerous you can collapse them to the familiar text-only mode.

You will also have a myriad of customisations options as one would expect from Waterfox, styling your browser however you see fit.

Boosting Performance with Virtual Scrolling

One of the key improvements made possible by this collaboration is the integration of virtual scrolling technology. This innovative approach addresses a long-standing performance bottleneck in TST. Previously, all tabs, even those hidden, were rendered in the background, consuming significant resources.

What’s Changed?

With virtual scrolling:

• Nodes are only loaded for visible tabs, dramatically reducing memory usage and improving rendering speed.
• Cached sidebar content is no longer needed, further streamlining performance.
• This optimization uncovers other potential performance issues, allowing for further refinement.

Benefits for Everyone

This performance boost benefits both Waterfox users and TST itself:

• Waterfox users experience faster tab switching, smoother scrolling, and reduced memory consumption.
• TST development can now address other performance areas thanks to the virtual scrolling foundation.
• In-tab previews in Waterfox become even more efficient with reduced resource usage.

Beyond Waterfox: Open Source Collaboration in Action

It’s important to remember that while this native integration brings incredible benefits to Waterfox users, it’s powered by the collaborative spirit of open source. Tree Style Tab itself is an open-source project, meaning its development thrives on community contributions and shared knowledge.

Waterfox’s Impact

“[The virtual scrolling architecture] is the largest benefit on the TST project… Current TST keeps DOM nodes as tabs in/around visible area in the sidebar, it improves total performance around rendering and initialization,” explains Yuki Hiroshi, the TST developer. He further adds, “Introducing virtual scrolling minimizes the RAM usage from such additional contents.”

“Now I could develop TST at work time of my employer company, as a task sponsored by the Waterfox project, so I could take enough time to research how we can introduce virtual scrolling to the existing implementation without breakage.”

The Waterfox sponsorship allowed the TST developer to focus on crucial features like virtual scrolling and UI enhancements, which significantly improve performance and responsiveness, particularly noticeable for Waterfox users experiencing these features natively.

While Waterfox played a role in enabling these advancements, it’s important to note that the improvements benefit all TST users, regardless of their chosen browser. The virtual scrolling architecture reduces memory usage and enhances rendering speed, making tab management smoother and faster across the board.

Open source thrives on collaboration, and advancements made for one project often benefit the entire community.

Waterfox in 2023: Evolution, Independence, and Forward Momentum

Jan 5, 2024

Alex Kontos

Founder

Introduction

In 2023, Waterfox underwent significant changes. This pivotal year brought a refreshed website, regained independence, and several important releases.

Independence

Waterfox has regained its independence, re-emphasising something that I hold import to this project — putting users first. This shift allows the company to iterate a bit faster and focus more on user privacy and customisation.

Website Revamp

The Waterfox website got a complete makeover, offering a more intuitive experience. With a fresh design and improved functionality, the goal is to make the website a bit more informative for new users.

Notable Releases

Android App Launch

Waterfox expanded its reach with the launch of the Android app. This addition lets users enjoy the same privacy-focused browsing on their mobile devices.

DNS over Oblivious HTTP

In collaboration with Fastly, Waterfox introduced DNS over Oblivious HTTP, ensuring user privacy and a secure browsing experience.

Ongoing Developments

Vertical Tabs on the Horizon

Vertical Tabs are in full-time technical planning. Expected for testing between Q1 and Q2, Waterfox is excited to announce a new partnership, promising a solid improvement on most other experiences out there.

Android Upgrade, WebExtensions Support, and Darker Dark Theme

Waterfox is actively upgrading its Android app and ensuring support for all WebExtensions. This includes moving to a monthly rolling release, keeping up with the latest Android Components versions, instead of sticking with ESR. Additionally, a sleeker, darker theme is in the works for those who prefer a darker tones in the UI.

Private Search

A privacy-focused search project, teased earlier, is nearly ready for a closed beta. Stay tuned for announcements!

Future Endeavours

Looking ahead, Waterfox is set for growth and improving the browsing experience. Plans include improving user privacy, introducing a few new features, and expanding community initiatives.

