I use Firefox personally, where do people who care about privacy go? For those of you who’ve already given up on Firefox (I can understand why..), where did you go?
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Librewolf. It had sensible defaults and just works. I barely care about the privacy aspects. I just don't want to touch the settings
Welp, I guess Firefox forks are gonna get a lot more users in the near future. Hopefully turning off the ai features will be an available option as mentioned, but hopefully they'll be off by default.
At this point, is there any full-featured browser that is neither Blink-based nor burdened by a metric tonne of junk? With the way Firefox is going, Safari might well be the sole survivor, which is not a state of affairs I'm particularly happy with.
I use firefox for work, and I am pretty cool with that. The other "approved" browser we have is edge which is fine, and edge actually replaced Chrome entirely when it was approved. I cant remember what caused Chrome to be dropped, but I imagine it was less impressive than a boatload of opt out AI features.
Now I am going to have to propose the canonisation of one of Firefox's forks, which will be difficult because we are sensitive to supply chain issues.
I was going to switch to Waterfox in light of this news, but a cursory search revealed that it, too, was sold to an advertising company not long ago. While they have published a blog post opposing Mozilla's AI stance, I'm really past the point of giving ad companies any benefit of the doubt.
I'm looking into Librewolf now.
Ideally, you don't need a "turn off" button. If you find the need to add a Disable button, the feature you're adding maybe already too on-the-nose.
How about if I need an AI to read the page, I could just right-click and select? It's the same way how the screenshot feature currently works.
(Wait, I just right-clicked and discovered there's a AI item on the menu. Maybe it's already how it works? If so, then it's not very on-the-nose and I can accept it existing)
> The bulk of Mozilla’s revenue coming from its Google search deal.
Just show a donation message already. If Wikipedia can collect that much donations just for hosting a set of websites, Mozilla, who's doing some really important work for the Internet and maybe humanity at this point, can only collect more.
The thing is, market share reports don't show evidence that Mozilla is doing really important work. From reading the comments here, firefox's literal reason for existing is ad blocking and "not chrome". Compatibility with websites is on the decline, websites breaking on firefox are on the increase. Rust is one of the few positives that I can see yet Mozilla has transferred trademarks and "infrastructure assets" to a new rust foundation of some sort that seems to mean that they're now independent of Mozilla.
The internet market makers think that ad blocking is antisocial, so in fact mozilla's firefox only reason for being is that its not the internets favorite browser which is a hell of a mission statement to offer, but thats as generous an assessment as I can make with those fellows, hell I still use firefox out of habit but I always keep a chrome install for the times firefox just doesn't work, but even then I'm just lazy and even when running firefox I've never installed an ad blocker which seems to increasingly be firefox's reason for existence.
I’m a heavy user of Firefox and AI, and I believe that close collaboration between browsers and AI is a must-have feature. The only question is: can I trust Firefox to do it right?
I've used Firefox for decades, and use Nightly as a daily driver to contribute to development testing.
I like and regularly use the AI sidebar, and I'm interested to see that Firefox does in the AI space.
While I agree that Firefox has wasted time on non-core browser features, AI is not one of those. Browsers are information retrieval and display programs, and AI as a revolutionary information transformation technology is a natural part of that.
32 comments
[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 50.0 ms ] thread> Enzor-DeMeo says it is important that AI features in Firefox are “something people can easily turn off”.
It seems like it should be opt-in instead of opt-out. At the very least, ask up front, and have a single switch to make it like it’s not there at all.
Tried Zen today and it didn't feel right—felt too much like it wanted to be Arc but ended up a bit frankenstein-y in the process.
Open to suggestions that aren't Arc or Brave, if anyone has them!
Now I am going to have to propose the canonisation of one of Firefox's forks, which will be difficult because we are sensitive to supply chain issues.
The browser situation grows more grim by the day.
1. doesn't (and won't) munge personal data
2. will be available in 2035
?
How about if I need an AI to read the page, I could just right-click and select? It's the same way how the screenshot feature currently works.
(Wait, I just right-clicked and discovered there's a AI item on the menu. Maybe it's already how it works? If so, then it's not very on-the-nose and I can accept it existing)
> The bulk of Mozilla’s revenue coming from its Google search deal.
Just show a donation message already. If Wikipedia can collect that much donations just for hosting a set of websites, Mozilla, who's doing some really important work for the Internet and maybe humanity at this point, can only collect more.
The internet market makers think that ad blocking is antisocial, so in fact mozilla's firefox only reason for being is that its not the internets favorite browser which is a hell of a mission statement to offer, but thats as generous an assessment as I can make with those fellows, hell I still use firefox out of habit but I always keep a chrome install for the times firefox just doesn't work, but even then I'm just lazy and even when running firefox I've never installed an ad blocker which seems to increasingly be firefox's reason for existence.
Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491
Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299934
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295268
Make Me CEO of Mozilla
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46303809
sudo apt remove firefox-esr
Done.
So if I don't have any such provider, am I safe from AI?
And what about local models?
I like and regularly use the AI sidebar, and I'm interested to see that Firefox does in the AI space.
While I agree that Firefox has wasted time on non-core browser features, AI is not one of those. Browsers are information retrieval and display programs, and AI as a revolutionary information transformation technology is a natural part of that.