Mozilla Firefox vs Waterfox in 2026

Waterfox is Firefox with the corporate layer removed and two things added that Mozilla has not shipped. It is built on Firefox ESR, so it is the same engine, the same extensions and the same rendering — the differences are entirely about defaults and about what each project has decided it will not do.

What Waterfox takes out, and puts in

Out: telemetry, Pocket, sponsored tiles on the new tab page, remote experiments and personalisation feeds. That is the bulk of the difference and it produces the rating gap — Waterfox scores 5 for privacy against Firefox's 4, which is otherwise a strong score.

In: Oblivious DNS over HTTPS, on by default, routing DNS queries through a relay so no single party sees both who is asking and what they asked for. No other mainstream browser ships that out of the box. Container tabs are enabled by default rather than requiring an extension, and extensions install from the Firefox, Chrome and Opera stores.

The other addition is a refusal. When Mozilla began describing Firefox as an AI browser, Waterfox's maintainer stated it would not include LLMs at all. Both score 1 and 2 respectively for AI features, and for a certain kind of user that gap is the reason to switch rather than a shortcoming.

Where Firefox stays ahead

Reach, cadence and scale. Firefox covers all five platforms; Waterfox covers desktop plus Android but not iOS. Firefox scores 5 for customizability against Waterfox's 4 and 5 for extensions against 4, and it ships security updates on a two-week cycle while Waterfox tracks ESR and integrates patches with a small team, so fixes can arrive slightly later.

Firefox Sync, Mozilla accounts and the surrounding ecosystem are also more complete, and Mozilla's size means a bug you report has more people behind it.

Which should you choose?

Choose Firefox if you want the fastest security updates, a browser on your iPhone, and the deepest configuration surface — and are content to spend ten minutes turning off telemetry and sponsored content yourself.

Choose Waterfox if you would rather those defaults were simply correct, you want Oblivious DNS without configuring it, or you want a firm commitment that no AI is coming. It is the same browser underneath; you are choosing a different set of opinions and a smaller team to maintain them.