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I’m not going to diss you or downvote you here, but this statement (quoted below) reminded me of what the WhatsApp blog said when it was acquired by Facebook. There is no way you can guarantee, even for a few months, that System1 won’t change Waterfox in any of its privacy aspects. Anything can happen after acquisitions. So people who are wary have prior experience and history to rely on and fuel their skepticism.

> At the end of the day, they were the right fit and aren’t going to change Waterfox in any of its privacy aspects, and I can finally grow out Waterfox to hopefully be more than it currently is.

> e is no way you can guarantee, even for a few months, that System1 won’t change Waterfox in any of its privacy aspects.

But if they did, they would legally have to notify the users of those changes (GDPR etc) and would lose all the users, rendering it pointless to have bought Waterfox. Not sure why they would shoot themselves in the foot like that.

This argument is hard to understand, given that this hasn't happened when companies did this in the past. At the end of the day, you can break your word as much as you like as long as there's a year or so between making the promise and breaking it.

I'm not sure I understand the criticism to my previous comment. If System1 would change any privacy aspects (which they won't) and I assume people are going to assume for worst case scenario - users would need to be notified. Then, System1 would lose all trust and no-one would use Waterfox.

> At the end of the day, you can break your word as much as you like as long as there's a year or so between making the promise and breaking it.

But nothing has happened and people are just pointing fingers. Seems rather unreasonable. People had the same criticisms in 2014 when I received investment into Waterfox. The same sort actually and 6 years later...nothing had changed.

> System1 would lose all trust

What I was saying is that this isn't a factor and that means we don't have any guarantee of good conduct. Because of that, we shouldn't trust that it will happen.

To be clear: I don't actually care all that much - I never expect a browser to be privacy-focused and I respect your right to want money to do the things you enjoy.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but every company that has ever bought another company always started the sales-pitch with: “we don’t want to change anything. We just want to give you the resources to grow...” — blah blah blah. And they are always lying. It’s like a test to find who’s gullible enough to believe it.

Since your deal is already done, there’s not much you can do, other than to watch out for things they will inevitably try to push on you.

> And they are always lying.

I’d like to believe I did enough due diligence to make sure that’s not the case.

Don't forget all that money.

For those for whom an understanding could be reached, no explanation is needed. For those with whom an understanding would not be able to be reached, no explanation will suffice.

There seem to be some that feel that because they use software that is Open Source, it is "theirs". There's no way to help somebody get over the loss of ownership of something they didn't actually posses.

Waterfox is not a mainstream browser, therefore its fair to assume its users come to it in search of something that don't get in the major players. I'm assuming again, but I don't think is much of a leap, that those needs are privacy related and having control over the software you use. Not having a faceless company behind the software, like Google for Chrome, Microsoft with Edge or even Mozilla with Firefox is a draw for users. Now having said that reading that its been bought by a company, and one that does business in advertising no less can be quite jarring. Its like you shopping only in a mom and pop grocery for years that's out of the way and more expensive, but you do it to help local economy. Then one day you get there and and while you load up your cart the owners tells you they work under Walmart now. The very thing you tried to avoid. Of course such decision is in the waterfox dev, and he has the right to do as he pleases but is understandable that some people might have problem with the sale.

> Those needs are privacy related and having control over the software you use.

That’s fair enough, but I’ve tried to stay away from branding Waterfox as such to try and avoid issues like this. Nothing has even happened to Waterfox, but I understand that people are to be critical, I think it’s fair enough.

> Then one day you get there and and while you load up your cart the owners tells you they work under Walmart now.

I don’t think it’s quite the same though. As much as I’ve done Waterfox for the users, I’ve also done it for myself and how I’d want and expect a web browser to be. That’s not going to change either, but like I said it’s fair for people to be critical of that

I knew nothing about Waterfox or System1 before reading this submission. So I should not be too biased.

When I browse waterfox's website I see that it is built by an independent developer and that the two first selling points are "No Telemetry" and "Limited Data Collection".

