When comparing GNOME Web vs Waterfox, the Slant community recommends GNOME Web for most people. In the question“What are the best desktop web browsers?” GNOME Web is ranked 19th while Waterfox is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose GNOME Web is:
Since it is a GNOME app, you get all the benefits of the GNOME desktop. It's easy to use, Epiphany just works out of the box. It stores your web site passwords in the secure GNOME keyring, and uses your existing desktop settings to launch applications and access the network, so you don't need to configure everything twice.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Fits in perfectly with the GNOME desktop
Since it is a GNOME app, you get all the benefits of the GNOME desktop. It's easy to use, Epiphany just works out of the box. It stores your web site passwords in the secure GNOME keyring, and uses your existing desktop settings to launch applications and access the network, so you don't need to configure everything twice.
Pro Excellent alternative to the most popular web browsers
Sometimes my workflow involves using separate browsers. I like mail in app tabs, but some jobs are well suited to a lighter, simpler web browser.
Pro GNOME integrated
Includes features specific to GNOME like turning sites into apps that are managed with GNOME software and the ability to install GNOME extensions.
Pro For Linux and Windows
Available for Linux and Windows 10 with WSL, see here.
Pro Lightweight
Epiphany is pretty lightweight and doesn't require much memory to start up.
Pro Best touchpad navigation
Pinch to zoom, smooth bidirectional scrolling are still far beyond other browsers.
Pro Default in many GNOME versions
Epiphany has been the default browsers for many distributions that use stock GNOME for a long time now (although it's being replaced by the much more popular Firefox lately).
Pro Fast
Even faster than firefox.
Pro Offers excellent privacy
Does not phone home.
Pro Never ever freezes
Highly reliable.
Pro Works with Firefox addons
Firefox 56 add-ons compatibility, including unsigned XUL extensions and complete themes.
Pro Less bloated than Firefox
Pocket, telemetry, data collection, startup profiling is removed.
Pro Extremely customizable
It has almost every setting imaginable.
Pro Multiple add-on support
Pro Works with major streaming services
Includes widevine plugin and suitable user agent for viewing major streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Video.
Cons
Con Crashes often
Epiphany can crash on a heavy load or when closing/opening tabs. While this only happens every few days, it still happens more often than in most other browsers.
Con Not much room for configuration
The choice for extensions is very limited, although there are decent extensions for the most useful activities and features it still cannot compare to the extensive collections that other browsers may have access to.
The number of tweaks that can be done to the browser from the options menu is also very limited since Epiphany follows a philosophy of "less is more". While this can be enjoyable for some it still hinders a lot of functionality and removes the ability to personalize the browser the way you want it to be.
Con Becomes messy on highly graphical pages
Sometimes struggles to handle complex graphical pages such as Facebook. In these circumstances, it becomes 'messy' - text and graphics get mixed up - and will eventually crash. Even so, this is a light and useful browser.
Con Tends to lag on large pages
Open this page in Epiphany and start zooming/scrolling quickly to see what it.
Con Limited UI
Con Lag, lag, lag, freeze, freeze, freeze
Need to do something about it.
Con Owned by an advertising company
The same company that bought Startpage/ Ixquick, System 1. This is a company that gathers information about what you look at and do, analyzes and profiles you, and then sells it off to third parties.
Con Goodish, but still bad
Removes crap from FF, but doesn't offer anything you can't already do in FF. Also, doesn't help they are owned by an ad tech, System1.