The year 2023 was a milestone-packed journey for Waterfox! As we move forward, I extend my heartfelt thanks to the community for your support. Here’s to a great 2024!

Waterfox in Partnership with Fastly

Nov 13, 2023

Alex Kontos

Founder

We’ve teamed up with the stellar folks at Fastly to help power a new privacy technology, DNS over Oblivious HTTP (DoOH).

Whenever you browse the web, your DNS queries get exposed to your ISP or anyone else watching your web traffic. That means they can easily see which sites you visit and profile your interests. Rather invasive, isn’t it? ​

Waterfox has partnered with Fastly to integrate secure Oblivious HTTP relays into the browser’s DNS resolution — with this partnership, we are able to use a world-class implementation of this privacy-respecting protocol, that’s also used by many of the world’s leading platforms, including many top internet browsers. This encrypts and relays your DNS traffic through remote servers in a way that completely hides the target of your DNS queries -– and ultimately the site where your browser is planning to connect. Your DNS requests become significantly more private and secure.

​ It is important that at every stage of the connection each service is run by an independent third party. This prevents any one party from collating data together and unmasking who is making the requests.

​ Fastly operates a huge global network of edge compute locations that make this privacy relay work fast and reliably, which means there will hardly be a performance penalty when using DoOH.

​ The DNS resolver will be Cloudflare’s https://1.1.1.1 service, which is also an independent third party.

​ For us, this is a huge step in our mission to make Waterfox one of the most privacy-respecting browsers out there. Your data belongs to you, and we’ll keep working nonstop to protect it. Teaming up with Fastly brought some serious privacy superpowers to the table. We can’t wait for you to try it out!

​ Over the weekend, DNS over Oblivious DNS infrastructure was migrated over to Fastly. And as always, keep spreading the word to anyone who cares about internet privacy in this age of surveillance. We’ve got your back! ​

FAQ

Q: Do you have access to the relay?

A: No, Fastly will independently manage the relay, and we don’t have direct control over the code, the service configuration or the TLS certificates. This is critical from a privacy hygiene standpoint.

Q: Will Fastly have access to my data?

A: No, due to the double-blinded nature of the OHTTP service. One layer, Fastly, handles end user identifying metadata (the Relay) while another handles the end user’s request data (the Gateway). These two layers communicate but do not collude, and do not pass identifying details about the Client to each other.

Q: Is this slower than making normal DNS requests?

A: Slightly, but not by much. Cloudflare ran tests and found that the penalty is consistently less than 1ms at the 99th percentile¹,.

Q: I still don’t understand - why must the relay and resolver be run by independent parties?

A: As explained by Fastly², the privacy guarantees relies on one fundamental property — that the proxy and the target servers do not collude. So long as there is no collusion, an attacker succeeds only if both the proxy and target are compromised. ​

Footnotes

1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/oblivious-dns/ ↩

2. https://www.fastly.com/blog/enabling-privacy-on-the-internet-with-oblivious-http ↩

A New Chapter for Waterfox

Jul 3, 2023

Alex Kontos

Founder

Dear Waterfox Community,

Today marks a new change for Waterfox.

Over the years, Waterfox has grown and flourished, thanks to the unwavering support and enthusiasm of its incredible community. Your passion for a privacy-focused and customisable browsing experience has been the driving force behind the success of this project.

I am happy to say that Waterfox is independent again. This change allows the community and myself to shape the browser’s future direction.

As we embark on this new chapter, Waterfox’s dedication to privacy, customisation, and performance remains. I am committed to delivering a browser that prioritises your online security and respects your digital autonomy. With this change, I have the opportunity to accelerate development, introduce new features, and focus on the user experience.

One of the most valuable aspects of Waterfox is its vibrant and passionate community of users. I am grateful for your support, feedback, and contributions over the years. Your input will continue to guide the evolution of Waterfox as we meet your expectations.

In the coming months, I will be working diligently to advance the browser, focusing on improvements that enhance privacy, boost performance, and expand customisation options.