System1 on the otherhand is an advertisement company whose name, I'm guessing, refers to Daniel Kahneman's two subsystems of the brain. The system 1 being the intuitive brain, which according to Kahneman is easy to fool.

Further reading about System1 confirms that they are not very much inclined to preserve people's privacy: E.g.: "Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending you direct marketing communications."

So whatever the reason Waterfox was sold, I think it's understandable that users are disappointed. (Obviously harassing the author is not ok.) I think updating Waterfox's is the proper way to fix users' frustration.

People aren't entitled to the continued work of waterfox devs but they are none the less entitled to honestly and respect and when they discover from third parties that a browser that was sold to them on the basis of privacy is now the property of an ad company it smacks of disrespect and dishonesty. They may not have PAID the developers any money by virtue of them not asking for any but they invested their trust by installing their software.

If you don't want people to rely on you, or get frustrated when they feel poorly done by it would be best not to put up ad copy on your own site suggesting that they do so.

Basically you have misidentified reasonable expectations as entitlement. I suggest you reassess.

> browser that was sold to them on the basis of privacy is now the property of an ad company it smacks of disrespect and dishonesty.

I’m sorry but Waterfox has never been touted by a privacy tool in the same vein as something like Tor, as I’ve mentioned in the blog. The expectations were too high for something like that.

Also, from what I know the largest rev streams are search syndication. I think if it was labelled <search syndicator> buys <one of its clients> it wouldn’t have been so negatively received.

> it would be best not to put up ad copy on your own site suggesting that they do so.

Sorry, I’m not sure I understand?

* On privacy

The first 2 of your 6 top points are no telemetry and limited data collection. How is that not soliciting users to install based on increased privacy?

* On moral obligations

If you solicit people to use your foo for no money and they come to rely on your foo and then withdraw or change the nature of your foo abruptly you may leave people worse off either perceptively or in actuality than if you never existed.

You are managing to create moral obligations for yourself without actually deriving any benefit. It's common to misjudge the nature of that obligation. Your users may imagine that they are "owed" a timely fix to their free software for example but its as false to imagine no obligation exists at all. You have an obligation not to leave people worse off than you found them or at least make a good faith effort in that regard.

People herein are imagining the extremely likely eventuality that their personal information will be sold and that since you didn't bother to inform them of a situation that would arouse this concern they imagine that you didn't tell them BECAUSE you had something to hide.

They have a piece of software on their machine which they believe could violate their privacy ergo they are worse off than they started. Furthermore they believe that the only reason they aren't MUCH worse off than when they started is because someone spilled the beans on reddit.

As long as you're okay with it, there's nothing wrong with selling out dude. Everyone has to make a living. It's understandable.

How is it “selling out”? That particular phrase has a heap of nasty connotations along with it.

What would you prefer it be called instead?

Maybe just selling?

Why dress it up to spare people's feelings?

Saying "sell out" is editorializing. You can't say what will happen in the future. Plenty of for-profit companies provide services people want while keeping founders happy. You only hear about the bad ones.

It's okay for you to trust people when you don't actively hear about them being bad, just as it is okay for other people to take what they see elsewhere and think it informs the behaviour of cases they see as related.

Huh? Are you trying to say it's okay to have an opinion? I agree, and that's what editorials are for, opinions.

Unfortunately, social media does not distinguish between editorials and fact-based journalism.

It's selling out because it was a nonprofit project, and now the Man owns it, and will try to monetize it. This is textbook selling out.

At some point, MrAlex94 will be made to compromise his principles. It might not be a big deal, it might even be good for users. But buying a product means that the company payed for control -- that's what property is. If System1 were fine with him developing it without their control, they would have just given him some money and said hey, do your own thing. But when you sell out, you give up control to The Man in exchange for that sweet, sweet cash. And, to be fair, cash has a lot of utility.

It honestly shocks me that more private no strings attached funding has not grown out of the trillions of dollar tech money made over the past couple of decades. If I had a billion I would throw money at the umatrix guy and ask nicely for a umatrix/origin browser. Make everyones life a little simpler.

