Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
mastodon.social406 points by twapi 15 hours ago
406 points by twapi 15 hours ago
I think people screaming "but AI is the future" doesn't recognize what the problem is. The problem is not AI. The problem is that Mozilla keeps jumping on fads instead of focusing on their browser core. There are a tons of "we bundled all the latest crap" Chrome forks out there. Nobody needs more those. Stop pushing bells and whistles. Give us more extensibility instead. Keep supporting v2 manifest and add more. There were genuine technical reasons for why XUL and NPAPI had to die, but we need an equally powerful alternative.
And yea, having a faint through about removing adblock support, yet alone speaking it aloud is a really bad sign for Mozilla's future.
I'm going to chime in here, I think 1. This is great and Mozilla is listening to it's core fans and 2. I want Firefox to be a competitive browser. Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years.
I want my non-tech family members/friends to install Firefox not because I come over at Christmas, but because they want to. Because it's a browser that "just works." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.
I know Mozilla doesn't have much good will right now, but hopefully with the exec shakeup, they will right the ship on making FF a great browser. While still staying the best foil to Chrome (both in browser engine, browser chrome, and extension ecosystem).
Fully disagree. I use zero so-called "AI" features in my day to day life. None. Not one. Why do I need them in my browser, and why does my browser need to focus on something that, several years into the hype wave, I still *do not use at all*? And it's not for a lack of trying, the results are just not what I need or want, and traditional browsing (and search engines, etc.) does do what I want.
I'd be elated if Firefox solely focused on "the pre-AI era", as you put it, and many other power users would, too. And I somehow doubt my non-techie family cares - if anything, they're tired of seeing the stupid sparkle icons crammed down their throats at every single corner of the world now.
AI tools are here to stay. They will start to creep into everything, everywhere, all the time. Either you recognize the moment at which it becomes a significant disadvantage not to use them (I agree that moment is not now), or get left behind.
I agree, why support pushing the masses into another big tech machinery that just rips off their data and collectively makes it worse for all of us again? We are already way too cool with people frying their brains on X, TikTok, Instagram and whatnot. If anything, as devs, we should help people get back to focus on their own lifes over monetization of attentionspans. But this industry has no backbone and is constantly letting people down for a quick buck.
> I use zero so-called "AI" features in my day to day life. None. Not one.
I know so many people who made that same argument, if you can call it that, about smartphones.
I recently listened to a podcast (probably The Verge) talking about how an author was suddenly getting more purchases from his personal website. He attributed it to AI chatbots giving his personal website as the best place to buy rather than Amazon, etc. An AI browser might be a way to take power away from all the big players.
> And it's not for a lack of trying, the results are just not what I need or want, and traditional browsing (and search engines, etc.) does do what I want.
I suspect I only Google for about 1/4 of things I used to (maybe less). Why search, wade through dubious results, etc when you can just instantly get the result you want in the format you want it?
While I am a techie and I do use Firefox -- that's not a growing niche. I think AI will become spectacularly better for non-techies because it can simply give them what they ask for. LLMs have solved the natural language query issue.
> I know so many people who made that same argument, if you can call it that, about smartphones.
Sure, but people also told me I'd be using crypto for everything now and (at least for me) it has faded into total obscurity.
The biggest difference for me is that nobody (the companies making things, the companies I worked for...) had to jam smartphones down my throat. It made my life better so I went out of my way to use it. If you took it away, I would be sad.
I haven't had that moment yet for any AI product / feature.
Any AI product I pay for is great. Any AI product I don't pay for is terrible.
> Why ... wade through dubious results, etc when you can just instantly get the result you want in the format you want it?
Funnily enough, this is exactly how I justify Googling stuff instead of asking Gemini. Different strokes I guess!
> > I use zero so-called "AI" features in my day to day life. None. Not one.
> I know so many people who made that same argument, if you can call it that, about smartphones.
I had to use a ledger database at work for audit trails because they were hotness. I think we were one of the few that actually used AWS QLDB.
The experience I've had with people submitting AI generated code has been poor. Poor performing code, poor quality code using deprecated methods and overly complex functionality, and then poor understanding of why the various models chose to do it that way.
I've not actually seen a selling point for me, and "because Google is enshittifying its searches" is pretty weak.
I've been posting recently how I refactored a few different code bases with the help of AI. Faster code, higher quality code, overall smaller. AI is not a hammer, it's a Lathe: incredibly powerful but only if you understand exactly what you're doing otherwise it will happily make a big mess.
> Because it's a browser that "just works." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.
Strongly disagree.
Theres no expectation of AI as a core browsing experience. There isnt even really an expectation of AI as part of an extended browsing experience. We cant even predict reliably what AI's relationship to browsing will be if it is even to exist. Mozilla could reliably wait 24 months and follow if features are actually in demand and being used.
Firefox can absolutely maintain "It just works" by being a good platform with well tested in demand features.
What they are talking about here, are opt out only experiments intruding on the core browsing experience. Thats the opposite of "It Just Works".
>I know Mozilla doesn't have much good will right now, but hopefully with the exec shakeup, they will right the ship on making FF a great browser.
Its already a great browser. It doesnt need a built in opt out AI experience to become great.
There was also no expectation of process isolation in Mozilla Firefox when Google Chrome first came into the scenes. Electrolysis was painful for Mozilla and yet it was necessary.
So instead of being flexible enough to adapt to new requirements as users demand them, they are blindly implementing things before they are requested just in case?
Believe it or not well-intentioned developers, product managers, etc can read the writing on the wall and see where user expectations are heading based on the apps and products they already use.
Exactly why I am baffled. You would think they could read the writing on the wall.
I don't like it, but ChatGPT is a product that nearly a billion people are using. It's broken into popular culture. My mom, who has trouble sending an email, uses it. She found it on her own.
More importantly, generative AI is incredibly popular with younger cohorts. They will grow up to be your customer base if they aren't already. Their expectations are being set now.
Again, I don't like it, but that's the reality.
Video games are incredibly popular and my mom plays them, does that mean Firefox should have video games baked in at the base layer?
Quoting myself from another thread.
> I love it. I love going to the AI place and knowingly consulting the AI for tasks I want the AI to perform. That relationship is healthy and responsible. It doesnt need to be in everything else. Its like those old jokes about how inventions are just <existing invention> + <digital clock>.
> I dont need AI on the desktop, in microsoft office, replying to me on facebook, responding to my google searches AND doing shit in my browser. One of these would be too much, because I can just access the AI I want to speak to whenever I want it. Any 2 of these is such substantial overkill. Why do we have all of them? Justify it. Is there a user story where a user was trying to complete a task but lacked 97% accurate information from 5 different sources to complete the task?
Being against the random inclusion of AI in the browser, isnt the same as being against AI completely. It needs to justify its presence.
Co-worker was talking about how he tried to make invitation card with chatgpt, just a picture of his house and text and AI failed to do it. It said he didn't have copyright to the picture and used another random pic, layout was wrong etc. Then younger co-worker gave tips how to do it, what tools to use and offered to make it with his better AI program.
What could be done in few minutes with a free program is now multiple hours with billion dollar AI tools and you have less control what the end result is.
Obviously your co-worker was not able to do it in a few minutes with a free program, or he would just have done it this way.
+ Children are growing up with ChatGPT and Gemini. It has already become the de facto standard for learning. AI in browsers is inevitable.
"Children are growing up with ChatGPT and Gemini"
Yes.
"It has already become the de facto standard for learning."
Maybe.
"AI in browsers is inevitable."
Why. How does that follow. It seems like ChatGPT and Gemini are already working fine, what does the integration add?