System1, the U.S. pay-per-click ad company, seems to have taken over the Waterfox privacy browser

News
#29

Present tense, past tense. For people who speed-read this page to not wrongly imagine that the past situation “is (currently) meant to generate income for Waterfox”.

To put the past income in context, from the 2015 blog post about Storm Search:

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.

#30

Ok, my dude, it’s funny how I was just reminded about that thread on toxic mentalities and your name came up. You have a record of not being able to deal with different opinions or making convincing arguments :slight_smile:

@grahamperrin , the blog post is still referenced to in the Waterfox site today, even if it’s outdated. There’s no need to play with dirt-cheap tricks like “present tense, past tense”. My point all along was that the mere reference to this article sends a clear message to the visitor that the Waterfox project cares about privacy to some degree.

2 Likes
#31

Where does it seem that I tricked you?

your name came up

Probably because I’m the person who made the post.

#32

Hahahahaha, that’s rich, considering you don’t seem to understand the difference between a browser and a search engine as mentioned on the devs website, when we were specifically discussing web browsers.

“Toxic mentalities” seems to have a new defenition here on PrivacyTools and is a symptom of a person who challenges arguments and assumptions presented by another user.

If we can’t engage in debate here, meaning to argue a point in the logical sense, because people’s feelings are hurt when they are challenged when we do so, then why does this forum even exist? A forum after all is a place for engaging other people in discussion.

This is a not a safe space.

By the way, I’m fine with being labelled “toxic” as all i did was to you out as you were presenting a false argument based on your ‘perceptions’. If that makes me “toxic”, i will happily continue to challenge people here, including you to a friendly debate.

#34

The toxic mentality comes from your attitude of deflecting arguments and resorting to completely ridiculous claims and personal attacks. The discussion can’t move on until that changes.

For instance, I used a quote in a misleading way. My mistake, and so I wrote to clarify on that. Unfortunately you are still holding on to that and are stuck with your own world view, again with your silly claims and attacks.

How is that a friendly debate? That is a toxic mentality. And you are the one who brought it in.

Anyway, moving on…

1 Like
#35

Person A writes something that isn’t true. Person B replies that to Person A.

That exchange of communication is not a symptom of a toxic mentality. That is not a personal attack and it is not silly or ridiculous.

#36

I believe System1 just laid to rest any question about how they want the public to perceive Waterfox in this new press post. The headline and subheadline say it all:

Welcome Waterfox!

We’re excited to announce that we have acquired the web browser, Waterfox, which is known for its customizability and for being privacy-friendly.

The beginning of this press posting underscores the privacy theme, which is very worrying since Waterfox’s founder says he does not consider Waterfox a privacy-focused browser:

System1 is trying to change all that and put together a suite of products that gives users a more comprehensive privacy-friendly experience. We are doing that via internally-developed products and also by working with great founders who have long experience building and bringing products to market. Waterfox is a great addition to these efforts.

It’s confusing because System1 has other products in its “suite” that don’t seem to be very privacy friendly, like the HushBrowser. Notice the big print on the homepage that says:

Take back your privacy with Hush Browser

Then check out the linked Husbrowser/Infospace/System1 privacy policy.

#37

He also wrote to you:

… I’d like to reiterate that I’ve always had Waterfox be privacy friendly, and I’ve always tried to make it balanced (as I’ve mentioned it before). …

From the press release, to which I drew attention two days ago:

privacy-friendly.

Alex reiterated “privacy friendly”, System1 said “privacy-friendly”.

1 Like
#38

One thing is very clear: it’s confusing. We can all agree on that since we’ve all had different interpretations and understandings.

At the very least, I’m sure you can see why people referred to Waterfox as a privacy browser.

I’m thinking System1 shouldn’t advertise products as privacy-friendly or suggest they are privacy friendly unless they are. If they are truly privacy-friendly, they should have privacy-friendly policies to match IMHO.

#39

not a direct quote
not a direct quote493×711 66.2 KB

1 Like
#40

@LizMcIntyre
It is mentioned on gHacks about Waterfox being sold.
“Privacy expert Liz McIntyre, who was involved with Startpage prior to the ownership change, noticed in October 2019 that System1 was looking to hire a web browser developer.”

1 Like
#41

Somebody made a good suggestion in the comments on the gHacks article; somebody should fork Waterfox and keep it alive, free and possible even improve upon it.

2 Likes
#42

as a side note, thank you for posting this to /stallman, Liz. It’s a good place with (so much) less noise than /privacy.

1 Like
#43

There’s Librewolf for that already, which is dead because there is no money and people participating on the project.

#44

So basically Waterfox is going to be like the Brave browser? Quote from Brave “An ad browser built on privacy.”
You can’t be an advertising browser and say you are privacy at the same time. That is a contradiction in my opinion.

#45

There’s no such suggestion.

#46

trust us, we’re an ad company, please use our ‘privacy’ browser and search engine, but remember, we won’t mine your data and sell you out :wink:

3 Likes
#47

What data? Please see https://old.reddit.com/comments/f3zm8o/-/fi7lx9b/ and from https://www.waterfox.net/,

The only thing that Waterfox sends back is your OS and browser version to check for updates to various components. …

#48

Please feel free to continue defending a compromised product.

I refer to the ‘data’. Obviously not past tense, not the untainted Waterfox, but whatever changes they will implement in the future from the new Waterfox, that data. Just my own opinion.

The situation with Waterfox reminds me too much of Whatsapp before it was swallowed by Facebook. I’m not saying that Waterfox will sell user data, but, seeing as they are now part of an ad company, it is a reasonable expectation that they will.

Just look at Whatsapp, most likely starting this year, Whatsapp will serve ads to all users.

Anyhow, I’m done debating this Waterfox issue. People can use or not use, up to them, the only thing is that they need to be aware of the issues regarding acquisitions and the power that has over the acquired company.

1 Like
#49

There have been three releases since the acquisition.

Where was the compromise?

Please see https://old.reddit.com/comments/f4h7nx/-/fi9i0aa/

With respect: that’s your opinion, not a reasonable expectation. Please see for example https://old.reddit.com/comments/f6qauu/-/fiakg6h/