Comment by water-data-dude
16 days ago
I'm a big fan of WaterFox! I switched when Firefox decided to add a ton of AI crap without providing a "turn this crap off" button (you could force it, but I don't want to fight my tools). Really good experience, been recommending it to all my friends.
Librewolf is also good, and I use that on one of my other machines. I like Waterfox a bit more, but that's probably just personal taste. Both are solid and both cut the mold off the tasty cheese that is Firefox
For what it is worth they have now added a global kill switch for AI features. Though I appreciate the local translation feature so I'm inclined to keep it on just for that.
Even before the AI stuff, Firefox was showing sponsored links on my new tab window by default. It's not enough to make me switch, but not a good first impression if I were new to it.
I've been using Waterfox on deskop for years and adore it. Firefox for mobile does great. I don't grasp how anyone uses Chrome as their daily driver willingly aside from just inertia.
> I don't grasp how anyone uses Chrome as their daily driver willingly
The overwhelmingly vast majority of the world population uses Google Chrome with no adblocker, on Windows, and have no desire to change anything. Even if you actively try to persuade them towards other browsers or operating systems.
Why is that difficult to understand? Most people are not technical and do not have the same concerns or gripes as we do... their current software stack is familiar and does what they need it to, and that's all they care about.
Most computer users have very few real demands to make and it suffices.
If you don't mind me asking, do Waterfox and Librewolf add significant benefits that you wouldn't get by customizing base Firefox?
IMHO the only forks that actually add something meaningful are Floorp and Zen. I personally stick with Firefox with some user.js tweaks. Projects like Celenity's Phoenix shows that most forks are not necessary and you need to trust another party.
What other software have you stopped using because they added an optional feature you didn't use?