March 29, 2026
Forks, spoons, and side‑eye
15 Years of Forking
Teen-built browser hits 1M users; nostalgia vs "ad money" angst
TLDR: Waterfox turns 15, still indie after a corporate stint, and plans a built-in ad blocker while struggling after Bing axed third-party search deals. Comments split between warm nostalgia and sharp skepticism over “sustainability” text ads, with Matrix spoon jokes highlighting the bigger question: can privacy browsers survive without ads?
Fifteen years after a teenager compiled his own spin on Firefox, Waterfox hits a scrappy birthday with ~1M users. The origin tale is cute, but the comments stole the show. One newcomer chirped, "Interesting I've never heard of waterfox before," proving the indie browser is both loved and unknown. Nostalgia collided with curiosity, while others giggled at the homepage coincidence: "15 Years of Forking" next to "There is no Spoon"—instant Matrix meme energy.
Then came the wallet talk. The founder says Bing killing third‑party search deals cratered revenue, so Waterfox allows simple text ads on its default search page for "sustainability." Cue side‑eye. A skeptic snapped, "Everyone starts out pure but then the lucre calls," sparking a brawl over whether privacy and ads can ever coexist. Supporters countered with real‑world love—an ex‑coworker vouching for Alex, and fans recalling 350,000 trees planted via Ecosia. There’s founder drama too: after a stint at ad‑tech firm System1 and a return to independence, he admits a few months have been in the red, kept alive by small donations and kind notes. Finally, a tease: a built‑in ad blocker using Brave’s tech. Some cheer the practicality; others groan it’s “a fork of a fork.”
Key Points
- •Waterfox was launched 15 years ago as a 64-bit Firefox build compiled by a 16-year-old and initially hosted on SourceForge, earning 50,000 downloads in its first week.
- •Waterfox has grown to an estimated ~1 million monthly active users and over 25 million lifetime downloads (older estimate).
- •The founder studied at York and Oxford, attempted a charitable search engine, and later collaborated with Ecosia to plant over 350,000 trees in one year via Waterfox users.
- •After serving as VP of Engineering at System1 during its NYSE IPO, the founder returned Waterfox to independence under BrowserWorks.
- •Bing’s termination of third-party search contracts hurt Waterfox’s revenue; in 2026, Waterfox plans to ship a native content blocker using Brave’s adblock library that runs in the main browser process.