Opensource

This year will see Waterfox shipping a native content blocker built on Brave’s adblock library [...] For how it works in practice: by default, text ads will remain visible on our default search partner’s page - currently Startpage. The idea is that this is what will keep the lights on.

for those having trouble reading the title on clients that automatically make flairs: it's "15 Years of [Waterfox]" it's not supposed to be flair dangit

Fifteen years ago today, I posted a thread on the Overclock.net forums. I was sixteen, I had an HP Compaq TC4400 that I’d convinced my parents would “improve my school work”, and I was frustrated that Firefox didn’t have an official 64-bit build. So I compiled one myself, called it Waterfox, stuck it on SourceForge and went back to my A levels.

Within a week it had 50,000 downloads, completely unexpected. Frustratingly, being on an island in the Mediterranean meant there was no support network or anyone to turn to with regards to “what’s next”. Had I been stateside, with the infrastructure and institutional knowledge of “tech”, who knows - I might’ve had a guiding hand on how to manage something like this and work with the momentum. But alas, I would have to learn a lot of painful lessons myself.