Name: Waterfox
Rating: 3.4259 (41 reviews)

Waterfox overview

Waterfox is all about balance of privacy and useability. Too much focus on privacy and the web becomes too broken to use. Too little and data leakage happens. With Waterfox, you should find comfort in knowing that what you are doing inside your browser is only known by you.

Browse the web with:

No Telemetry - What you do inside your browser is your business, we don't see any of it.
Limited Data Collection - We take the bare minimum to provide you with what you need to keep the browser running smoothly. Read more in the privacy policy.
Chrome, Firefox and Opera WebExtensions! - Waterfox supports extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Firefox add-on store and the Opera Extensions store. Don't be limited by just one browser.
Private Tab - Sometimes you need a sneaky peek in a hurry. Why use a whole new window when a tab will do?
Fast - Waterfox targets modern systems and leaves the old behind. This allows us to extract large performance gains, so you can surf the web like never before.
Local - Built in languages make switching to your language of choice a breeze. No need to download external packs or weird configuration files!

What’s new in version 91.6.0

Updated on Feb 16 2022

Fixed:

You can now set Waterfox as the default browser again on Windows!

Changed:

The default theme Lepton has been updated, fixing various issues
The status bar is now visible when in Customise Mode
Updated Gecko to 91.6

Information

License

Free

Size

85.5 MB

Developer’s website

https://www.waterfox.net/

Downloads

12337

App requirements

Intel 64
macOS 10.12.0 or later
Version for Apple Silicon

0.0

(0 Reviews of )

There are no reviews yet

Dare888

Dec 12 2021

91.4.0

Version: 91.4.0

Shuts down immediately after opening. Why?

Derekcurrie

Dec 10 2021

91.3.1

3.0

Version: 91.3.1

v91.4.0 (aka vG4.0.4) is out. - - "• Fixed: Widevine has been updated to 4.10.2391.0 which should fix issues playing DRM protected content. • Changed: You can view the commit Waterfox was built on at about:buildconfig. Contrast has increased on Australis Light theme, to better differentiate tabs. The way tab positioning and various other Waterfox features have been implemented has been improved. Updated to Gecko 91.4.0, which includes various security patches. • Unresolved: The status bar does not include default items (zoom, full screen, screenshot). Addon version numbers are not displayed next to their title in about:addons."

Ermaz34

Oct 23 2021

78.9.0

Version: 78.9.0

dont work import other browser after G4.0.1

Mcr

Apr 7 2021

I would be very skeptical about claims regarding 'better privacy' or 'faster speed' versus Firefox. Just for laughs, I installed Waterfox in a virtual machine with Little Snitch installed; it makes NUMEROUS connections behind the scenes even when it should be 'idle'. These connections are to servers all over the US. So I would NOT trust any claims by Waterfox that there is no data collection. You can easily disable telemetry on Firefox via about:config. As for being 64 bit, Firefox Quantum has been 64bit only for several years now. I would avoid this Waterfox

nobody2011

5.0

Works verywell on Big Sur. Great job by the Developers.

ChristineVans

Apr 4 2021

78.8.0

Version: 78.8.0

Does it work with the new architecture? + starting from macOS Mojave all apps are working on 64-bit mode, aren't they?

Aargl

Sep 14 2020

68.0

Version: 68.0

After a few years using Waterfox instead of Firefox Quantum, it became harder and harder to tell the difference and why, in the end, I was using it... The dev used to put an emphasis on privacy but since he recently partnered with a firm that arose some doubt about data collection (System1), he wrote in a forum that we users had misunderstood and Waterfox never claimed to be a privacy focused browser... :-o I've not been convinced by his answers to the doubts expressed by the other users, and while I've been a happy user for years I finally switched back to Firefox a few months ago. I'm not saying that Waterfox is worse than other browsers, privacy wise, but I'm simply not convinced that it's better than Firefox for that matter — provided you use all the necessary addons and set the right settings in about:config. Moreover, I was using Waterfox Classic to be as close as possible to pre-Quantum Firefox, so when I read that it should now be considered "best effort", that achieved to decide me. I keep it at hand, just in case... ;-)

George6

Aug 14 2020

1.0

It makes a loads of uncontrollable Connections, even when opening with a blank page. For that we already have Chrome.

bob-185

Jul 22 2020

Well I have been using this for a few days and must confess I really like it. I can log onto a web address that until now kept saying Blocked Addware. Even though I hadn't.