Stay tuned for future updates, as I will be sharing more details about my plans for Waterfox, including new features and opportunities to get involved.

Thank you for your continued support!

Alex Kontos Founder, Waterfox

Reblog: How the Open-Source Browser Continues to Balance Performance, UX, and Customizability with a Focus on Privacy

Apr 19, 2022

Alex Kontos

Founder

TL;DR: Waterfox delivers a balanced browsing experience for users to navigate the web with peace of mind. Leveraging privacy and usability, Waterfox enables users to add customizations and optimize their time on browser-based applications while protecting their online activity. Waterfox schedules timely releases to improve user experience and has more accessibility in-store, with an Android platform in the works.

Read the full article at HostingAdvice.

An Update on Waterfox Classic

Oct 28, 2021

Alex Kontos

Founder

Since Waterfox Classic and Waterfox Current (now G4) diverged, they have both have separate goals.

G4 has its eyes set to the future - a modern browser, focusing on modern web compatibility without sacrificing speed, or the balance of privacy and usability.

Classic has focused on keeping the tried but tested available. Unfortunately, due to the rapid nature that the web is now expanding at, keeping Classic up to date with that is difficult.

To make sure the projects aren’t falling over each other, Waterfox Classic will now be moved out of the main Waterfox development repository and into its own separate repository - updating the previously archived “Waterfox Old”, now named Waterfox-Classic.

This has the following benefits by not having two versions of Waterfox sharing resources:

• Contributors can clearly see what Classic development is ongoing
• GitHub Actions will be clearly segregated, allowing easy viewing of ongoing builds
• Waterfox Classic will have its own simple landing page
• Issues can be opened in a separate tracker, not getting closed for not focusing on G4
• An organised, clear list of what security patches haven’t been fixed

A fair warning will be presented to all those who want to use Classic, that it may be vulnerable to multiple security issues - but the choice is given to the user to proceed at their own discretion.

This will keep Classic ongoing for as long as possible - but the success of this project will still rely on contribution.

Over the next week, infrastructure will be put in place for Classic to keep it running properly. We will let you know when this is complete.

Waterfox 4th Generation Release

Oct 19, 2021

Alex Kontos

Founder

View Release Notes for G4.0.0

Today marks the soft release of the 4th Generation of Waterfox. After enough time has elapsed, the automatic update will be seeded out to all users.

New Website

You may have noticed a new website - much more information, with a more practical structure. This website also allows us to add documentation, support documents and better ways to convey information.

We will be optimising the website over the next few weeks as well as setting up redirects for any old pages that have been missed.

New Browser

Waterfox has returned to its roots with performance at the forefront. We have aggressively optimised Waterfox for as much performance as possible. Unfortunately this means we have to leave older systems behind - but any computer from the last decade should work.

ARM builds are now available for macOS and these are also optimised, taking advantage of the new hardware Apple has to offer. Windows and Linux ARM builds will also follow in due course.

We have also changed the way we make changes to the underlying Gecko platform, meaning we can now track releases faster and in a more automated way. Over the next few months we will track the central branch of Gecko. If our features apply cleanly each release, we will then stop tracking the Extended Support Releases and instead start a rolling release for Waterfox. The idea behind this change is that not only will Waterfox be incredibly performant, but also be at the forefront of supporting the latest HTML standards.

Mobile browsers are also in the pipeline, but are dependent on us having our own Sync service primed. Once that has been achieved, mobile browsers will follow. We will keep you updated on progress.

Waterfox Decennial Release

Mar 23, 2021

Alex Kontos

Founder

27th of March marks ten years of surfing the web with Waterfox 🌊

I am proud to announce the decennial release of Waterfox. It has been an incredible journey, with peaks and troughs at every stage. What started out as a side project has become something more than I could have ever dreamed of.

Waterfox now has an office, we are based just off Brick Lane, London. We also have a new employee - please meet Adam! He has been helping out the project over the last few months and is the one who implemented support for Chrome extensions.