Unrelated, but I would be very happy to see umatrix settings be synced across Firefox instances.

Giving up control isn't easy, particularly when it's your money that's invested. That said, successful investors such as Y-Combinator do invest in people rather than a particular idea.

I imagine VCs want to own the rights so they can pull the plug if something unexpected happens, like a founder has a major life event or something. Whether or not they limit themselves to only pulling strings in the most dire circumstances is another question.

> At some point, MrAlex94 will be made to compromise his principles.

Except that at the point at which System1 crosses the line, MrAlex94 can fork the code (since it's all FOSS), create "Earthfox" (or whatever) and start again.

> But when you sell out, you give up control to The Man in exchange for that sweet, sweet cash.

I have no skin of the game (other than not wanting free software developers who stray even slightly from the perfect ideal, to be stigmatised), but this sounds rather condescending given that:

1. (to the extent that I know) MrAlex94 has spent most of his working life on an open source project, with little financial remuneration,

2. he's (most probably) not personally getting some vast amount of cash from the transaction, just his project receiving enough support to be able to employ one (?) extra person and get "fancy" features like CI builds.

If he had spent the time working on a closed source project at a company he would have almost certainly been far better off financially and he wouldn't have had to put up with such targeted attacks.

I think that there's very much space for criticising the trade-offs of the decision, but IMO your phrasing was excessively harsh.

> Except that at the point at which System1 crosses the line, MrAlex94 can fork the code (since it's all FOSS), create "Earthfox" (or whatever) and start again.

You know that's not the whole picture. Most users don't follow MrAlex94 and wouldn't know about the fork, and they won't bother changing. He didn't sell a product, he sold a userbase and a brand.

> He didn't sell a product, he sold a userbase and a brand.

I mentioned it in the blog post, but System1 were after myself moreso than Waterfox.

Sorry that sounded a little arrogant, maybe I should’ve phrased as ‘my experience’ rather than ‘myself’.

> Except that at the point at which System1 crosses the line, MrAlex94 can fork the code (since it's all FOSS), create "Earthfox" (or whatever) and start again.

Unless of course theres a noncompete in the sale contract, a common thing when companies acquire startups.

This

> At some point, MrAlex94 will be made to compromise his principles.

Did he, though? Reading his post here, it sounds like he never cared much about user privacy and thinks users were mistaken to assume that is the goal of this browser.

If you take that at face value, combined with what I would suggest is wording on the site that at least implies a focus on privacy, I'm not sure there's anything to compromise. As far as we know, he doesn't actually value privacy, selling to an ad company was always his objective, and his principles are directly aligned with theirs.

> Did he, though? Reading his post here, it sounds like he never cared much about user privacy and thinks users were mistaken to assume that is the goal of this browser.

I think that’s a bit harsh. I’ve always been privacy conscious and will remain so, especially with Waterfox.

The rest seems a bit hyperbolic.

> It's selling out because it was a nonprofit project, and now the Man owns it, and will try to monetize it. This is textbook selling out.

I don't know if anyone is reading these comments anymore, but I'd like to point out that Waterfox has never been non-profit and even received investment (and similar criticism, which turned out to be unwarranted) in 2014.

> At some point, MrAlex94 will be made to compromise his principles.

People said the same in 2014, and 6 years on I never did. I'd hope that warrants some level of trust.

It sounds like you have a solid foundation to build on, which is a Good Thing.

The conspiracy theorists and those that demand purity but aren't willing to put their own money or effort in deserve no response.

The correct line of action IMO would have be to tell straight the situation (urgent funding needed), then attempt to crowfund the development, and only then in case of failure sell to someone else. That way nobody could have complained.

> The correct line of action IMO would have be to tell straight the situation (urgent funding needed), then attempt to crowfund the development, and only then in case of failure sell to someone else. That way nobody could have complained.

I’ve posted about it throughout the years (linked to one such in the blog) and even had donations set up and asked with every update post for people to help by either donating or to use the default search.

It just wasn’t enough to grow.

I think that it is best to wait and see.