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Orbit by Mozilla

orbitbymozilla.com

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Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#41

Post by hu3 »

koolala wrote: post #10
jsheard wrote: post #3

For those wondering, this uses cloud-hosted AI models. But it's completely free to use so Mozilla is just paying the cloud bills out of pocket. Maybe not the best idea given their increasingly precarious financial situation?

Don't worry, the money will gravitate back towards Mozilla because AI = Search.

I doubt this will ever happen.

The minute Mozilla starts being relevant in search, Google will cut their billions USD/year sponsorship, killing Mozilla in the process.

The incentives are not there.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#42

Post by hussi »

reissbaker wrote: post #32

Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects? Cloud-hosting an outdated tiny LLM that you can't swap out or run locally, to do basic summarization? This just doesn't feel like an area of strategic focus that makes sense for Mozilla. GPUs are expensive, talent to do inference well is expensive, and the actual product they're shipping seems pretty marginally useful at best. If they shipped v…

Zen Browser is based in the newest Firefox version and does have vertical tabs

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#43

Post by neilv »

BadHumans wrote: post #14
neilv wrote: post #7

Huge heading: > Commitment to privacy Buried as the last sentence in a collapsed box at the bottom of the page: > For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. And why is it "...Mozilla's GCP instance", not "We quietly send all your data to Google servers, and everyone pinkie-swears that's totally privacy-respecting"?

Any revelation that Google is siphoning data out of other companies GCP instances would be so earth-shattering I don't think it is happening.

Even on the linked page, Mozilla is arguably being evasive about the fact that they're sending the data out the Internet at all.

We don't know whether this is another time that Mozilla execs have sold out users, or shipped something half-baked and vulnerable.

I'm not saying they're leaking the data (by agreement, or negligence), but Mozilla has mediocre credibility in recent years, and there's nothing on this page that improves that reputation.

Regarding Google, for a long time, their thinking seemed to be "We're Google, so of course anything we do is privacy-respecting", not as guidance, but to justify whatever they wanted to do. Also, every time Google gets caught with their hand in the private information cookie jar, it just mints a new industry standard practice.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#45

Post by kelvinjps10 »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #19
janice1999 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why Mozilla doesn't offer paid privacy respecting services (outside basic sync that already exists) like email, cross platform password storage etc.

Because everyone who cares about it is already using some sort of a service like that, and it’s incredibly niche market so it’s not worth the effort to develop and support such projects.

But imagine if Mozilla would have done this before, like capturing the market now proton has

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#46

Post by endofreach »

hu3 wrote: post #41
koolala wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, the money will gravitate back towards Mozilla because AI = Search.

I doubt this will ever happen. The minute Mozilla starts being relevant in search, Google will cut their billions USD/year sponsorship, killing Mozilla in the process. The incentives are not there.

> The minute Mozilla starts being relevant in search, Google will cut their billions USD/year sponsorship, killing Mozilla in the process. The incentives are not there.

Google needs mozilla more than anyone. It would be a big win for the web if google stopped financing mozilla and had to deal with the consequences.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#48

Post by mattl »

Mozilla has one job: make the standards compliant browser and work with the relevant groups to foster those standards.

Everything else is a waste of time and money and energy.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#50

Post by likeabatterycar »

reissbaker wrote: post #32

Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects? Cloud-hosting an outdated tiny LLM that you can't swap out or run locally, to do basic summarization? This just doesn't feel like an area of strategic focus that makes sense for Mozilla. GPUs are expensive, talent to do inference well is expensive, and the actual product they're shipping seems pretty marginally useful at best. If they shipped v…

> Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects?

Because some project manager had "AI" on his performance goals this year.

Firefox is buggy as hell - which is incomprehensible given its age, but older brother Netscape had the same problem 20-ish years ago. The Netscape 4.x days were absolute hell and you could go hardly a day without the browser crashing.

Despite this, it's packed with nonsense no one asked for like Pocket. Which is a coincidence because "AI assistant for Firefox" is the dictionary definition for redundant things no one asked for, with better alternatives preexisting.

At this point Firefox needs to die and something new and manageable - with energetic developers - needs to take its place. Maybe Microsoft could open source the original Edge engine? The one before they bent over for the long dick of Google Chrome.

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