I will be posting on my personal site about the adventure over the last decade (so keep your eyes peeled!) - we are only set to grow from here. I really hope everyone has enjoyed being a part of this journey - here is to another ten years 🍾

9 Years of Waterfox

Mar 27, 2020

Alex Kontos

Founder

Waterfox is now entering its tenth year of service. A big thank you to everyone from myself for the support over the years and a shout out to all the code contributors over the years as well!

Well Wishes

Things are hard in the current climate around the world and I send my best wishes to everyone and hope you are all well and staying safe.

A Bright Future

It is hard to believe that I am here, nine years later still working on Waterfox. What began as a side project as a student has now become a fully fledged product, used by millions around the world!

There have been big changes in the last four months for Waterfox, with new infrastructure and team members to help grow the vision I have always had for Waterfox. In the coming months I hope to be able to introduce and explain the new roles and how they’re helping expand on the ideals of Waterfox and creating a browser that people will continue to love.

Alex 👨‍💻

Waterfox has joined System1

Feb 14, 2020

Alex Kontos

Founder

Waterfox now has funding and a development team, so Waterfox can finally start to grow!

A Little Bit of Background

The Beginning

I started Waterfox when I was 16. It was a way for me to understand how large software projects worked and the Mozilla documentation was a great introduction. Well written, easy to follow and (from what I remember) not many missing pieces as to how to do things. From there, I decided to share my exploits over at overclock.net. After that a lot of things changed. Waterfox amassed a large following because it was easy access to a 64-Bit build of Firefox. From there, I took it upon myself to take it a step further and make Waterfox fast in any way possible - that was my introduction to toolchains and masochism (Intel’s C++ compiler… what more can I say).

Ventures

I kept up with that on and off while at university. There, I decided to see if I could make a living from Waterfox after I left university - so in my first year I approached the careers department and asked them for help. That led down the path I’m sure quite a few will be familiar with. Unfortunately it all fell through, but that’s a story for another time. On a positive note though, it got me out in the press (even some big publications such as The Telegraph!) and I even received a reward from The Duke of York for my efforts.

Customise-ability

A few years later, and Waterfox was coasting along as usual. In the meanwhile Mozilla decided to drop support for XPCOM extensions and switch to fully supporting WebExtensions. I completely understood their decisions in doing so, and decided this would be another area Waterfox would branch into by keeping support. Finally, another USP for Waterfox, along with speed (which was becoming a little harder to keep going).

Ethics and Privacy

I’ve touted Waterfox as an ethical and privacy friendly browser. Two things I strongly believe in. People should be free to do what they like within their browser. Ethics being more of a moral stance, privacy focused on simple changes such as removing telemetry and data collection and try to reduce phone-home without disrupting important cogs in the browser. Essentially a balance of, “okay here’s some privacy but not too much or the web will be unusable”. I’ve never wanted or tried to have Waterfox appear as a privacy tool or anything more than what it is. That’s for hyper specialised tools such as Tor. People have extrapolated more from Waterfox themselves.

I never wanted Waterfox to be a part of the hyper-privacy community. It would just feel like standards that would be impossible to uphold, especially for something such as a web browser on the internet. Throughout the years people have always asked about Waterfox and privacy, and if they’ve ever wanted more than it can afford, I’ve always pushed them to use Tor. Waterfox was here for customisations and speed, with a good level of privacy.

I can respect what the community fights for, but I don’t think I can respect how they sometimes fight for it or how they act when they believe they are wronged. Harassment and foul words seem to be the normal, as I’ve experienced. As far as I’m aware, Waterfox has never been listed anywhere as a privacy tool, and rightly so. It is a privacy conscious web browser. Some users seem to have taken news of Waterfox’s funding to spell the end of what Waterfox never was; I just hope people keep a level head and try and rationalise things. There’s nothing more I can do in that regard, I am only human.

