I'm worried that this will require yet another config change on top of the already-ridiculous pile. (A listing was discussed 3 months ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45696752 )
Of all the unnecessary AI integrations; firefox is the one I am least concerned or annoyed about. I will however be disabling anything AI related they introduce.
The real question is whether this sets a precedent for how browsers should handle feature creep in general. Browsers have quietly accumulated telemetry, sponsored content, pocket integrations, VPN upsells — AI is just the latest.
What I like about Mozilla's approach here is the single toggle for all current and future AI. That's a genuine concession to user agency rather than the usual whack-a-mole of about:config flags. If every new feature category got this treatment (a clear, discoverable off switch), browsers would be in a much better place trust-wise.
The deeper issue is that Mozilla needs revenue diversification beyond the Google search deal, and AI features are their bet on that. So the incentive to make the toggle hard to find or slowly degrade the non-AI experience will always be there. I'd love to see them prove that wrong.
I am tired of turning features off. At this point I just want a boring browser that handles html/css/js, bookmarks, tabs (should sleep inactive tabs), plugins (for my chosen password manager and ad blocker), and page zoom. Those are the only features I actually use regularly.
That's it, I would be willing to make a one time purchase for that, no subscriptions... Ok, I could maybe be convinced for a subscription if it was a low yearly one.
One of the things I wanted to do is improved beat detection. Several music apps have some sort of tempo detection (you tap on the desk and the microphone catches it and figures out the tempo).
While I can certainly use audio analysis to do that, it has its limits. If I wanted to detect a full drum pattern (the user taps on different objects for kick and snare, and the app fills them), something machine-learny sounds much more appropriate for the job.
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Your poke at the issue "for what? summarising web pages?" is valid though. While I don't have the resources to train those models I mentioned, the resulting weights should be fairly compatible with todays consumer hardware.
I blame the complete and utter lack of imagination of small-to-mid AI labs for the missing variety in that space.
It results in people not being very creative in imagining valid, non-shitty spammy marketing ways of using AI. They exist though.
If accurate, this strikes me as something like malicious compliance.
> Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language.
Machine translation can be useful when you want to get the gist of something in a language you don't know.
> Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages.
OCR? Okay...
> AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names.
What is this feature even trying to do? It sounds like ill-defined trash.
> Link previews, which show key points before you open a link.
Or I could just click the link.
> AI chatbot in the sidebar, which lets you use your chosen chatbot as you browse, including options like Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Le Chat Mistral.
This is the thing that most people are probably complaining about. Lumping the other features in with it is a distraction.
This is a good start, but there is still no way to remove what is sure to be tremendous bloat caused by these features. I would prefer if we could opt to install (or not install) them to begin with.
I remember when they removed the compact UI mode because it was "too much effort" to maintain. But I guess all this crap that no one asked for is fine, right?
I hate FF since some random morons decided it's a good thing on mobile to use the last used folder for bookmarks, instead of the mobile bookmarks folders.
I have several thousand curated bookmarks. And I only discovered too late the new "feature".
Disrupted my former flow (mark on mobile, sort/categorize on desktop)
They could have made this configurable, but no... those smart asses knew better.
I have that GitHub issue where they initially discussed it for iOS bookmarked and screenshoted, to remind myself how utterly stupid some people are.
I hate every sucker involved.
34 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 51.6 ms ] threadWhat I like about Mozilla's approach here is the single toggle for all current and future AI. That's a genuine concession to user agency rather than the usual whack-a-mole of about:config flags. If every new feature category got this treatment (a clear, discoverable off switch), browsers would be in a much better place trust-wise.
The deeper issue is that Mozilla needs revenue diversification beyond the Google search deal, and AI features are their bet on that. So the incentive to make the toggle hard to find or slowly degrade the non-AI experience will always be there. I'd love to see them prove that wrong.
That's it, I would be willing to make a one time purchase for that, no subscriptions... Ok, I could maybe be convinced for a subscription if it was a low yearly one.
Currently, this tech is a sleeper because consumer hardware is not there yet.
Extensions, even websites, could benefit a lot from offering small models on demand and powering client-side features with them.
That is very different from a browser that embeds AI access through an API, and totally acceptable.
1.
I recently made an extension to "bookmark data". It's an auto scraper, but client side.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lidar/eckcmnibplmme...
The user has to pick the elements so the extension knows which selectors to track across similar pages.
While developing it, I imagined a near future in which a small enough model could do that for me.
In fact, if I had the resources, I could probably train one specifically for that and use webnn or onnx or something to deliver it.
2.
I also made a quick drum beat generator https://alganet.github.io/quick-beats/
One of the things I wanted to do is improved beat detection. Several music apps have some sort of tempo detection (you tap on the desk and the microphone catches it and figures out the tempo).
While I can certainly use audio analysis to do that, it has its limits. If I wanted to detect a full drum pattern (the user taps on different objects for kick and snare, and the app fills them), something machine-learny sounds much more appropriate for the job.
---
Your poke at the issue "for what? summarising web pages?" is valid though. While I don't have the resources to train those models I mentioned, the resulting weights should be fairly compatible with todays consumer hardware.
I blame the complete and utter lack of imagination of small-to-mid AI labs for the missing variety in that space.
It results in people not being very creative in imagining valid, non-shitty spammy marketing ways of using AI. They exist though.
It's a great browser, but I always forget the default settings are super stupid. Myself and power users all have it customized to the hilt.
It takes some serious work to get a new new FireFox install working nicely.
> Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language.
Machine translation can be useful when you want to get the gist of something in a language you don't know.
> Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages.
OCR? Okay...
> AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names.
What is this feature even trying to do? It sounds like ill-defined trash.
> Link previews, which show key points before you open a link.
Or I could just click the link.
> AI chatbot in the sidebar, which lets you use your chosen chatbot as you browse, including options like Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Le Chat Mistral.
This is the thing that most people are probably complaining about. Lumping the other features in with it is a distraction.
I have several thousand curated bookmarks. And I only discovered too late the new "feature". Disrupted my former flow (mark on mobile, sort/categorize on desktop)
They could have made this configurable, but no... those smart asses knew better.
I have that GitHub issue where they initially discussed it for iOS bookmarked and screenshoted, to remind myself how utterly stupid some people are. I hate every sucker involved.