“It’s safe to say that the people who volunteered to “shape” the initiative want it dead and buried. Of the 52 responses at the time of writing, all rejected the idea and asked Mozilla to stop shoving AI features into Firefox.”
Hey all, just a reminder to keep the community rules in mind when commenting on this thread. Criticism in any direction is fine, but please maintain your civility and don’t stoop to ad-hominem etc. Thanks.
Ad-hominem
in a way that is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
in a way that relates to or is associated with a particular person.
It’s a good thing LLM models are not people because…
If it can be proven that an LLM bot account is present on the instance masquerading as a human user, I would recommend you report the account for that reason/spam so that it can be investigated and removed per instance rule 4 after evidence is found.
Since they aren’t people, I’d say it’s pointless to reply to them with ad-hominem in the first place since it means nothing to them, and therefore reporting it would be the more effective action to take in any event.
don’t stoop to ad-hominem
At this point Ad-hominem is practically the nice name for the business model “enshitification”.
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but how can you be aware of this fact
I don’t know whether the negative reactions reflect the majority of Firefox users or are just a noisy minority. Mozilla, after all, likely has a clearer view of the whole user base.
and then still assume that nobody wants something based on a non-representative sample of 52 comments?
That bit was odd for me too. I think the author means “nobody” based on the online reactions and discussions about Firefox. And you shouldn’t take the term/word too literal. So I can understand the view at least, because that is what I am getting too. The problem is, that mostly negative opinions are discussed. And mostly from tech people, which I personally assume most Firefox users might be.
B- but- ✨yaiy window!!1!✨!1!!
Those unhappy have another option: use an AI‑free Firefox fork such as LibreWolf, Waterfox, or Zen Browser.
And I have taken that other option.
Also: Vanadium and/or Ironfox on Android.
What I don’t get: Isn’t Vanadium Chromium under the hood?
The truth is that Chromium is really good. It has the best security and performance.
Vanadium takes that and makes changes to make it more secure and private.
I think the problem with Chromium isn’t so much that Blink or V8 is bad or anything, it’s that it’s entirely under the thumb of Google. We’re essentially being set up for another Internet Explorer scenario, only Google unlike Microsoft won’t just be sitting on their laurels. Google is an advertising company, their entire business model is the web. Google Search is the tool used to find things, and with Google Chrome being the go-to browser for a lot of people, Google essentially ends up in control of both how you access the web and what you access.
That sort of power is scary, which is why I personally avoid anything Chromium based as much as I am able to. Chromium itself is fantastic, but I don’t like the baggage it comes with.
Google search hasnt been usable for over a year.
That’s valid.
That’s also part of the reason I like Webkit. It’s in a nice spot between Firefox and Chromium when it comes to security and performance. And importantly, is not from an ad company and often passes on browser specs that would be harmful to privacy and security.
I forget what the site is called, but I saw one that nicely layed out different browser specs and gives the explanation why one of the engine developers decided against supporting or implementing it.
I just wish there was a good Webkit browser on Linux. Unfortunately, Gnome Web just feels slow and unresponsive despite good benchmarks.
Gods I wish Epiphany/Gnome Web was better. The Kagi people are working on bringing Orion to Linux, which I believe will be using WebKit there as well.
It’s kind of funny that we don’t have a solid WebKit browser on Linux, since WebKit has its roots in the KDE Projects KHTML engine for Konqueror.
I guess that kind of ties in to my anger at these massive tech companies profiting off of FOSS but doing almost fuck-all to contribute. Google opening LLM generated bug reports in FFMPEG when all of the streaming media giants are propped up by this one project is just one example. There should be some kind of tax for this, I feel. They’re benefitting greatly, and provide nothing in return.
It is.
My understanding is that you go to Ironfox to optimize for privacy and Vanadium to optimize for security.
It depends on your threat model.
Either way, both are better on both fronts when compared to default Chrome or Firefox.
Yes. Chromium isn’t bad in itself though.
Wrong. You are both popularizing Google tech and decreasing web browser diversity when you use any chromium variety
Vandium is all about not standing out from the crowd. You use it to not make a statement and hide your activity within the majority of useragents. If you want to make a statement that’s great, but you should only do it when you’re ok being fingerprinted.
Who says I’m “making a statement” by using firefox? That’s not the goal at all.
I didn’t mean that in a negative way. All I meant was that using a non-chromium browser to help move the needle is a privacy tradeoff. I keep both vandium and ironfox installed and use them at different times for different things.
Google tech
Chromium is open-source. It doesn’t belong to Google or anyone else.
Are you serious? Chromium is very much mostly written by Google and the direction it takes in every way that matters is entirely controlled by Google.
This still doesn’t mean Google has some kind of ownership for it. Nobody stops you from forking it and taking it into a different direction.