Harassment

Throughout the years - even from when Waterfox first started - I have received abuse for Waterfox. Accusations, lies and bullying - what for, I’m not quite sure. So many outlandish claims, I’m so lucky to have had my parents and friends to help me through the rough times. I mean they were rough - it’s so twisted to see how people get online, forgetting that there’s a person who’s putting their heart and soul into something (and it has been just me for almost 9 years). Not only that, but I wasn’t doing anything with Waterfox except developing it and making some money via search. Why I kept going throughout the years, I’ll never know.

With the news below, it hasn’t been as extreme thankfully, but it’s still unpleasant seeing people make up conspiracies, rather than keeping a keen eye on things and being rational. One-sided as usual, the end of the world must be nigh.

To the Future

A few years back I spoke about the future I expected from Waterfox and mentioned that I wanted to grow a team - and finally I had the opportunity to do so.

System1

The elephant in the room. System1 has been to Waterfox a search syndication partner. Essentially a way to have a search engine partnership (such as Bing) is through them, because companies such as Microsoft are too big and too busy to talk to small players such as Waterfox. Before them, it was Ecosia, Startpage etc. It’s probably the one easy way a browser can make money without doing anything dodgy, and it’s a way I’ve been happy to do it without having to compromise Waterfox (and will be the same way System1 makes money from Waterfox - nothing else). People also don’t seem to understand what System1 does and assume the worst (I suppose understandable).. It’s a company that is pivoting to more privacy oriented products, due to the changing landscape. Understandable.

Also an important thing to note - as much as I’m sure System1 liked what Waterfox does, they were buying into me and my knowledge more so than they were investing in Waterfox.

From that partnership, and having to get to know the team - I saw System1 were the right people to help me grow Waterfox. Down to earth people who knew what they were doing. I made sure I did my vetting (and boy did we do vetting) and found the perfect fit. In December we finalised everything and Waterfox became a part of System1.

Why wait so long to announce?

For the first time in nearly a decade, I no longer felt like Atlas with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I no longer had to panic when I thought something might be wrong with Waterfox, and I took time off. I made sure to keep security patches and pull requests going - but I gave myself proper time off for the first time in 9 years.

To the paranoid - a conspiracy. To everyone else, a (well earned?) rest.

We finalised in the middle of December, it was Christmas. Since nothing was changing in regards to Waterfox, apart from all the money now going to System1 instead of being split. For the last month I’ve been in California getting to know the team and DevOps have been busy setting up CI (an oft requested feature from Waterfox users) to be able to keep up with the new 4 week release cycle. I also wanted to wait until we got our first full-time team member so I could introduce everything at once, but alas here we are. Next month I’ll do the introduction and the exciting (from an Engineering perspective) things in store for Waterfox.

——

Closing Notes

Unfortunately it seems a lot of people have been making up scenarios of what’s going to happen to Waterfox (and essentially everything they’ve been mentioning is - from what I know - illegal under UK and EU law, the jurisdiction Waterfox is under). I’m not here to change their minds; their extrapolation of what Waterfox was is up to them - but now I can finally focus on making Waterfox into a viable alternative to the big browsers.

As always, any questions - ask. You have the right to, and I will always answer. Waterfox has been transparent throughout the last decade and will remain so.

Here’s to the future Waterfox and its users deserve 🍻

Alex

Waterfox, Its Legacy and Looking to the Future

Apr 28, 2018

Alex Kontos

Founder

The 27th of March 2018 marked 7 years since the first release of Waterfox, first posted on the OCN forums. It has been quite a journey, not one I had envisioned myself taking.

A Brief History

From an early age I was enthralled with the idea of building my own computer and being able to do the things I was reading about online. It was a sort of zealousness that is hard to describe. I wasn’t going to suddenly start creating animated shorts in Blender - but I wanted the freedom to be able to do just that if I ever so desired.

I was up to date with the happenings of the tech world, as I got my first “internship” (aged 14), 9,000 km away, covering press releases from companies, reporting on leaks and rumoured releases. From there on, the ‘addiction’ only grew stronger having my sight on one of those Core i7 processors. It was a large departure from the Core2 line and I could only imagine the glorious things I would accomplish with all that compute power. Realistically though, probably not much.

