Waterfox partners with Qwant

Search royalties are how independent browsers stay funded, and the past year made that model precarious. When Microsoft wound down Bing syndication for smaller partners, it pulled the floor out from under much of the independent search market, and the arrangements Waterfox had relied on for years went with it. A new formal agreement puts the browser on more stable ground.

This also present an opportunity for something I’ve wanted for a long time, in that it takes Waterfox’s economics out of Big Tech’s hands. For years, nearly every “independent” browser and search engine has ultimately been paid by Redmond or Mountain View, one syndication contract away from disruption and this partnership takes aim to break that dependency.

Why Qwant?

They’re independent, based in Paris, and don’t track or profile users. They’re also building an independent European search index with Ecosia through European Search Perspective - their own crawler with their own ranking which is not a reskin of someone else’s results. Europe appears to be the only place seriously building user facing web search infrastructure outside Big Tech right now, and Waterfox’s revenue now flows through that ecosystem instead.

This is something I’m very excited about, as a browser that depends on search revenue and a search engine that depends on distribution have every reason to want the other to thrive.

When you search through Qwant, the revenue doesn’t disappear into an ad-tech giant’s balance sheet but instead funds an independent search index and an independent browser, without anyone being tracked or profiled. The idea is that everyone in the chain benefits, and nobody’s data is the product.

What changes for you

The rollout is already underway - Waterfox for Android updated on Friday with Qwant as the default in supported geographies. Both the next stable and beta releases, due this week, ship with Qwant as the default on desktop in the same regions. Everyone else gets a different privacy-focused search engine as the default until their region is supported.

If you’re on the default search engine or installing fresh, you’ll get Qwant. If you’ve ever set your own engine, that choice stays put, and you can switch any time in Settings.