Waterfox

Waterfox is a privacy-focused browser aimed at power users who want deep control without assembling a stack of extensions. It's built on Firefox's engine but strips out telemetry, remote experiments, and anything that phones home, then adds features that most browsers reserve for add-ons.

The ad blocker is native, not bolted on. It uses a Rust-based engine with full uBlock Origin filter list support, including scriptlets and custom styles. No extension required, no compatibility drift after updates.

What ships out of the box:

• Oblivious DNS hides both what you're asking and who is asking, combining encrypted DNS with the anonymity layer that standard DoH doesn't provide.
• Zero telemetry means no analytics, no A/B experiments, no personalization pings. The code you install is the code that runs.
• Tree-style vertical tabs build parent-child hierarchies automatically as you open links, with keyboard shortcuts to promote, demote, collapse, or close entire branches. No add-on required.
• Private containers let you isolate a single tab's session without switching your whole window to incognito mode.
• On-device translation is the only machine learning present. No LLM sidebars, no summarizers, nothing sending page content to a remote model.

Where Brave leans into its own ecosystem and Firefox still ships telemetry by default, Waterfox's position is simpler: collect nothing, ship useful features natively, and leave the chatbots out entirely. The tree tab implementation is particularly well-considered for researchers and heavy multitaskers. Sessions with dozens of tabs stay navigable because the hierarchy is automatic, not something you have to maintain manually.

It's available on desktop and Android, with full extension support on both platforms.