It actually does. You’re still supporting a browser monoculture unless you change it so radically that it makes no sense to call it a fork anymore
I mean technically, yes. However the sheer amount of LoC chromium has and the costs of actually hard forking (and properly maintaining it) makes it quite difficult. That’s why right now we only have the choice of Firefox based browsers and Chromium, then hopefully a good third contender being the Ladybird browser in the future.
You could also go build a house (or even a cabin) with your own two hands, but most people typically go and buy one or pay for one to be built for them instead.
A fork is great, but the more a fork deviates, the more issues there are likely to be. Firefox is already at low enough numbers that it’s not really sustainable.
My two biggest issues with a fork are: a) timely updates, they take a bit longer than the main version, and b) trust issues, I don’t trust most forks.
Then Mozilla should start listening to their users instead of driving them away. I know I stopped using Firefox after being a regular user since launch because the AI nonsense became the last sta straw.
Then Mozilla should start listening to their users instead of driving them away.
I think the hope is to get more people in than losing them. But with Ai nobody will stay forever, because the time someone else makes a better Ai tool, they switch. Because Mozilla loses personality and uniqueness and start getting replaceable. … just like employees who are forced to use Ai instead their own work and knowledge.
Yes but we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
What do you mean by “we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good”? Why should I use a browser which is actively anti-user when there are better alternatives out there?
There aren’t better alternatives, and the ai shit is all easy to disable.
ai shit is all easy to disable
Users don’t have to disable it. Just give them a browser where they’re not enabled by default!
To my knowledge that literally only exists in the form of a Firefox fork like Librewolf. Which takes more effort to switch to than simply disabling a couple values in config.
There aren’t better alternatives
They are literally mentioned in the article:
Those unhappy have another option: use an AI‑free Firefox fork such as LibreWolf, Waterfox, or Zen Browser.
- https://manualdousuario.net/en/mozilla-firefox-window-ai/.
Well, the first two essentially are Firefox and the latter is very immature to the point that I doubt you could reliably use it. It’s in beta.
Disabling it is one more thing to fingerprint me on.
It serves literally no purpose for any intelligent person.
The good is other rendering engines currently in the works.
I considered using AI to summarize news articles that don’t seem worth the time to read in full (the attention industrial complex is really complicating my existence). But I turned it off and couldn’t find the button to turn it back on.
If you need to summarize the news, which is already a summary of an event containing the important points and nothing else, then AI is the wrong tool. A better journalist is what you actually need. The whole point of good journalism is that it already did that work for you.
I have a real journalist, but this is more on the “did you know this was important” side. Like how it’s fine to rinse your mouth out after brushing your teeth, but if your water isn’t fluoridated then you probably shouldn’t (which I got from skimming the article for the actionable information).
That should be the point but there is barely good journalism left.
How does AI mis-summarizing the (allegedly bad) journalism improve it?
It SLAMS away all the fluff.
AI is very much not good at summarising news accurately.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/11/05/ai-gets-45-of-news-wrong-but-readers-still-trust-it/
you have to be REALLY careful when asking an LLM to summarize news otherwise it will hallucinate what it believes sounds logical and correct. you have to point it directly to the article, ensure that it reads it, and then summarize. and honestly at that point…you might as well read it yourself.
And this goes beyond just summarizing articles you NEED to provide an LLM a source for just about everything now. Even if you tell it to research online the solution to a problem many times now it’ll search for non-relevant links and utilize that for its solution because, again, to the LLM it makes the most sense when in reality it has nothing to do with your problem.
At this point it’s an absolute waste of time using any LLM because within the last few months all models have noticeably gotten worse. Claude.ai is an absolute waste of time as 8 times out of 10 all solutions are hallucinations and recently GPT5 has started “fluffing” solutions with non-relevant information or it info dumps things that have nothing to do with your original prompt.
Cannot wait for Servo & LadyBird to take off
I’m thoroughly sick of Mozilla’s shit.
You want AI in your browser? Just add <your favourite spying ad machine> as a “search engine” option, with a URL like
https://chatgpt.com/?q=%25s, with a shortcut like
@ai. Maybe also add one with a URL with some query pre-written likehttps://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page for me: %sas
@aisor something, modern chatbots have the ability to make HTTP requests for you. Then if you want to summarize the page you’re on, you do Ctrl+L Ctrl+C @ais Ctrl+V Enter. There, I solved all your AI needs with 4 shortcuts without literally any client-side code.Emissions. Economic problems. Goading several people into suicide.
Like, if you ship a food item with harmful bacteria in it, it gets recalled. If you have a fatal design flaw in a car, it gets recalled. If your LLM encourages people to separate from their loved ones and kill themselves, nothing fucking happens.
I think Mozilla’s base is privacy focused individuals, a lot of them appreciating firefox’s opensource nature and the privacy hardened firefox forks. From a PR perspective, Firefox will gain users by adamantly going against AI tech.
Maybe their thought process is they’ll gain more users by adopting AI while knowing they’re still the most privacy focused of the major browsers. Where have I seen this mentality before?
