1,506 karma · joined November 12, 2015
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-kontos/
The Firefox source tree has every tool available for cross-compilation from Linux → macOS, which is how Firefox is built for macOS.
Clerk is surely one of the biggest and allows you to do this.
Saying that, I always like adding extras on top - and I've spent a lot of time making sure users can tweak how they like. I didn't manage to squeeze everything into this final release, but the .1 release will re-expose a lot of customisations that are buried in `about:config` preferences.
Currently still in Waterfox stable but figured there’s not actual much advantage to supporting Chrome extensions as Firefox ones are more featureful, so have removed it in the final version based on ESR 153 - albeit would be trivial to add support back in.
Well, there are other drop-in GHA runner services, so I wouldn’t see why anyone would be tied into a specific provider.
Namespace.so are one and my experience with their support has been incredibly positive. Great team there.
Honourable mention to WarpBuild as well, who I used before them.
Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.
I've mentioned in another comment, that I've tried other ways such as with subscription paid services, but unfortunately there's nowhere near enough traction for it to be sustainable.
Also bare in mind Waterfox currently comes with nothing, so this is just an extra layer of protection.
The only real mitigation is being selective about which extensions you install and what permissions you grant them (even then, ownership of extensions change hands, updates can change what they do... it's a never ending battle really).
This is basically the only potential way I can keep this going, even then there may not be much uptake, but it's a hail Mary.
The upside of Librewolf being a community project is also IMO its downside - there isn't any accountability and with the current climate around the world becoming more hostile to online services, I think governance is hugely important, which is why I've tried to collate everything as much as I can: https://www.waterfox.com/docs/policies/company-information/
At the end of the day, if something goes wrong, at least with Waterfox I can be held accountable.
System1 is a search syndication company. Their business is contextual ads on search results - no PII, no tracking profiles, no behavioural targeting. It's functionally the same model as DuckDuckGo. If I'd sold to DDG, I don't think anyone would've batted an eyelid.
I get it, the timing (privacy browser sold to company with "ad" in its description) looked terrible in a headline and I take responsibility for not communicating it better at the time, which I feel like wouldn't have led to such a massive furor.
Rather than support for XPI (which is just the packaging for Firefox webextensions), the current version of Waterfox does still support bootstrapped extensions - in theory anyone can still write one, with access to all the privileged JavaScript APIs typically not accessible to MV2/MV3 webextensions.
It's not widely used though, there are two repos I'm aware of that take advantage of this:
https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master...
If it matters, I didn’t go to them because they were specifically an EU org either - when Packet became Equinix Metal and then that got shut down, SCW were the most equivalent in terms of cost / hardware specifications and I often used them in parallel when Packet was still around so as to not have all my eggs in one basket.
I know it calls out that there’ll need to be user confirmation before the final purchase, but if you’re already not expending the effort to find the product or service yourself, are you really going to sit and research what it’s given you? If you are, then what’s the point of using the agent?
Just seems like the next evolution in Google’s ad revenue generation.
I’m not sure why this has become a thing - usually I either release Waterfox the week before ESR releases (the week the code freeze happens and new version gets tagged) or, if I’m actively working on features and they need to coincide with the next update I push, I will release on the same Tuesday the ESR releases.
You can check the GitHub tag history for Waterfox to see it’s been that way for a good while :)
Seems as if we’d be 3 for 3 in the “agents rule of 2” in the context of the web and a browser?
> [A] An agent can process untrustworthy inputs
> [B] An agent can have access to sensitive systems or private data
> [C] An agent can change state or communicate externally
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/2/new-prompt-injection-pa...
Even if we weren’t talking about such malicious hypotheticals, hallucinations are a common occurrence as are CLI agents doing things it thinks best, sometimes to the detriment of the data it interacts with. I personally wouldn’t want my history being modified or deleted, same goes with passwords and the like.
It is a bit doomerist, I doubt it’ll have such broad permissions but it just doesn’t sit well which I suppose is the spirit of the article and the stance Waterfox takes.
On a purely technical play, you’re right that I’m drawing a distinction that may not hold up purely on technical grounds. Maybe the better framing is: I trust constrained, single purpose models with somewhat verifiable outputs (seeing text go in, translated text go out, compare its consistency) more than I trust general purpose models with broad access to my browsing context, regardless of whether they’re both neural networks under the hood.
WRT to the “scope”, maybe I have picked up the wrong end of the stick with what Mozilla are planning to do - but they’ve already picked all the low hanging fruit with AI integration with the features you’ve mentioned and the fact they seem to want to dig their heels in further, at least to me, signals that they want deeper integration? Although who knows, the post from the new CEO may also be a litmus test to see what the response to that post elicits, and then go from there.
- Supports JXL out of the box (including support for alpha transparency and animations)
- Vertical tabs with optional tree tabs (hired the original tree style tab developer to implement the feature)
- For profit, but I don’t want your data, collect it or use it to earn a living (telemetry/analytics/experiments disabled at build time and alongside a fair few patches on top to make sure external connections are limited to what’s necessary)
Sidebar, I’m the developer of Waterfox
> A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone
I don't find this a bold technical choice at all for a macOS only browser? I think this would be more impressive if it was Windows as well, as back (maybe ~5 or so years ago) when I was investigating WebKit on Windows, builds were not on an equal playing field[1]. So the engineering to get that up and running would be impressive.
> Speed by nature
Unfortunately, as of 16:40 UTC, I am unable to run the browser (installer?) to benchmark it due to "An error occurred while parsing the update feed.", but I recall 2 years ago when I tested Orion it was the slowest of all the browsers on macOS and Safari had quite a lead. I'd also be curious, being based on WebKit, how much faster it will actually be on macOS vs Safari?
I dropped speed as a focus point on Waterfox after compilation flags started making less of a difference compared to the actual architectural changes Mozilla were making for Firefox.
> Privacy etc
I think comparing to other major browsers such as Chrome the points are valid, but against Safari I'm not convinced it holds up as much. I know there is some telemetry related to Safari, but privacy is a big selling point for Safari as well and I'd be curious to see actual comparisons to that?
Safari includes iCloud Privacy Relay (MPR based on MASQUE[2]) and Oblivious DNS[3] - arguably two very valuable features that a company at a scale like Apple can subsidise.
The entire AI section also feels like trying to have it both ways as well. They criticise other browsers for rushing AI features, position themselves as the "secure" alternative, then immediately say they'll integrate AI "as it matures." This reads more like "we're behind on AI features" than a principled stance. If security is the concern, explain your threat model and what specific architectural decisions you're making differently? Currently Firefox has kept AI out of the "browser core" as it's been put, and I don't see them ever changing that.
Kudos that they have >2000 people paying for the browser directly, but I will say it doesn't excite me to see another closed source browser entering the market (I don't see any mention here of open-source apart from mention of WebKit being open source).
I do realise this is more a marketing post than an actual technical deep dive, but so much is just a rehash of every feature almost every modern web browser has?
I'll keep updating this comment as and when I can explore the browser itself a bit more.
[1] https://fujii.github.io/2019/07/05/webkit-on-windows/
I think that first week the project got 50k downloads! I was of course only 16 so had no concept of what to do but just keep getting new builds out - after all I made the builds because I couldn’t find anyone who would consistently and regularly do so.