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Orbit by Mozilla

orbitbymozilla.com

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Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#241

Post by antonvs »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #228
BadHumans wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a profit to Google digging around in the information people send them? Are there long and vague terms of service documents backed by a pile of lawyers? There you go, incentive and means. I'm not even confident companies would see that as a problem when it was raised with them directly, in much the same way that Microsoft hosting all the corporate email seems to be just fine.

The disincentive is far higher than the incentive, and the TOS have been scrutinized deeply by some of the biggest enterprises on the planet. GCP is not a consumer service like Gmail or Maps.

As the comment above suggested, any information to the contrary would be business-destroying for GCloud. Many of their enterprise users have strict requirements about access to and use of their data.

Re the example of Microsoft corporate email, much the same situation applies. If Microsoft were mining that corporate customer data and using it or reselling it, enterprises would dump them in a heartbeat.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#242

Post by IshKebab »

ksenzee wrote: post #225
IshKebab wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their browser is fine. But so is Chrome, and Chrome wins by default because it's installed by default on Android and Android really pushes you to it. Once you're using Chrome on Android and have all your passwords saved there, Firefox is a difficult sell. I can't think of a single Firefox feature that's better than "I don't have to faff around with passwords". Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I check…

I agree with your logic but I think the facts lead to the opposite conclusion, because uBlock Origin is now both easy and painless to use with Firefox on Android. That's why every Android user should now have Firefox installed. And if you're using Firefox on Android, why not use it on desktop too with Firefox Sync? I don't actually know how good the Firefox password manager is (I use 1Password) but it's on both deskt…

Ah I didn't know they've finally done that. I'll have to give it another try. If the password manager works well (e.g. with apps) and I can make the app drawer search open in Firefox then I'll probably switch.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#243

Post by pixxel »

mentalgear wrote: post #187
FireInsight wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very similar service is https://duck.ai/ from DDG.

Definitely like DuckDuckGo - I have recently moved from Google to DDG as I noticed it serves the same, and even better plus privacy-first, results. Yet what you provide is not quite the same: An AI Chat Website vs a Browser Extension (Orbit).

When the Bing API went offline a short while back, the DDG website was a blank page. No fall back, nothing. A Bing wrapper with ‘trust us’ privacy marketing.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#245

Post by sltkr »

kome wrote: post #192
mentalgear wrote: post #181

I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely use…

[flagged]

You're assuming there is a single HN hivemind. In reality different companies cater to different audiences with different values, and you'll hear from a different subset of HN users on each topic.

Mozilla users care more about privacy than e.g. Microsoft or Google users do, so when Mozilla adds tracking to one of their products, they get more criticism from their users than their competitors would. This isn't unexpected or hypocritical of those users.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#246

Post by [deleted] »

caoilte wrote: post #227
mentalgear wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with your sentiment on cost, especially regarding exploding co2 emissions for LLMs, but it sounds like you're putting the blame mostly on Mozilla for what is market dynamics in capitalism, with most of the contenders being heavily VC-funded, and where Mozilla maybe just tries to signal that "AI" can be done responsibly also. If they don't try, people will blame them for "being late to the game/out of touch…

people will blame anyone for anything. mozilla is a non-profit so doesn't need to respond to market signals. it would do a lot more and a lot more sustainably if it focused on the core mission of its browser. but these costly "big swings" justify outrageous compensation packages for its executives and so it lets its browser wither.

[deleted]

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#247

Post by mentalgear »

caoilte wrote: post #227
mentalgear wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with your sentiment on cost, especially regarding exploding co2 emissions for LLMs, but it sounds like you're putting the blame mostly on Mozilla for what is market dynamics in capitalism, with most of the contenders being heavily VC-funded, and where Mozilla maybe just tries to signal that "AI" can be done responsibly also. If they don't try, people will blame them for "being late to the game/out of touch…

people will blame anyone for anything. mozilla is a non-profit so doesn't need to respond to market signals. it would do a lot more and a lot more sustainably if it focused on the core mission of its browser. but these costly "big swings" justify outrageous compensation packages for its executives and so it lets its browser wither.

Being a non-profit that does not have a share-price, I'm curious if you have evidence for validity of your assessment of "big swings resulting in compensation packages".

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#248

Post by mentalgear »

Kuinox wrote: post #235
mentalgear wrote: post #181

I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely use…

This is a local device LLM, outdated of a whole year, which is massive for LLMs, running on servers. Privacy side, there is little reason to run this on servers, a Pixel 6 could run 7B models at 5 token/s a year ago. It's bad by incompetence, 7B models of a year ago were terribly bad. It's not privacy-first enough, as it's possible to run the AI directly in the browser, but for some reason they didnt do it.

It's unlikely that they are doing only a plain old LLM query. It's probably a more advanced setup (RAG, Page/LLM Summary Result Querying, maybe even some sort of Summarization validation checking).

Also consider accessibility for low-end devices and development countries.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#250

Post by bowsamic »

bayindirh wrote: post #223
bowsamic wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but you specifically said “funded by” and Gecko dev is funded almost entirely by Google

How many daily-driveable browser engines we have today? - Blink: Chromium and their friends. - Webkit: Safari specific, on iOS and macOS only. - Gecko: Firefox and its a few forks. First two are forks of KHTML, which is dead by the end of KDE5 era. So? You have a cross platform evil and lesser evil (by judging the development financing). What you do? On the other hand, I don't finance Google by using the browser itse…

Yeah they’re all funded by Google, so by your explicitly stated principle you can’t use any of them
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