Unbeknownst to young me, it would be 3 years before I could afford to build a complete computer - buying each part separately over time. In the interim, I was saddled with a trusty HP Compaq TC4400 that I had managed to convince my parents to get for me as it was going to improve my school work, for a couple of hundred quid! Luckily, Windows 7 had just come out and touch support was much improved. It introduced me to a completely new world - 64-Bit computing. Not being able to overclock the laptop (not even being able to change the power settings!) meant I had to look elsewhere in regards to getting more performance out of the hardware I had available. What could accomplish that? Software, of course! There was a noticeable trend of hardware far outpacing the development of software and with the mainstream release of a 64-Bit Windows 7, I started to notice more software in that flavour. In fact, I started to notice Internet Explorer coming in this new version!

I was curious - what about my most used piece of software, Firefox 3.6? Mozilla’s website had no mention of any releases for it - in fact there was a bug filed somewhere stating they had absolutely no plans for a release in the pipeline for a long time. Here, I was flung into the world of open source as I started to discover various forks of Firefox offering their “Turbo” versions. I was so excited! Unfortunately, some releases were lagging and others were abandoned - I saw an opportunity and decided to have a look at how I could start to build it on my own. As I was already on OCN, trying to reach the famed “Grey” status, why not post the project, get some rep and maybe finally I’ll be able to trade on the forums. After the first post and a time frame of a week - 50,000 downloads. History had been made (at least for myself and Waterfox).

Keeping to the Path of “Goodness”

Throughout my time working on Waterfox, there have been countless offers to sell out and options to “monetize” aggressively. Honestly, while tempting - it was never something I felt inclined to do although financially it had been incredibly difficult at times.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it as I deeply care about this project, and especially the people who use it. More importantly is that I believed (still do) in what it can accomplish. I know, I know - this is such a regurgitated line you hear from a million different startups at Silicon Valley and their world changing software. But for me, I just wanted to do something that would have a positive impact - which in effect would hopefully be a minute contribution to the world.

I tried hard with my first startup that tied in quite nicely to Waterfox. It was a search engine where most of the profits would go to charity. In fact, the charity would be one that the user specifically chose. In return the charity would decide what kind of split we’d get. A simple concept and one that was actually working well. Unfortunately, a badly run startup will always fail, no matter how noble the idea and even the success it was starting to achieve.

After that defeat, it was hard to envision where to go from here. Luckily, the folks at Ecosia reached out and something really nice happened. It wasn’t the dream I had envisioned, but it was a good step towards it. In fact, the experience has been so good, that Waterfox users have helped to plant over 350,000 trees in 2017! Honestly for something that started out as a side project, this was quite the feat.

The Future

In order for Waterfox to grow, it needs to do so in more than one sense. Thankfully, with the arrival of a new contract with a rather popular search engine (and a good track record for privacy), this is now possible.

On top of that, development has been rather slow due to me actively pursuing a development team. That is actually progressing well, and I can hopefully update you all very soon with that information.

So, where does that leave Waterfox currently and what will its future incarnations look like?

Well, Waterfox as it is is where I want it to be:

• It is stable in terms of development time
• There is good support for (most) classic add-ons
• There is good support for (most) WebExtensions
• Backporting WebExtension APIs is more straightforward to this version.
• The performance gains from the newer developments in Firefox are apparent
• A lot of the privacy hampering features have been outright removed or disabled where more complicated (and this is where a big focus will be on)
• Future updates include security patches, removing more telemetry, reviving old requested features and back porting where possible
• Classic extensions have all been archived, all that is left is to create a catalog for them.