Spoiler
The American Democrat party often believes it can get more votes by shifting conservative, believing the more progressive voters will stick pick them because they’re still more progressive than not.
I noticed that too! I will never use it.
I certainly want it. The current anti-AI wave is irrational.
That isn’t to say that AI is not a major potential existential problem when it goes to AGI and to ASI, or that AI in the hands of private Oligarch psychos are not a catastrophe, but the current hatred is of a different kind, are off the charts, actually evil, and have no relation to the tool it self, or the potential existential risks. The group have already been consumed by hatred and unfortunately, they are now also attacking ordinary Lemmy users that ‘admit’ that they use AI, or ‘admit’ that they treat it as a ‘friend’. You have all seen this. People just mentioning AI are downvoted and hated upon, people that use AI always get a “AI slop !” remark with them on their way. A large percentage, like this post, are subtly attacking that others even have a choice of utilizing AI in their daily life - because they hate it. This is kinder-garden level bullying !
Most of the daily worries of AI, stems from the societal system we are in. Job loss (It’s build into the current system!), ‘AI’-slop (as if Capitalism didn’t create slop?), ‘Copyright’ idiocy that are only necessary in a combative type of society, AI+biz out-competing ordinary people, becoming poor, homeless etc, big monetary/political powers consolidating more power by misusing AI, an incredible amount of propaganda/marketing and manipulation and so on. The old system is incompatible with AI, so people are seeing things go in a wrong way, and feeling the cracks and dissonance between an old failing system, and the new possibilities we have. We - humanity - are in a transitional phase, where the old systems we follow, are no longer adequate, and will implode/convulse in to a new stable system. But the old system is stubbornly trying to keep going, while not having any answers, or any will, to adapt or even discuss the internal dissonance that are accelerating. THAT is the problem! Almost all current ‘AI’ problems that result in this hate backlash - comes directly from the failing type of society we have - not the tool/technology it self ! People should focus on the root-problem, not the tool it-self, and certainly not other users that need it.
This whole group of angry people need to chill tf out and admit to them selves that they are mis-directing their hatred (valid or not), and that their hate are currently harming other ordinary people - not much different from them selves. Stop bullying others just because you can’t handle the inherent failings of the old crap system, a system build on pure combative ideology, “by the oligarchs, for the oligarchs”. Stop fighting for ‘Jobs’, and start fighting for a system where we don’t need ‘Jobs’, Stop fighting for ‘Copyright’, or any of the other insane protectionist ‘patches’ to the current bunkers society/ideology, and start fighting for a society where we don’t have to hoard ‘property’ to survive. Fight for a society that are compatible with where we are technologically/philosophically, one that are actually designed/intended to be compatible with peoples needs and their humble wishes for a safe and stimulating future.
Lastly, being worried/focused on an ASI takeover of humanity, or common people being (more) controlled by the Oligarchs/Big Corp, etc, is completely legit, and it absolutely needs to be talked about, but this group of haters is just hating ‘AI’ and people using it in general, for the wrong reasons, and then lashing out towards those people that enjoy/need it now. (Good for you if you don’t need it in this society).
This bullying has to stop. In the mean time, I and many others, are starting to use current AI to design/build systems that bring us all over this ideological molasses we are in, and land us on the other side as fast and safely as we can. You should probably do the same instead of being consumed by anger, but that is your choice to make. Thanks for reading.
All great evila have been perpetrates by ordinary people. Ita really not a mollification to say you’re just engaging in this hugely deatructive trend as an ordinary person.
Ok. Then please answer this because it’s driving me crazy: what problem does adding AI to Firefox solve?
In the mean time, I and many others, are starting to use current AI to design/build systems that bring us all over this ideological molasses we are in
Gee wiz mister are you a REAL prompt engineer? No foolin?
Whole lotta words to say you’re lonely and friendless as shit.
Why not just distribute a separate build and call it “Firefox AI Edition” or something? Making this available in the base binary is a big mistake. At least doing so immediately and without testing the waters.
There is a Firefox Developer’s Edition so I don’t see why not? I personally don’t care to see them waste the time on AI features.
Personally I don’t want AI anywhere.
I can think of some uses
But I’m feeling really sadistic today, and it mostly just boils down to ‘forced ‘paranoia’ larp’.
If you don’t like AI window, don’t use AI window. I don’t see the problem.
Except if AI Window turns out to be another resident subprocess that eats 4GB of ram in the background
Is that what it’s doing?
I haven’t heard about it anywhere. But considering Firefox’s history with memory handling and considering the feature in question, I’m calling it. I’m reasonably sure that’s how it’s going to turn out
I don’t see any technical background about it. Just a marketing spiel
Opt-in
??
What does being opt-in or opt-out have to do with resource consumption? It will still consume resources even if you’re not using it. It might even reserve memory while inactive for faster startup by default.
Even if you completely disable it, just having it built into the default binary already consumes resources.
Well if they do I’ll just switch to whatever browser that doesn’t.
They’re really trying to shove this down our throats aren’t they?
