The poll is over, and the result is clear:
#FireFox users have very little interest for Chatbot integration into their browser.
I am very much aware that the people, who voted in this poll are hardly a representative sample, but more than 2.4K people is a better size than many “professional” opinion polls.
@mozilla & @firefox should take people, who actually care about their #browser choice, seriously.
I still seriously believe that #Mozilla’s fate matters,
https://berlin.social/@mina/113102817500429735
1/3
Asking mastodon users whether they’d choose AI over Privacy is like asking Elon Musk if he’d rather end poverty or buy another mega yacht.
I don’t think you thought this one through!
To be the guy known for ending poverty for all time, having statues in every park on the planet? Or just another boat to park in your mega-garage of boats?
Easy choice.
Yeah, I dunno about that considering he promised to end world hunger if the UN could show him how the money was used. They did and he essentially told them to fuck off and donated it to himself instead: https://truthout.org/articles/musk-pledged-6b-to-solve-world-hunger-but-gave-it-to-his-own-foundation-instead/
We’re talking about two different things here.
Actually trying to end world hunger vs pushing a button and having it happen. The former is really hard and probably way beyond the means of any individual, no matter how wealthy. The fact that Elon promised to do it is only evidence of his extreme ego, not his ability nor his ethics (which his donation to himself calls into question).
If he could push a button and end world poverty at a nominal cost of $xxx billion, I think he would do it. But to actually put in the work over a lifelong project which has a high potential to fail? I don’t for a second believe he’s capable of that. But who is?
He did not have to provide lifelong project and work on it. He just needed to donate his money and people in UN would have worked with that money. Even if it didn’t work, he’d still have done a real great job by donating that much. And maybe we could have learn money is not the solution and we need to change approach.
As the “tech guy” who my family turns to for advice, I do not have a single family member other than my younger brother who has any interest in AI-assistance. My brother wants it to cheat in school.
As the tech guy
My parents really like it - they like that they can say what they want to say and get it formatted for an email
Firefox user here: Fuck no I don’t want a chatbot built into my browser.
You are definitely not alone!
I think it can be useful for some users but hardly the majority.
You can select text now in Firefox and ask it to make a summary or to explain it in simpler words. Then it generates a query to chatgpt in the sidebar who answers it.
So for some use cases I think it’s nice. Even better if you could make it do research and save us time. Like “check the top tech sites for reviews of this phone model and give me a summary of it’s major flaws”.
Chat gpt can do that but it’s not really integrated into the Firefox experience. If you could select a phone name and have a one click option to “give me top flaws and pros of this model according to top reviewers”, that could save a lot of time.
I think it’s just about packaging this functionality better. I don’t think it should be in a sidebar. It should just be in a new tab with lots of options to continue the research in different ways.
That’s not private in the least. If anything add optional support for ollama
They have a choice of different models in the Nightly version of Firefox. So I think we are getting there. Maybe even an option to run our own self hosted models.
Welp, Firefox was the last option. I guess I’ll just stick to Librewolf
For the use cases you describe actually sound right on the mark? If you’re viewing a page and you want something summarised on there, it would be nice to not have to leave that page, but to stay in its context, for example. If you’re looking at the specs of a particular phone, ditto.
(I don’t expect I’ll use this feature myself, but if I did, it sounds like I’d use it in that way. Luckily, I can just choose not to use it without any downsides.)
We want lighter and faster browsers that load up less features, block all unnecessary data collection and spying and java scripts, consume less hardware resources, and don’t choke and heat up 8-gb ram laptops just because I openned 1 tab.
I don’t want Siri in my internet. I don’t even like it when it automatically searches and returns suggetions for mere typing anything in address bar. If I wanted a chatbot, I know how to visit chatgpt or any site myself.
It’s just an integration with LLM services and not AI baked-in the browser code. You can even self-host any such service (Ollama) and integrate Firefox with it. That will make sure your query is not leaving your network.
Just a minor nit pick but it’s JavaScript, not Java Scripts (javascript and Java are massively different things).
Also blocking JavaScript on the web in 2024 is really not practical. Nothing will really work without it.
You used to be able to run Java in the web, I remember the pain of applets.
I don’t want an AI chatbot in the sidebar, but if it gives Mozilla a new, substantial source of revenue outside the Google search deal–and I can disable it–then I’m all for it.
Can I just not have AI powered chat bots trying to sell me Pepsi?
I don’t want an AI chatbot in the sidebar, but if it gives Mozilla a new, substantial source of revenue outside the Google search deal–and I can
disable itenable it if I want to --then I’m all for it.Ftfy
Good point.
However: Revenue is a good thing. Being trusted by the community is infinitely more valuable.
OT but: How does this Mastodon/Lemmy integration even work? OP seems to be posting on Mastodon but we are commenting on Lemmy which makes everything look confusing.
Both services use the ActivityPub protocol, so to put it very simply the data format used by both services is the same, they just render it differently on your screen. Then they are pushing/pulling the data for posts and comments from other instances as users request it, e.g. by viewing this lemmy instance through Mastodon.
I gave up trying to understand long ago
why can’t we just have a fast, reliable browser with a clean UI that is fairly customizable with really solid extension support?
Extensions/plugins were supposed to provide the framework if users wanted a bunch of bells and whistles.
and I refuse to believe that a company with the resources of Mozilla cannot do that.