Overall, this is a good experience for users because it is a consistent one. But, it isn’t possible to keep like this forever. The future variant will be:

• Based on ESR releases
• Ability to develop “classic” style add-ons. Mozilla does this internally, I think it’s worth exposing this to developers in general. There is good reason for Mozilla to want to do this, but we are aiming for a more technical crowd.
• Add-on developers will be given plenty of time for the expected features in the next releases and ample time to update their add-ons (imagine a 1 year 6 month release cycle, notify 3 months before any API changes)
• Independent add-on store (with potential for developers to earn money as well)
• Latest HTML standards will be kept up to date in a timely enough manner without having to be on the forefront (adoption takes time regardless!)
• Support a myriad of protocols (ideally supporting Tor as well) and media formats (and since we’re EU based, I really want to move away from binaries that are provided by Cisco for H.264 playback)

And a Thank You

I would like to personally thank all the people who have contributed patches, give support on the forums and just help out in general. There are lots of you, but I’m sure you know who you are. Really - thanks. It means a great deal and I’m so happy to see how great everyone is!

I’d also like to thank everyone who donated. The support has been overwhelming - I truly do appreciate it.

See you all around the forums and social media! I’ll hopefully have an update for you all soon, which will hopefully explain my slightly less activity around everywhere 😉.

Cheers! Alex 👨‍💻

Away until 3rd of July + Adobe Issues

Jun 22, 2016

Alex Kontos

Founder

Hi all,

I’ll be away until the 3rd of July on holiday. Sorry about the delay in fixing the Flash issue.

User siamhe has located what the issue is and I’ll fix it when I’m back.

Waterfox 43.0 & 43.0.1 (Installer Only) Reverted back to 40.1.0 and some Insight into Waterfox

Jan 9, 2016

Alex Kontos

Founder

Waterfox 43 for Mac, Portable Edition and existing Waterfox/Firefox users unaffected. Just a delay on the installers until the bugs get fixed.

I’ve got a bit of a conundrum here. So with the latest Firefox 43 codebase, Intel’s C++ has been causing havoc, creating a difficult time for me.

For the last two months since the release of 40.1.0, I’ve been working every single day (I wish I was exaggerating..) waking up and going to bed doing nothing but trying to get Intel’s C++ compiler to build Firefox. Debugging wasn’t fruitful as almost every variable would read <Error reading register value> or <Unable to read memory>. Almost impossible to follow where this was occurring or why.

As mentioned in a previous blog post Intel has a compiler bug causing an internal error with the use of Mozilla’s own Tuple header. After a week of messing around I realised I could just use the std::tuple to replace Mozilla’s Tuple calls and it worked! But alas, Firefox 43 was finalised and I though to myself if I released Waterfox 42 this late…what would be the point?

So..lets get Waterfox 43 done and out the gate, we’ve got a week until release I’m sure I can get it done since I’ve gotten 42 to build! Oh boy was I wrong. After applying the relevant patches to get IC++ to build Firefox, the application would exit straight away. No crashes, nothing. Just a clean exit. Debugging wasn’t helpful either. Crap, what now?

I did the only thing I found plausible at the time…and that was to rummage through every patch between Firefox 42 -> Firefox 43 (changelog here).

As you can see…no clear indicator of what would be the contributions of Firefox 42 compiling fine with IC++ but Firefox 43 to not. So I went to Mozilla’s mercurial repository and started downloading each changelog between 42->43 and compiling each one until it would break. After about two weeks straight of doing this, Bug 1197316 - remove PR_snprintf calls in xpcom/ was found to be the first reason Waterfox would quit straight after being launched.

Progress! Or…not so much. When using any optimisation flag that wasn’t O1 (optimize for size), the UI would be malformed. Oh boy, time to start carrying on through that changelog. After another week, Bug 1157984 - Incorrect CSS 3D display was found to be the reason IC++ was causing bad code.

Christmas was here! Unfortunately apart from having dinner with my parents on the day (and still trying to find the bugs) I spent every other waking hour preparing Waterfox. A few days ago I had whole build ready (and released as you could see)…but there was a bug cropping up that just didn’t make any sense. Every now and then some users would message me that v43 would crash right on launch. Ouch…why?

Turns out that for whatever reason, if Waterfox doesn’t have access to an already existing Firefox or Waterfox profile, it will crash straight away. GREAT. If you run Waterfox without a profile but with the -p flag it’ll run as well. Just not when no clear profile is available or created for it.

