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Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

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Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#61

Post by netsharc »

jamesgill wrote: post #2

Why not make them disabled by default , with the option to turn them on?

I think Facebook did a study that making options opt-in means only a tiny tiny percentage of users will ever activate them. People never look around in settings.

I suppose if - after you click away the popup that says "Thank you for loving Firefox"(1) - a popup shows that says "Hey, hey, look at me, look we have this new feature, it'll blow you away. Do you want to enable it?" would be obnoxious but satisfies the idea of "opt-in".

(1) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1791524 - I still remember how icked I was seeing this popup.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#62

Post by School-Cotton »

wtallis wrote: post #37
yoavm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love threads about Mozilla. New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers. Mozilla says they'll add a killswitch for all AI features (so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI minority will be happy), and people blame them for not having it as an enable-switch. Whatever they do, they simply cannot win. I'm personally starting to suspect the main issue with Mozilla i…

Mozilla has a recurring problem with being unable to provide the simple, obvious right answer . When they re-wrote Firefox for Android, they were unable to give the simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensi…

> simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensions, and took three years from shipping Fenix as stable before they had a broad open extension ecosystem up and running again.

That answer is not as obvious to me as you claim it is. I don't use any browser extensions except 1password, which I would have no reason to use on a phone (at least assuming Android has builtin password manager functionality like iOS does).

I think you overestimate what fraction of people care about extensions.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#63

Post by forgotpwd16 »

freehorse wrote: post #56
forgotpwd16 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summarization is using a chosen cloud-based AI provider.

Are you sure? I see a huge spike in CPU when I long-click on a link to see the preview and summary. This is the newest summarization feature, not the older one with the chatbot on the side.

Ah, didn't know they moved to local models. My comment was about the old chatbot-based feature.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#64

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

butz wrote: post #40

Firefox should release a separate build - "base", "core", "classic" - clearly, I am not a marketing person, but idea behind it, that this is only a browser without any extra features added. No "AI", no studies, no account sync. Only bare minimum browser, that allows user to do their internet things and, if they ever desire, will install all extra bells and whistles as extensions. No need to agree to any EULA either (…

I'm pretty sure ESR is a different thing, but yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I think it even should be relatively easy, insofar as that a lot of the non-base functionality is in built-in extensions?

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#65

Post by catapart »

dblohm7 wrote: post #57
joduplessis wrote: post #11

> We've been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I'm sure it'll ship with a less murderous name, but that's how seriously and absolutely we're taking this. Honestly, is anybody reading what's getting written anymore? If it gets taken seriously it would ship with an enable-AI button, not the other way round.

> If it gets taken seriously it would ship with an enable-AI button, not the other way round. Like the one described in the subsequent toot? > All AI features will also be opt-in. I think there are some grey areas in what 'opt-in' means to different people (e.g. is a new toolbar button opt-in?)... https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500918701463

I was about to use a quote to show you that "no, it's not like what is described in the thread", but you included the salient bit in the second quote, yourself.

It's not a gray area, and "opt-in" isn't something to be weasled-worded around. If the browser has the capability, I don't want it. I want to be able to add it with a plugin, and that's it. Plugins should have full control to whatever is necessary (same as adblock stuff; plenty of security but enough "user beware" to allow truly useful utilities). And AI features should all be plugins. Separate ones, if I had my way, but bundles if that makes more sense. I do not and will not need AI to browse. It's an enhancement. The core product (or at least ONE OF the products offered) should allow me to do without the enhancement. And opt in if I want to. There's nothing gray there, and I'm so fucking sick of mozilla trying to pull this "we disagree with common terminology" horseshit.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#66

Post by bigstrat2003 »

netsharc wrote: post #61
jamesgill wrote: post #2

Why not make them disabled by default , with the option to turn them on?

I think Facebook did a study that making options opt-in means only a tiny tiny percentage of users will ever activate them. People never look around in settings. I suppose if - after you click away the popup that says "Thank you for loving Firefox"(1) - a popup shows that says "Hey, hey, look at me, look we have this new feature, it'll blow you away. Do you want to enable it?" would be obnoxious but satisfies the ide…

> making options opt-in means only a tiny tiny percentage of users will ever activate them

Why exactly should I, a user, care about this? I don't want useless crap shoved in my face, period. I don't care that people might not turn on someone's pet feature if they don't enable it by default.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#67

Post by smlavine »

School-Cotton wrote: post #62
wtallis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has a recurring problem with being unable to provide the simple, obvious right answer . When they re-wrote Firefox for Android, they were unable to give the simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensi…

> simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensions, and took three years from shipping Fenix as stable before they had a broad open extension ecosystem up and running again. That answer is not as obvious to me…

I use Firefox on Android perhaps entirely because it supports uBlock Origin and my other extensions.

I would guess that of people that would ever go out of their way to use a non-Chrome browser on Android, the fraction who care about extensions is pretty significant.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#68

Post by ekr____ »

gldrk wrote: post #28
yoavm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love threads about Mozilla. New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers. Mozilla says they'll add a killswitch for all AI features (so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI minority will be happy), and people blame them for not having it as an enable-switch. Whatever they do, they simply cannot win. I'm personally starting to suspect the main issue with Mozilla i…

It’s easy to bash Mozilla because it is failing. Their usage share is a statistical error, and most of it comes from being shipped with Ubuntu. Firefox badly needs a value proposition beyond not being Chromium-based.

> Their usage share is a statistical error, and most of it comes from being shipped with Ubuntu.

This is not true, and is easily verifiable for yourself.

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware

The vast majority of Firefox usage is on Windows.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#69

Post by JoeBOFH »

School-Cotton wrote: post #62
wtallis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has a recurring problem with being unable to provide the simple, obvious right answer . When they re-wrote Firefox for Android, they were unable to give the simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensi…

> simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensions, and took three years from shipping Fenix as stable before they had a broad open extension ecosystem up and running again. That answer is not as obvious to me…

I am speaking from only my personal experience, but I would say the vast majority of Firefox users are using Firefox to avoid Chrome and Chrome likes. That being said I would say they are then more likely and inclined to also utilize extensions.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#70

Post by mindcrash »

marricks wrote: post #60
joduplessis wrote: post #11

> We've been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I'm sure it'll ship with a less murderous name, but that's how seriously and absolutely we're taking this. Honestly, is anybody reading what's getting written anymore? If it gets taken seriously it would ship with an enable-AI button, not the other way round.

Literally every other browser and most tech companies are shoving AI down users throats. Firefox isn't missing the boat by neglecting AI, they're missing it by being an alternative which reminds us how nice things can be without it. The past 15 years has been a slow decline while they were trying to prove some relevancy outside of their core product. With mobile browsers being locked down a decline was going to happe…

The solution for the (as of yet) small group of people who cares about these things is very simple: community driven forks.

With the bonus that you also get a set of great (and per fork different yet handy) features.

These include:

Waterfox (Firefox) - https://www.waterfox.com/

Zen Browser (Firefox) - https://zen-browser.app/

Librewolf (Firefox) - https://librewolf.net/

Helium (Chrome/Chromium) - https://helium.computer/

Ungoogled Chromium (Chrome/Chromium) - https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

Also as one of the major players, Vivaldi already made a stand against AI and forcefully including (agentic) AI in the web browser: https://vivaldi.com/blog/keep-exploring/. It's a Chromium based browser with a lot of nice features and deep customization options: https://vivaldi.com/

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