We still need some organisational alternative to Mozilla. None of the privacy forks would survive Firefox going away.

Firefox clones like librewolf and waterfox greatly increase the supply chain attack risk, but they seems more and more attractive every day

Disclaimer: very satisfied user of Waterfox talking ;)

But I believe Mozilla is making a fundamental mistake.

I believe that too, but I’m no millionaire CEO either.

Some will argue that AI browsers are inevitable, that we’re fighting against the tide of history. Perhaps. AI browsers may eat the world. But the web, despite having core centralised properties, is fundamentally decentralised. There will always be alternatives. If AI browsers dominate and then falter, if users discover they want something simpler and more trustworthy, Waterfox will still be here, marching patiently along. We’ve been here before. When Firefox abandoned XUL extensions, Waterfox Classic preserved them. When Mozilla started adding telemetry and Pocket and sponsored content, Waterfox stripped it out. I like to think that where there is want for a browser that simply respects you, Waterfox has delivered.

Long live Waterfox.

This may sound silly to say, and it probably is, but to me it’s almost impossible to imagine I could one day stop being a Firefox user. I mean, my first Web browser was Mosaic, I followed it when it turned into Netscape, which I then followed as it became Netscape, before morphing into the giant Mozilla T-Rex, and finally becoming Firefox.

Take back the Web, I believe(d) in that. Heck, I still have one of their T-Rex t-shirt dedicated by a few of its devs.

I also have a chromium-based browser (Vivaldi) but Firefox has always been home to me (edit: so seeing it moving away from what I care for is not a great feeling). I’m so glad forks like Waterfox exist because if it was not for them, for the first time ever I would not know what browser I can trust.

They have an interesting take. They’re not against AI per se, they’re against AI they can’t audit. It was an interesting read.

The problem with forks such as Waterfox is that they don’t get fixes as quick as the mainline browser. But, this is also somewhat of a myth. When Mozilla fixes something in Firefox, they don’t push the update out to everyone right away. Some people don’t get it for days. Someone who uses a privacy-centric fork like Waterfox is going to be more apt to stay on top of the updates, so even if it takes a day or two for Waterfox to integrate the fix, Waterfox users are likely updating before a lot of Firefox users. And even then, the chances of the average user being affected by whatever is being fixed is typically low, so it’s better to have for browsing, but it’s not like something that is constantly threatening you — in most cases.

That said, I use Firefox, and I was able to disable the AI stuff. Saw it, said nope, saw the option to disable, did so, and have been happy ever since. I don’t always agree with Mozilla, but, I have been curious about forks and I have used Waterfox in the past. It’s fine. It might be better, especially for “default settings” Firefox users, but for someone with a relatively low threat level and an intermediate to high skill in hardening browsers (my own assessment, subject to bias), I’m not particularly bothered by using regular Firefox. And if you’re subscribed to a Privacy community (or subreddit), you probably shouldn’t be, either, but then again, only you can judge your own threat level. There are certainly situations where something like Waterfox would be preferred.

Don’t get me wrong I hate LLMs being shoved down our throats, but I think the “Mozilla using AI” stuff is overblown. The few LLM features they’ve implemented are useful and non-intrusive. I actually think it’s a rare example of the tech being used intelligently (no pun intended).

Does anyone know about Zen browser, if they stay abstinent as well?

Check out Vivaldi’s Roadmap for 2026 😀