So we’re to where am I now. What do I do? I’m dreading that I’m going to spend the next few more weeks of my life waking up and doing nothing but downloading changesets…compiling…finding if the bug exists and then going to an older changeset below and repeating untill I get a changeset that works. Then I have to hope to all that is good that this changeset is an isolated bug patch that other patches don’t rely on it, because if they do I’d have to rever them as well and that could go on forever.

As of now I’m talking to Intel’s support forum, but it’s difficult trying to isolate the issue with just a few chats and some screenshots. I’m not particulary great at debugging something so complex either…but here’s to trying my best to get this release out for everyone.

If I have the same issues with Firefox 44…I’m not sure if health wise (for my mental sanity) I’ll be able to carry this on. I think I’ll be looking at IC++ alternative. But for now…onwards.

All the best, Alex

4 Year Anniversary Waterfox Charity and Storm Search

May 12, 2015

Alex Kontos

Founder

Hello everyone! I’m the developer of Waterfox, Alex Kontos. 4 Years ago on the 27th of March I released the very first build of Waterfox for everyone to try out. It was posted over at the lovely community of Overclock.net and since then Waterfox has become known around the world.

I never expected it to become what it has and I’ve embraced every success that it has made. I am proud to be part of the global Waterfox Community and the wonderful people that make it up. I really appreciate the kind messages and posts I see about Waterfox on the Overclock.net and Waterfox subreddit and I am so happy that even 4 years on, Waterfox is growing and making a positive impact on the web.

I’m very happy to announce a new idea for Waterfox: Charitable Giving!

What exactly is this?

Back in March 2014, I was invited to an event called Pitch@Palace, hosted in London. Various technology startups showcased their ideas and it was a great opportunity to collaborate with each other. I met some super people who had a great idea: Give the users of Waterfox the ability to donate to charities without them having to give anything directly. It means Waterfox could carry on expanding and everyone gets to contribute to a good cause! Initially I’ll select the Electronic Frontier Foundation as the charity of the first month of release. In future releases I will be building functionality that will allow you to choose a charity of your own. So how is this going to work?

We’ve created our own search engine called Storm that you’ll be able to beta test in the coming weeks. The idea is simple; carry on doing what you always do! Search using the Storm as you normally do with any other search engine and when you do your shopping online and purchase something by searching for it via Waterfox search, various retailers have chosen to donate a certain amount of your basket to charity at no cost to you!

Does Waterfox get anything?

That depends on the charity! We’ve spoken to a lot of them and each one of them decides how much Waterfox gets.

How can we be certain the money will go to Charity?

The whole process is going to be transparent. It means that Waterfox has set up its own company, Waterfox Ltd. The payments to charity will be managed through an independent bank that holds the money in ESCROW, meaning that the charity will always be paid and no foul play occurs.

How can we trust the search engine?

None of your personal information is kept (everything is anonymous). In fact, we don’t even ask for any (and none of your searches are stored anywhere)! The only thing that happens is that a cookie will be stored (it is not a tracking cookie as we follow EU law and if users don’t like a cookie being used we can find an alternative :-) ), which will hold the data for the charitable donation to be managed. That’s it!

That’s awesome! Where do I sign up?

Keep an eye out over the next few days to access a beta website to test out the search functionality and let us know what you think!

Does this mean Waterfox is turning into some big company?

Not at all! I will still be the only person developing Waterfox, giving support and just generally hanging about the Waterfox subreddit and support thread over at Overclock.net. I’ve just gotten some extra help from a good company with noble intentions to help get this off the ground.

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As you know, Waterfox has gotten quite big and costs to run it are quite high and I’ve been struggling to pay out of pocket so I thought it’s a great way to raise money for Waterfox without exploiting the community. Plus it’s opt out, meaning you’re not forced to use it and can carry on using whichever search engine you like.

I thought it’s a much better way to approach things, than say the way Mozilla are introducing sponsored tiles and the likes. Please let me know what you think!