113 lines
6.0 KiB
HTML
113 lines
6.0 KiB
HTML
<!-- NOTICE!!!! -->
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<!-- BEFORE MAKING A PULL REQUEST OR PUSH PLEASE ALWAYS CHECK WITH THE VALIDATOR -->
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<!-- http://validator.w3.org/#validate-by-input -->
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<!-- NOTICE!!!! -->
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W4C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml;charset=utf-8"/>
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<title>Waterfox Classic — Spyware Watchdog</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="../style.css"/>
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</head>
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<body>
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<div class="case">
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<div class="nav"><a href="index.html">← Catalog</a></div>
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<div class="main">
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<img src="../images/waterfox_logo.png" alt="Waterfox Logo"/>
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<h1>Waterfox Classic</h1>
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<p>Version tested was 2020.10.</p>
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<p>
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Waterfox is a web browser that is a fork of <a href="../articles/firefox.html">Firefox</a>.
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</p>
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<h2>Spyware Level: <span class="orange">High</span></h2>
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<p>
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Waterfox is a fork of Firefox that claims to be more private and secure
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than Firefox. However, Waterfox contains telemetry and shares
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information about you with Mozilla, and has other spyware features.
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</p>
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<h3>Waterfox connects to spyware services when it is first run</h3>
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<p>
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If you start up Waterfox for the first time, it will make <b><span class="red">55 requests</span></b><sup><a href="#s4">[4]</a></sup> to several spyware platforms, notably
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Matomo, and Mozilla online services like its Geolocation service, and several other Mozilla services, as
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well as Waterfox's own update service. You can look at a list of these requests
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<a href="../images/waterfox_classic_spyware.png">here</a>.
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</p>
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<h3>Waterfox offers spyware search engines to its users and uses Bing as its default search engine</h3>
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<p>
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By default Waterfox is using the spyware search engine <a href="../articles/bing.html">Bing</a>.
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Why would a privacy-based Web Browser offer this search engine by default? The other offered search engines are not much better- we have the option of searching with Google,
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which also logs your internet searches, and Ecosia, which also logs your internet searches (but it gives them to Bing). The developers attitude towards these search engines is concerning:
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</p>
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<p>
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<i>"Bing is actually quite good for privacy as well (let's not forget Mozilla even suggested them as a more privacy focused search back in 2009)."</i><sup><a href="#s2">[2]</a></sup>
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</p>
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<p>
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It's very clear that while the browser advertises itself as very privacy focused, the actual words and actions of the developers aren't consistent with this claim.
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</p>
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<h3>Waterfox is integrated into the "Firefox Accounts" spyware platform</h3>
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<p>
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The "Firefox Accounts" platform allows you to sync a lot of sensitive
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information, such as your internet history, across all of your devices.
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This is, of course, all being stored on Mozilla's servers.<sup><a href="#s3">[3]</a></sup>
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This feature
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is opt-in spyware, but it should still be mentioned.
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If you don't want your internet history to be uploaded to Mozilla servers,
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don't use this feature.
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</p>
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<h3>Waterfox is self updating software</h3>
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<p>
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Self updates are a spyware feature since they are usually ways for the developer of a program to put spyware into their software without presenting it in a prominent way
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where the user can understand what they are giving up when they download the update.
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</p>
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<hr/>
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</div>
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<div class="footer">
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<div class="futher">
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<h4>Further Reading:</h4>
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<ol>
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<li><a href="https://www.waterfox.net/privacy">https://www.waterfox.net/privacy</a>
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<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20201228044209/https://www.waterfox.net/privacy">[web.archive.org]</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://www.waterfox.net/legal/">https://www.waterfox.net/legal</a>
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<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20201228044236/https://www.waterfox.net/legal">[web.archive.org]</a></li>
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</ol>
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</div>
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<hr/>
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<div class="sources">
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<h4>Sources:</h4>
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<ol>
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<li id="s1">
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<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/880z4b/what_happened_to_waterfoxs_devotion_to_user/">What happened to Waterfox's devotion to user privacy?</a>
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<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20180329154241/https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/880z4b/what_happened_to_waterfoxs_devotion_to_user/">[web.archive.org]</a>
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<a href="https://archive.li/omeK3">[archive.li]</a><br/>
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</li>
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<li id="s2">
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<a href="http://old.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/7m1pkq/waterfox_and_ecosia_privacy_concerns/">Waterfox and Ecosia — Privacy Concerns</a>
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<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180201210222/https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/7m1pkq/waterfox_and_ecosia_privacy_concerns/">[web.archive.org]</a>
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<a href="https://archive.is/smDw6">[archive.is]</a><br/>
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</li>
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<li id="s3">
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<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/access-mozilla-services-firefox-accounts">Access Mozilla Services with Firefox Account</a>
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<a href="https://archive.li/oDcmj">[archive.li]</a><br/>
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</li>
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<li id="s4">
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<a href="../images/waterfox_classic_spyware.png">All the requests made (mitmproxy)</a>
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</li>
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</ol>
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</div>
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<hr/>
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<p><b>
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<b>This article was created prior to 6/2/2018</b><br/>
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This article was last edited on 12/27/2020
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</b></p>
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<p>
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If you want to edit this article, or contribute your own article(s), visit us at the git repo on <a href="https://codeberg.org/shadow/SpywareWatchdog">Codeberg</a>. All contributions must be licensed under the CC0 license to be accepted.
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</p>
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<a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode"><img class="icon" src="../images/cc0.png" alt="CC0 License"/></a>
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<p><a href="../articles/index.html">Back to catalog</a></p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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