Waterfox: Firefox Fork With Legacy Add-ons Options

Waterfox is a Firefox-based browser that supports legacy extensions that Firefox no longer supports while potentially providing a fast user experience.
Warp Terminal

When it comes to web browsers, Google Chrome leads the market share. Mozilla Firefox is there still providing hopes for a mainstream web browser that respects your privacy.

Firefox has improved a lot lately and one of the side effects of the improvements is the removal of add-ons. If your favorite add-on disappeared in the last few months/years, you have good news in the form of Waterfox.

Attention! It’s been brought to our notice that Waterfox has been acquired by System1. This company also acquired the privacy-focused search engine Startpage. While System1 claims that they are providing privacy focused products because ‘there is a demand’, we cannot vouch for their claim. In other words, it’s up to you to trust System1 and Waterfox.

Waterfox: A Firefox-based Browser

Waterfox Classic
Waterfox Classic

Waterfox is a useful open-source browser built on top of Firefox that focuses on privacy and supports legacy extensions. It doesn’t pitch itself as a privacy-paranoid browser but it does respect the basics.

You get two separate Waterfox browser versions. The current edition aims to provide a modern experience and the classic version focuses to support NPAPI plugins and bootstrap extensions.

Waterfox Classic Screenshot
Waterfox Classic

If you do not need to utilize bootstrap extensions but rely on WebExtensions, Waterfox Current is the one you should go for.

And, if you need to set up a browser that needs NPAPI plugins or bootstrap extensions extensively, the Waterfox Classic version will be suitable for you.

So, if you like Firefox but want to try something different on the same line, this is a Firefox alternative for the job.

Features of Waterfox

Waterfox Screenshot
Waterfox Current

Of course, technically, you should be able to do a lot of things that Mozilla Firefox supports.

So, I’ll just highlight all the important features of Waterfox in a list here.

  • Supports NPAPI Plugins
  • Supports Bootstrap Extensions
  • Offers separate editions for legacy extension support and modern WebExtension support.
  • Cross-platform support (Windows, Linux, and macOS)
  • Theme customization
  • Archived Add-ons supported

Installing Waterfox on Ubuntu/Linux

Unlike other popular browsers, you don’t get a package to install. So, you will have to download the archived package from its official download page.

Waterfox Download Page

Depending on what edition (Current/Classic) you want – just download the file, which will be .tar.bz2 extension file.

Once downloaded, simply extract the file.

Next, head on to the extracted folder and look for the “Waterfox” file. You can simply double-click on it to run start up the browser.

If that doesn’t work, you can utilize the terminal and navigate to the extracted Waterfox folder. Once there, you can simply run it with a single command. Here’s what it looks like:

cd waterfox-classic
./waterfox

In either case, you can also head to its GitHub page and explore more options to get it installed on your system.

More browsing options

Want a more unique browsing experience? Here's something you'll love if you like using keyboard shortcuts.

Nyxt Browser is a Keyboard-oriented Web Browser Inspired by Emacs and Vim
You get plenty of web browsers available for Linux. Not just limited to Chrome-based options, but Chrome alternatives as well. Most of the options available focus on a pretty user experience while offering privacy features. However, Nyxt browser may not be built for the best user experienc…

Or explore some lightweight web browsers.

10 Open Source Lightweight Web Browsers for Linux
There are plenty of web browsers available for Linux. A lot of them are based on Chromium but we also have a list of browsers that are not based on Chromium. Recently, a reader asked for a lightweight web browsers recommendation and hence I took the responsibility of doing some

I fired it up on my Pop!_OS 19.10 installation and it worked really well for me. Though I don’t think I could switch from Firefox to Waterfox because I am not using any legacy add-on. It could still be an impressive option for certain users.

You could give it a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

About the author
Ankush Das

Ankush Das

A passionate technophile who also happens to be a Computer Science graduate. You will usually see cats dancing to the beautiful tunes sung by him.

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