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Orbit by Mozilla

orbitbymozilla.com

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Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#261

Post by cge »

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.

Orbit by Mozilla is a product of the non-non-profit Mozilla Corporation [1], not the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.

[1]: https://orbitbymozilla.com/terms

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#262

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

pixxel wrote: post #243
mentalgear wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How often does the Bing API go offline? Meanwhile, every single google search I carry out includes, right at the top, 'AI' generated nonsense which is sometimes wildly inaccurate. DDG never does that.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#263

Post by Kuinox »

mentalgear wrote: post #248
Kuinox wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a local device LLM, outdated of a whole year, which is massive for LLMs, running on servers.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.

I don't see any indication that they use any RAG. It still doesn't explain why they use an old model.

More recent models can run on any phone and have better quality than the model they are currently using.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#264

Post by traspler »

thiht wrote: post #244

Such a weird domain name, why not orbit.mozilla.com? This looks like a phishing attempt

Yeah, I really don‘t understand why companies on one side try everything in their power to teach people to be vigilant of phishing and then do stuff like this. Azure does it too with www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com I always feel like one of these days I will get phished if those are the domains they force me to use :(

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#265

Post by mrweasel »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #260

Am I the only person who isn't hugely interested in summarizing emails? I don't want emails summarized because that bypasses a tell-tale sign that said email isn't worth reading in the first place.

I kinda want to run some of our CEOs emails through summarizing, because I feel that there's a very real chance that I'll just get a black page back.

Other than that, I'm with you. The need for summarizing is a symptom of our increasingly poor communication and degrading writing skills. That, and SEO optimization which attempts to hit as many keywords as possible.

We're heading in a direction where people will use LLMs to pad their writing, so it will appear more substantial then it actually is. The receiver will then parse it though another LLM, because the writing has now become to convoluted, or they simply don't have the time for a ten page essay (in which case the none padded draft would have sufficed).

Admittedly I have found a few useful cases for LLMs, mostly related to text parsing and information extraction, which can be seen as summarizing I suppose, but mostly I have a pretty negative view of LLMs. Part of it may be me getting older and not fully understanding how they work, partly it's also their deployment in areas where I believe communication should be human to human.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#266

Post by wyclif »

mschild wrote: post #221
rtpg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 uses advanced telemetry by default. There is a very fundamental critique here: a service being offered for free like this is being subsidized, messing with the general market dynamics tha…

Fair enough. However, first of all, it's still in beta. They’re likely using it to gather feedback on its performance. Also, there’s nothing on the site that says it will remain free. Considering Mozilla has introduced paid services like VPN, and given the cost of running LLMs, it’s unlikely it will stay free. Also consider that some free use, for example 5 summaries per hour or whatever, is a pretty basic offer for…

Does Orbit not work with Firefox Developer Edition? I had the browser open, but after downloading the extension it didn't seem to detect it or install it.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#267

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

mrweasel wrote: post #265
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #260

Am I the only person who isn't hugely interested in summarizing emails? I don't want emails summarized because that bypasses a tell-tale sign that said email isn't worth reading in the first place.

I kinda want to run some of our CEOs emails through summarizing, because I feel that there's a very real chance that I'll just get a black page back. Other than that, I'm with you. The need for summarizing is a symptom of our increasingly poor communication and degrading writing skills. That, and SEO optimization which attempts to hit as many keywords as possible. We're heading in a direction where people will use LL…

[Obligatory cartoon](https://marketoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/230327.n...).

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#268

Post by nullc »

Just seeing the title as announcing some new mozilla service my first thought was "What personal data does this new mozilla feature send to cloudflare?" -- turns out the answer was emails and documents but to their own google cloud accounts rather than cloudflare.

Of course, no option to use a local model even though the one they're using is small enough that its perfectly reasonable to use locally. Even on a cell phone.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#269

Post by worksonmine »

IshKebab wrote: post #205
silisili wrote: post #168

Mozilla will spend any amount it takes to do anything but build a better browser.

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…

> Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I checked they were fannying around requiring nightly builds and whitelisting extensions...

uBlock origin has been one of the allowed extensions for years. As far as I know it's the only browser allowing extensions on phones. It's a shame the allowed extensions is limited compared to desktop but I use uBlock everywhere anyway. What adblocker are you trying to install?

You shouldn't use your browser as your password manager, sometimes you might need them in another context and that creates friction.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#270

Post by andyjohnson0 »

IshKebab wrote: post #242
ksenzee wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> make the app drawer search open in Firefox

Curious about you mean here. On my android phone the "search for more apps" link in the app drawer search goes to the Play Store app. Why would you want it to open a browser?

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