Waterfox 56.2.3 Security Update

The developer of the Waterfox web browser, Alex Kontos, released version 56.2.3 of Waterfox to the public yesterday. The new version of Waterfox is a security release that follows Mozilla's Extended Support releases loosely.

Note that the release is being rolled out slowly. If you want to upgrade asap download the new version from the Waterfox project website and update manually. You can check for updates in the browser by clicking on Menu > ? > About Waterfox.

Waterfox is based on Firefox code and a popular go-to browser for Firefox users who still need access to the browser's classic add-ons system. While Firefox does not support that anymore since the last release, Waterfox, and some other Firefox-based browsers such as Pale Moon, do support it still.

One of the interesting features of Waterfox is that it supports classic add-ons and WebExtensions.

Waterfox 56.2.3 is first and foremost a security update that integrates the latest patches that Mozilla made for Firefox in the browser.

The developer of Waterfox added a unique identifier to the browser's user agent so that the browser is revealed to visited sites. It is placed in a location in the user agent that should not be problematic from a "sniffer's" point of view. Some sites parse the user agent to deliver specific content to users; Google does this regularly when it releases new or updated web services.

Anyway, the new user agent looks like this (Windows, Mac, Linux)

• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT x.y; Win64; x64; rv:56.0; Waterfox) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.2.3
• Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X x.y; rv:56.0; Waterfox) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.2.3
• Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:56.0; Waterfox) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.2.3

Probably more exciting than that for users is the announcement that the next version of Waterfox will integrate the Classic add-on Archive extension to give Waterfox users built-in access to all classic add-ons for Firefox. The add-ons are already mirrored by the Waterfox CDN so that they are preserved even when Mozilla pulls the plug.

Waterfox users can install the extension right away but it requires that users disable multi-process functionality as it won't work otherwise currently.

Waterfox 56 was released in 2017, Waterfox 56.2 in mid-2018.

Now You: do you use Waterfox?