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Waterfox

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Waterfox — a customizable browser built on the Firefox platform

OSS scale score 262.3OSS health 89Update pace 333 commits/30d
About these scores

OSS scale score is an unbounded metric that log-compresses and weights Stars, Watchers, Forks, and Contributors. Discovery score is the current OSS scale score minus the score at discovery. Update pace is commits in the last 30 days, growth momentum is the OSS scale score difference within the recent observation window, and OSS health is a 0–100 rating based on available recency, Community Health, and release data.

Stars
6,300
Primary language
JavaScript
License
Not determined
Repository last updated
Sep 15, 2026

Overview

Waterfox is a web browser built on Mozilla Firefox platform code with Waterfox-specific product code, branding, features, packaging, and release assets, using Mozilla's `mach` build system.

Features and best fit

Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:

Layer Waterfox-specific features on the Firefox platform

The repository combines shared Mozilla platform code with Waterfox product code, branding, features, and release assets.

Sources: [2]

Reuse Mozilla build and test tooling

Development uses familiar Firefox-style mach commands for bootstrap, build, packaging, and tests.

Sources: [2][4]

For studying Firefox-derived browser engineering and customization

It is useful when evaluating a Gecko/Mozilla-based browser architecture rather than a Chromium-derived one.

Sources: [2]

Do not treat the entire tree as one MPL-2.0 work

Most source is described as MPL-2.0, but LGPL, GPL, Apache, BSD, and many third-party licenses also appear. Check licensing at the relevant file/component level.

Sources: [3][4]

Official sources

  1. [1]BrowserWorks/waterfox repository(2026-09-20)
  2. [2]Waterfox README(2026-09-20)
  3. [3]Waterfox root license notice(2026-09-20)
  4. [4]Waterfox bundled license page(2026-09-20)
Supplemental curator note

Waterfox is a large Mozilla-derived codebase rather than a small single-license browser. The root LICENSE points to `toolkit/content/license.html`, which says most code is MPL-2.0 while other components use LGPL, GPL, Apache, BSD, and additional licenses. The repository is therefore recorded as `NOASSERTION` instead of being flattened to one SPDX identifier.

Try it in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Get the source

    git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BrowserWorks/waterfox.git
  2. 2

    Enter the repository

    cd waterfox
  3. 3

    Check the official steps

    Continue with the commands in the README Installation, Quick Start, or Getting Started section.

    find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'README*' -exec sed -n '1,220p' {} \; -quit
Check the official README

Growth

Growth trends · Last 30 days

6,300 Stars

Trend data is still being collected.

Development activity

Last 90 days · weekly

Commits (last 30 days)
333
Open PRs
2

Development activity is still being collected.

Built with

Categories and tags

Categories

Tags

GitHub data

GitHub dataView detailed GitHub data
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GitHub Topics

  • browser
  • web-browser
  • waterfox
  • web
  • gecko
Stars
6,300
Forks
430
Watchers
121
Open issues
335
Contributors
310
Primary language
JavaScript
License
Not determined
Repository last updated
Sep 15, 2026
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