WE. DON’T. WANT. THIS.
Mozilla, for the love of god, stop cramming AI into the browser when the vast majority of your users just want a privacy-respecting browser that works.
I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again: I will not donate any more money to the Mozilla foundation until they stop cramming AI into everything, and you should too.
They might be getting money from google that tells them what to do.
Nah, Google funds them so they can point at them and say they aren’t a monopoly, directing what they do would ruin that.
Mozilla’s perfectly capable of making dumb decisions on their own, they do that plenty
¿Why not both?
Because google only pays Mozilla because of:
- Maintaining search dominance
- Preventing anti-monopoly scrutiny
They don’t want Mozilla to compete in any AI space, because there’s already a ton of competition in the AI space given how much money gets thrown around, so they don’t benefit from anti-monopoly efforts, and there’s so many models that they don’t benefit from search dominance in the AI space. They’d much rather have Mozilla stay a non-AI browser while they get to implement AI features and show shareholders that they’re “the most advanced” of them all, or that “nobody else is doing it like we do”.
Read what the new CEO says, and it doesn’t seem as bad. In the interview, he states that they’ll be adding AI with options, and since they’re not beholden to any one company, the user can choose what is best for them.
My guess: A sidebar chat you can disable, which allows you to pick your provider, and an
about:configthat let’s you customize the URL for local AI.Would I rather time be devoted elsewhere? Yes. Would this be horrible? Nah.
That being said, I could be totally wrong.
you can sign up to receive updates on our AI Window and be among the first to try it and give us feedback.
I wonder if we all sign up and tell them we don’t want it if they would actually listen.
Is “the vast majority of your users” your display name or something? I have those turned off in my client settings
You should actually read their statements, rather than a headline from an article with a clear agenda. They are making these features optional and unobtrusive.
That has not at all been our lived experience so far.
Every week it seems like there is a new AI feature snuck in that we have to tell each other about and disable.
If it’s installed and I have to turn it off, then it’s intrusive. Don’t bullshit me
Their statement is “we’re incorporating AI into your browser”. What “agenda” do you think this author has? Other than informing users?
Mozilla already has limited resources. Using them to incorporate features into their browsers that their users have already made it abundantly clear they do not want, is bad.
The problem is, it’s not unobtrusive.
When I right click and I instantly get an option silently added to the list that sends data to an AI model hosted somewhere, which I’ve accidentally clicked due to muscle memory, it’s not good just because there’s also the option there to disable it. When I start up my browser after an update and I am instantly given an open sidebar asking me to pick an AI model to use, that’s obtrusive and annoying to have to close and disable.
Mozilla has indicated they do not want to make these features opt-in, but opt-out. The majority of Mozilla users do not want these features by default, so the logical option is to make them solely opt-in. But Mozilla isn’t doing that. Mozilla is enabling features by default, without consent, then only taking them away when you tell them to stop.
The approach Mozilla is taking is like if you told a guy you weren’t interested in dating him, but instead of taking that as a “no.” he took it as a “try again with a different pickup line in 2 weeks” and never, ever stopped no matter what you tried. It doesn’t matter that you can tell him to go away now if he’ll just keep coming back.
Mozilla does not understand consent, and they are violating the consent of their users every time they push an update including AI features that are opted-in by default.
i don’t want it either, but AFAIK they’re local models so the data didn’t go anywhere
They don’t use local models yet, at least not for their existing AI chatbot sidebar feature. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ai-chatbot
When you use a chatbot, you are agreeing to that provider’s privacy policies and terms of use. Each chatbot provider has their own terms of use and privacy policies. View the privacy policies and terms for providers in Firefox.
Some chatbots are more privacy-respecting than others.
WTF man, I just want a fucking browser.
No you don’t, now suck down your government mandated AI slop and say thank you — you philistine.
I recommend waterfox and the DuckDuckGo browser, at least those 2 are good at least
Ducks browser runs on chrome though I highly recommend using anything but that because it contributes to chromes monopoly over the web.
Really excited for Ladybird and to see what Servo ends up being used in. Sad to see what Firefox is doing.
Firefox to evolve into not existing.
Usually i would say people just won’t care. But firefox only has like a 2% user base anyway, and that makes me think that it’s mainly by enthusiasts, and they are more likely to just hop off. I hope they go down with their shitty AI and set an example.
Yeah I just don’t understand the strategy here. You’re not going to Out-AI Google and Microsoft, and so I don’t know who both wants an “AI Browser” but wants an alternative to the offerings of those companies.
Hey tech companies. Consumers do not want more AI, they want less of it. Maybe we just need to get the word out?
Exactly this. I would love to see just one tech company stand up and say we are not doing AI, our AI budget is $0 and our product will not ship with AI. If you really want to use AI with our system you can download a plug-in or something but we won’t waste our time writing one.
They would get a million users overnight.
Does Vivaldi count?
But ‘AI’ is the cool word of the moment! All the AI peddlers say so in their sale pitches!
I want it
I was saying boo urns! We get it. You are being served. The rest of us are being forced.
Every product we build must give people agency in how it works. Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable. Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it.
Come on, this isn’t Reddit, at least skim the article before you start with the performative outrage.
It should be something that people can easily turn ON.
It is opt in, this article is click bait.
