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I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

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Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#181

Post by whalesalad »

noir_lord wrote: post #170
_verandaguy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's specifically been opt-out: `browser.ml.enable` is set to `true` in `about:config` in recent versions, and even disabling that doesn't get rid of the "AI assistant" option in the right-click dropdown menu.

browser.ml.chat.enabled set to false browser.ml.chat.menu set to false browser.ml.chat.page set to false browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge set to false browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge set to false browser.ml.chat.shortcuts set to false browser.ml.chat.sidebar set to false browser.ml.enable set to false browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled set to false browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled set to false browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabl…

So sick of all these hacks. I've been a Firefox user for decades but it's time to throw in the towel.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#182

Post by Synaesthesia »

rs186 wrote: post #86

Unless I am horribly mistaken, using Firefox is an intentional choice by a vanishing group of people. If you are just a little bit less careful or determined, you would likely be using chrome or a chrome variant, definitely not Firefox. These users are choosing a browser that has slightly worse performance, has fewer features (e.g. WebUSB) and is seeing more problems with Cloudflare/Google captcha every day. All of t…

On Linux and Windows it is IMO the best browser and it's pretty good on MacOS too, although Safari is still my fave on that platform.

It's stable, got good UI and light on resources. The excellent adblocking is a huge feature.

For the average Joe user, they might want some AI features but most techy users have already got that figured out.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#183

Post by [deleted] »

vidarh wrote: post #76
andy99 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of the features doesn’t bother me. It’s the constant nagging about them. I can’t use a google product without being harassed to the point of not being able to work by offers to “help me write” or whatever. Having the feature on a menu somewhere would be fine. The problem is the confluence of new features now becoming possible, and companies no longer building software for their users but as vehicles to…

The worst one w/Google is how they've highjacked long-press on the power button on Android, and you can change what it does but your options are arbitrarily limited.

[deleted]

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#184

Post by Theodores »

everdrive wrote: post #4

Does anyone want AI in anything? I can see the value of navigating to an LLM and asking specific questions, but generally speaking I don't want that just running / waiting on my machine as I open a variety of applications. It's a huge waste of resources and for most normal people is an edge case.

AI is fine for phones and consumer operating systems, you don't have to use the features but they are there for you.

However, I think there is a demand of at least one (me) for a Linux system with no AI whatsoever. Firefox could make itself the browser of choice for the minority that don't want any AI. Sure, you can configure it to be AI free, but that is a bit like being able to be vegan at a meaty restaurant where you can always spit out the meat.

Firefox has been struggling of late and they don't do scoped CSS, which makes it as good as IE6 to me, but I think they could get their mojo back by being cheerleaders for the minority that have decided to go AI free. This doesn't mean AI is bad, but there is a healthy niche there.

Apart from anything else, there are new browsers like Atlas that are totally AI. I would say that an AI enabled Firefox is not going to compete with Atlas, but AI free is a market that could be dominated by them.

There is going to be a growing market for no AI. In my own case, my dad was 'pig butchered by an AI chatbot' to die penniless, so I have opinions on AI. Sam Altman would not want to meet me on a bad day, unless he has some AI that specialises in extreme ultraviolence.

Then there is an ever growing army of people that have lost their job to AI to get nothing but rejections from AI powered job boards.

Then there are those that have lost friends to AI psychosis, then there are those that have no water and massive utility bills due to AI data centers. The list goes on!

Sounds like I need to put together an AI free operating system with AI free browser for those that have their own reasons for resenting AI!

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#185

Post by noir_lord »

whalesalad wrote: post #181
noir_lord wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

browser.ml.chat.enabled set to false browser.ml.chat.menu set to false browser.ml.chat.page set to false browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge set to false browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge set to false browser.ml.chat.shortcuts set to false browser.ml.chat.sidebar set to false browser.ml.enable set to false browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled set to false browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled set to false browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabl…

So sick of all these hacks. I've been a Firefox user for decades but it's time to throw in the towel.

Certainly starting to feel that way isn't it.

It's frustrating that the choice is between "becoming bad" (firefox) and "much worse" (chrome).

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#186

Post by thih9 »

cwillu wrote: post #129
thih9 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t use a google product without being harassed (...) You can disable AI in Google products. E.g. in Gmail: go to Settings (the gear icon), click See all settings, navigate to the General tab, scroll down to find Smart features and personalization and uncheck the checkbox. Source: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/15604322

And will that work permanently, or will I have to hunt down another setting in another month when they stuff it into another workflow I don't want it in?

Depends; in the EU and selected countries that setting was always opt-in (i.e. it was never enabled for you). Elsewhere I guess the user has to periodically check their settings, or privacy policies, etc, which in practice sounds impossible.

> Important: By default, smart feature settings are off if you live in: The European Economic Area, Japan, Switzerland, United Kingdom

(same source as in grandparent comment).

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#187

Post by rpdillon »

RansomStark wrote: post #25
everdrive wrote: post #4

Does anyone want AI in anything? I can see the value of navigating to an LLM and asking specific questions, but generally speaking I don't want that just running / waiting on my machine as I open a variety of applications. It's a huge waste of resources and for most normal people is an edge case.

In firefox yeah! I use it often. I have it connected to a local Gemma model running in ollama and use it to quickly summarize webpages, nobody really wants to read 15 minutes worth of personal anecdotes before getting to that one paragraph that actually has relevant information, and for finding information within a page, kinda like ctrl-f on steroids. The machine is sitting there anyway and the extra cost in electric…

The default AI integration doesn't seem to support this. The only thing I could find that does is called PageAssist, and it's a third-party extension. Is that what you're using?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/page-assist/

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#188

Post by meindnoch »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #16

I do, the "go to a website to use AI" era is taking too long, I want full integration. I don't want to use websites or apps, I want to ask for things using human language and get a human-like response. I tire of all these interfaces.

yuck.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#189

Post by Arisaka1 »

amarant wrote: post #115
andy99 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of the features doesn’t bother me. It’s the constant nagging about them. I can’t use a google product without being harassed to the point of not being able to work by offers to “help me write” or whatever. Having the feature on a menu somewhere would be fine. The problem is the confluence of new features now becoming possible, and companies no longer building software for their users but as vehicles to…

Clippy really is back

Clippy only helped with very specific products, and was compensating for really odd UI/UX design decisions.

LLM's are a product that want to data collect and get trained by a huge amount of inputs, with upvotes and downvotes to calibrate their quality of output, with the hope that they will eventually become good enough to replace the very people they trained them.

The best part is, we're conditioned to treat those products as if they are forces of nature. An inevitability that, like a tornado, is approaching us. As if they're not the byproduct of humans.

If we consider that, then we the users get the shorter end of the stick, and we only keep moving forward with it because we've been sold to the idea that whatever lies at the peak is a net positive for everyone.

That, or we just don't care about the end result. Both are bad in their own way.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#190

Post by natebc »

thih9 wrote: post #122
andy99 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of the features doesn’t bother me. It’s the constant nagging about them. I can’t use a google product without being harassed to the point of not being able to work by offers to “help me write” or whatever. Having the feature on a menu somewhere would be fine. The problem is the confluence of new features now becoming possible, and companies no longer building software for their users but as vehicles to…

> I can’t use a google product without being harassed (...) You can disable AI in Google products. E.g. in Gmail: go to Settings (the gear icon), click See all settings, navigate to the General tab, scroll down to find Smart features and personalization and uncheck the checkbox. Source: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/15604322

It needs to be much more granular than it is. For example: Turning that setting off also disables the (very, very old) Updates/Promotions/Social/Forums tabs in the Gmail interface. ONE checkbox in the sea of gmail options?
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