Minecraft is basically that in game form. A powerful voxel engine that has a massive amount of support for mods and plugins.
I guess, that is what most people want.
Minetest is probably a better comparison
Eh, fair point. Minecraft early on was more like what I was describing. For years now the devs have added a ton of content to the base game.
Still, most people I know play with at least a few mods, even if it’s just texture packs and some QoL mods for better UI/UX.
A representative 300 sample would give a more accurate result than a biased 2.4k sample. Bigger number doesn’t mean better results.
That said, I’m not sure how to get representation from certain subgroups of the population, like the “never engages with polls” or “lies specifically to fuck with your data” subgroups.
Yes, It was easier to do truly representative polls, when people loved answering questions and everybody had a landline.
I remember a time when the phone or doorbell would ring and I would get excited to know who it was.
Now I seriously consider setting up a series of mirrors so that I can see who is at the door without giving up my ability to pretend like no one is home and my phone ringing causes an emotion somewhere between worry and rage.
Same!
But isn’t it a bit sad, we’ve all become so paranoic whilst at the same time being total oblivious to sharing lots of data, just because we want to know what the kitten did to the alligator?
I’m just tired of people trying to sell me shit. Or beg. Like I know I’m not interested 3 words in to the spiel but still feel like an asshole if I just say no and close the door or hang up the phone.
Though I did eventually tell my phone provider to put me on their no call list for their internet marketing because I got tired of them trying to get me to switch to their less good internet package.
Hoping (but not holding my breath) that we, as a society, squash the whole data broker thing sometime relatively soon, though.
aw man i missed the poll i would have voted “fuck no” to chatbot integration
Would you rather have a AI or have your browser 2x slower?
That is the kind questions that were asked
No that was a different poll. This one asked “do you want ‘enhanced privacy’ or a chatbot in the sidebar” which, of course, is a false dichotomy.
lol. I’d take a browser that’s 10x slower as long as it has no AI or crypto.
Yeah but in that situation wouldn’t you just not use the AI?
I think this is more about wasting development times and what features are actually in the browser.
I like having TLS in my browser
Okay someone has to say it.
The second F in Firefox is NOT capitalized.
I’m more privy to “_fireFox” when declaring my browser.
No shit
Its shocking how out of touch they are
Almost none of the people who are excited about AI know anything about computer science. I say this someone who always encounters idiots claiming my computer science degree will soon be obsolete because of AI… lol
I get this in penetration testing too.
The AI has never successfully hacked (technically it’s not hacking because it’s authorized but you get my point) any system of even moderate complexity. That doesn’t mean the system is secure it just means the AI isn’t good at it.
The main issue is it’s not good at “if X therefore Y kind of thinking”, It may very well successfully identify a system as having a particular type of architecture but then it doesn’t follow through with the connotations of that.
I may not have to write all my own reports anymore, but I’m still going to have to do the job.
please for the love of god almighty dont ad a chatbot or any other kind of gipity! even if one disregards all the concerns about privacy, software bloat and energy usage (climate change), one has to remember the purpose of firefox, or any other browser for that matter: loading websites. nothing more nothing less.
I wish Mozilla would ask the end users what we want.
This is way a too revolutionary idea.
I wish Mozilla would just strip all the extraneous junk from Firefox aside from what is truly necessary for web browsing. No crypto, no Pocket, no chatbot integration, nothing AI related, etc. Any and all additional features should be implemented via optional plugins. They could rename the project something like Phoenix or Firebird or something like that.
Is there crypto stuff in Firefox? Also I like the Pocket integration…
I bet they wouldn’t be so dependent on that google money if they stopped trying to chase every tech trend that pops up regardless of interest or popularity.
My perception of Firefox users is that most of us use Firefox for a reason, and thats usually some variation of moving away from big tech bullshit. I COULD be wrong but I certainly dont think so lol.
Where would the money come from then? donations? Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people and downscale.
I think it’s too late for them to switch direction, not without a lot of people getting laid off. Though maybe that will ultimately happen if they finally end up bankrupt.
Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people, and downscale
I reckon I do. Google is like 80% of their funding or some shit, which hinders other search products while affecting user experience in other ways as well due to their influence. If they reined in the scope of their product, they could work on a lower budget which might allow them to work towards breaking free of that oversight. As I mentioned, I don’t think most Firefox users want half this crap they’re working on anyway, but they’re caught in the tech “infinite growth” loop where they ““have”” to crank out bs features or else be considered irrelevant.
Just make a solid browser, work in solid mod support so I can make it my own, and maintain it. I have my own tools to use instead of pocket and whatever else, I don’t need Mozilla to do that.
In terms of workers being let go, if they scale back they can at least let people go in a respectful manner instead of them just showing up to a sign on the door lol.
My worry is that the other 20% might actually come from other forms of partnerships and integrations not unlike what they probably had in mind with this, and that dropping Google might actually make them more dependent on seeking this kind of initiatives, not less.
I don’t know how many people you actually need to maintain a browser. But if it’s actually possible to do it without any kind of money from any of those sources in a way that can be sustained, then it would make more sense to make a fork (or alternative, like Ladybird) and just use that.
Like I said, I think it’s too late for Mozilla to shift course, I don’t expect they’ll ever do that. At least not until they are forced by a competing project if it happens to become successful (or a similar huge wake up call that leaves them no alternative).