Directly from the horses mouth:
"In Firefox, you’ll never be locked into one ecosystem or have AI forced into your browsing experience. You decide when, how or whether to use it at all. You’ve already seen this approach in action through some of our latest features like the AI chatbot in the sidebar for desktop or Shake to Summarize on iOS.
Now, we’re excited to invite you to help shape the work on our next innovation: an AI Window. It’s a new, intelligent and user-controlled space we’re building in Firefox that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse, all on your terms. Completely opt-in, you have full control, and if you try it and find it’s not for you, you can choose to switch it off."
We’ll just ignore the fact that the chat bot menu setting randomly appeared after an update. Very opt in. The only way to kill the task it sparks is to go into about:config and kill all the browser.ml.* options.
No one here cares what Firefox says because their actions have already hurt the trust in them.
Do the processes still run even if you toggle the setting off?
Just going through settings was not enough. The process was still running. I don’t know which toggle fully killed it because I clicked everything off at once.
Except I literally had to dig through the about: config settings to turn off AI in my browsing experience. So they are already lying
Ah yes, the classic:
They must be maliciously lying instead of me using something wrong argument.
Very solid, much sound.
I can flip that around for you: “Ah yes, the classic: the user must be in the wrong, not the organisation with a history of secretly installing an extension nobody asked for”.
It’s not needed. Nobody is looking for AI powered shit and they will feel it in their numbers. Why invest the pennies Mozilla can invest in a technology that big monsters are developing with billions and billions of dollars and natural resources? It’s not even reasonable, like a Pocket 2.0.
Unfortunate Newsflash:
It’s smaller reddit.
The lowest common denominator consumes all. And that denominator includes not being able to read articles or apply critical thought.
Nobody’s saying it’s mandatory. People don’t want their web browsers to be full of bloated AI slop. Why should there be the AI components of Firefox on my hard drive if I’m never going to use them? Why should my web browser be full of low quality features I’ll never use? It’s enshittification. Not to mention the very quote you’re pasting specifies that it’s opt-out, not opt-in.
But why !? Chatbots are useful enough, I don’t need AI anywhere else than when I explicitly choose to use it on my terms !
You wanna make money ? Make a chatbot that lies less and/or doesn’t reinforce people into their delusions, or one that runs for cheaper, or both.
AI is useful. Just like knives are useful. Doesn’t mean I want every object I own to also somehow be or contain multiple knives 😅
More often than not, a faster horse is actually all we need.
If they truly believe in their AI offerings, they should release them as an extension so users can choose to install them. You only bundle shit people don’t want. If it’s good, you distribute it stand-alone.
It’s not possible to bundle everything as an extension. Some things do not work that way.
The people are the product. You think anything is built for the end users benefit? These things only exist to spy on you, track you and spam ads for the benefit of a few billionaires that are In power so the can further enrich themselves and hold onto/increase their power.
LibreWolf all the way
Hahaha fuck Firefox. Been saying it for years. Used to be the goat. Hasn’t been for a decade and a half.
I don’t think anyone actually read the announcement, just the headline. Here was the new CEOs actual first point.
“First: Every product we build must give people agency in how it works. Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable. Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it.”
AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn
offon. That’s how it should be.It should read:
AI should always be opt-in
There was no easy way to turn it off without meddling with
about:config. If they were serious and true to their word this would’ve been be the default from the start.I despise AI. I don’t want it in my browser. If I want to use AI, I’ll go to Mistral or Claude.
You mean the same Claude from Anthropic? The same Anthropic working with Palantir?
And then you are here shitting on Mozilla…
You guys are a joke!
So no text to voice/voice to text, no translation, no ocr, no summarization, no scam detection? These are useful ai features to have in a browser IMO.
Plugins exist. There is no excuse for bloat8ng the browser with these seldom used niche features by default, espexially when they represent 5% if what the AI component is doing and the other 95% are harmful to literally every living thing on the planet.
I dont consider any of those features to be bloat. “Harmful to every living thing on the planet” wtf are you referring to here?
The social and environmental impact of AI training and use is what I’m referring to.
There is only an environmental impact in AI in training in the places that have water issues or use fossil fuels on the grid. Otherwise its the same as any other power use.
Plus model training costs arent relevant to firefox. We dont factor in the power usage for creating the linux kernel when we talk about linux or any other software. There isnt any good reason we should care about 3rd party companies power generation costs. I dont think about how much power the steel plant used to build my car nor should I.
Pigs don’t consider slop to be slop.
none of those features are slop. They are amazingly useful features. Removing them from the hands of average users by putting them behind an extension would make Firefox a much worse option and exclude a ton of people for no reason.
Your opinion is based on nothing and you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re just a reactionary.
First, there should be a survey on what users actually want, no?
Because if no one wants AI and it’s “always a choice”, what you really do is waste considerable resources with as the only results, more settings users have to go through before starting using their browsers.
By people he means other CEOs.
there is absolutely zero reason to put ai in firefox
exactly it should be a firefox extension, anyone can install if they want it.
Local ML translation was pretty cool
I like the convenience for languages I don’t speak, but when I checked it for Hungarian (that I do speak) the results are so much worse than Google Translate or DeepL, basically literal translation word-by-word, often completely losing the meaning and tone of the sentence.
Nnnoooooo you dumb bastards
Jfc. The stupidest timeline, I fucking swear.
It’s the natural progression of capitalism and market force fundamentalism.
It’s a sort of religion.
Come on servo