Grafovich

Jun 25 2020

None of the versions I tried worked on 10.6-10.7.

kingjj

Jul 8 2019

56.2.11

3.5

Version: 56.2.11

This version has been out for 20 days or so, so this isn't just a first impression. The new icon really looks like a blue fox urinating. I understand that Alex really needs to change the icon, so maybe he can have a "Make My Icon" contest or something. Speaking of which, boy does this thing piss away memory. It launches using a not great but acceptable half gig, but after a day of average usage, it's usually sucking up triple that amount. And, say I wanted to have a baseball game running in the background while I did something more productive. I'm just kidding. That wouldn't be possible with Waterfox. If I tried to switch to another app I'd be looking at a beachball for ten minutes, I can't even imagine what it would be like to try to work while it was playing video.. So unfortunately, Waterfox seems to be outgrowing me at a pretty rapid pace, and I'm constantly forced to use my backup of Opera even though I hate the layout, and I know it's probably logging every move I make, I just need that 1.5 gb of memory for other things.

May 21 2019

56.2.10

Version: 56.2.10

After Mozilla's grotesque blunder with addons expired certificates, Waterfox confirmed its benefits as a solid and reliable browser. As for the future, news are pretty good: the next big version should continue putting together what is/was good in Firefox, some old extensions are even being updated, as mentioned in the release notes: https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-56.2.10-release-download/ I salute Mr Alex's dedication to his project and feel more confident than ever about this great successor to Firefox! :-)

Wikno

Apr 29 2019

56.2.9

Version: 56.2.9

Really enjoying Waterfox so far after using it a couple days. I'm not heavy on the add-ons, just a few. But I'm always looking for something decent based on FireFox or WebKit.

Apr 22 2019

Since my precedent review, I had issues with Chromium on some sites, so Waterfox came back to be my main browser, even if Chromium is faster. But moving forward, some XUL extensions started to have issues: MAFF stopped working, FEBE too, now Cookiebro seems to go the same path... XUL support was the main reason why I switched from Firefox Quantum to Waterfox and, though I've achieved a viable Firefox UI through a combination of userChrome.css and theme, plus various tricks to restore my workflow, I still have issues (in particular, the version of 1Password for FFQ won't work with all my other browsers, while an old version works everywhere except for FFQ! :-/ ) The next version of Waterfox is cooking (based on FF68 ESR) and it's very likely that it will break a lot of things. At that point, the gap between Waterfox and Firefox might only be about privacy — which you can achieve with a bunch of addons and tweaks in Firefox, so... Wait and see. ;-)

smayer97

Dec 13 2018

56.2.4

Version: 56.2.4

requirements page is down.... cannot tell if I can run it. here: https://waterfoxproject.org/en-US/waterfox/56.2.5/system-requirements/ OR here: https://staging.waterfoxproject.org/en-US/waterfox/56.2.5/system-requirements/

Oct 12 2018

56.2.3

Version: 56.2.3

WTF 56.2.4 is out. Time for a small review. :-) Now that FF Quantum has gone away from me and my use case, I'm still using the last version of Chromium running on OS 10.9 as my main browser, but this will probably change as it's not being updated anymore for that system. Now, I coud call WTF "the old faithful" as it is slowly evolving, integrating security patches from FF, but keeping what I liked in old FF. No doubt it will take the place of Chromium for me, sooner or later. In the meantime, it's my safe choice when Chromium is not satisfactory or buggy on some site.

Lvdoc

Jul 16 2018

56.2.2

Version: 56.2.2

Jeez, I didn't even know this browser existed until today. I'm glad I found it. I like the older tab style, and it seems to run smoother than the more current version of FF. It's also easy on the CPU (so far, at least). I'm not into using a lot of add-ons, but that seems a nice bonus for other users.

Dougster

Jun 18 2018

56.2.1

Version: 56.2.1

Worth using for the extensions that no longer work in Firefox.

May 25 2018

56.2.0

Version: 56.2.0

I'll keep this very short and to the point. If you're a Firefox user from way back and use a Mac desktop, you need this. Runs well (very well, in fact), and all of your old add-ons work. I'm unsure why it's so under the radar, as I wish I would have discovered it a year ago instead of mucking around with ESR.

May 18 2018

Not much to add to my former reviews... ;-) It keeps working perfectly, it runs old XUL addons together with new webextensions (just what Firefox should have done!) and keeps the classic look of old Firefox. I regularly test current Firefox (60 at the time of this writing) and I can't see any good reason to abandon my old habits as it's not even faster — at least on my machine (some say it's faster on recent macs...) The promise of future development is quite enthralling as they plan to incorporate the latest enhancements of Firefox (Multiprocess even with classic add-ons?)