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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

#101

Post by homebrewer »

gldrk wrote: post #87
ekr____ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I am surprised. Does that imply most GNU/Linux users go out of their way to install Chromium actually? Ubuntu and Firefox have a similar market share.

No idea about most Linux users, but here's what little we know for sure:

Arch pkgstats (opt-in): ~64% FF, ~41% Chromium, ~17% Chrome

https://pkgstats.archlinux.de/fun/Browsers/current

Debian popcon (opt-in): 2.2% Firefox, ~10.3% Chromium

https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=firefox

https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=chromium

Flathub installs: 10kk Firefox, 10kk Chrome, 1.8kk Chromium

https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.mozilla.firefox

https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.google.Chrome

https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.chromium.Chromium

snapcraft statistics isn't public, afaik.

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

#102

Post by BeetleB »

Could someone summarize the problem with Firefox's AI features?

At least when I last checked (months ago), none of those features that involve communicating with external servers would work unless you configure them to (i.e. provide credentials to an LLM provider).

Was I wrong? Have things changed?

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

#103

Post by glenstein »

ahartmetz wrote: post #94
glenstein wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator of VLC has publicly noted dollar amounts they could raise if they either sold or compromised VLC, but it came and went without controversy. OBS Studio, 7-Zip, Notepad++, and Nextcloud have all published offers they've received and declined, or quoted per-install payment figures. In fact, it's practically a rite of passage for open source projects to talk about the value of their work in terms of what they…

There is a difference between "FYI, we're rejecting a ton of money for us, that's how serious we are about not selling out" and "We ran the numbers, and on balance, taking these 30% more money doesn't seem like the right thing to do because it would be against our stated mission statement". The second one doesn't sound like real conviction.

Thank you for directly addressing my point! I disagree but I respect your prioritization of of substance. I agree that notionally there's a difference but (1) they never said they "ran the numbers", (2) there are other good reasons for having access to that data that don't involve selling out, and (3) this all hinges on squinting and interpreting and projecting, and splitting the difference on linguistic interpretation is about as weak as circumstantial evidence can possibly get.

Real argument: "they said they're doing "privacy preserving" ads, look at this post where they announce it". Real argument "they say they're putting AI in the browser, I don't like that. Here's the statement!" Real argument: " they purchased Anonym and are dabbling in adtech, here's the news article announcing the acquisition!"

Not real argument: "They said they didn't want to take money to kill ad blockers but if you squint maybe it kinda implies they considered it, at least if you don't consider other reasons they might be aware of that figure." At best it's like 0.001% circumstantial evidence that has to be reconciled with their history of opposing the Manifest changes. If reading tea leaves matters so much, then certainly their more explicit statements need to matter too.

The thing that's unfortunate here is I would like to think this goes without saying, but ordinary standards of charitable interpretation are so far in the rear view mirror that I don't know that people comfortable making these accusations would even recognize charitable interpretation as a shared value. Not in the sense of bending over backwards to apologize or make excuses, but in the ordinary Daniel Dennett sense of a built-in best practice to minimize one's own biases.

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

#104

Post by someNameIG »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #26
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…

> New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers. New CEO says they've run the numbers and decided to not kill adblockers, leading to people asking why exactly they were running those numbers (if it was an actual ideological commitment, the numbers wouldn't matter). > Mozilla says they'll add a killswitch for all AI features (so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI m…

> Well, yes. If you build a userbase out of power users and folks who care about privacy and control...

Is that their core user base, or just the vocal user base online? Only 5-10% of their user base have UBO installed (FF has almost 200 million users, extension store reports ~10 million UBO installs).

Firefox isn't LibreWolf, it's user base are just average people, not much different than that of Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

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

#105

Post by nemomarx »

mindcrash wrote: post #70
marricks wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.compu…

Unfortunately the more interesting ones use Chromium. I wish Zen was better developed and less "aesthetic", it might be worth a shot.

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

#106

Post by nkrisc »

yoavm wrote: post #14
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.

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…

The fact they need to add an “AI kill switch” is the problem.

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

#107

Post by Krssst »

ivanmontillam wrote: post #52
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…

I am fine with it being a disable-button, as long it's persistent once set. What I honestly fear is that while AI-features are disabled, popups inviting me to enable them again. That, or them auto-enabling them on every update like sometimes has happened with `browser.ml.enable` flag on `about:config`.

They don't do that for any feature, no reason they'd do it for AI.

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

#108

Post by ToucanLoucan »

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…

> Even when they're trying to do the right thing, they're strangely afraid to commit to doing the right thing when it comes to specifics. They won't say "never" even when it should be easy.

Honestly, and it's hard for me to say this: I've come around. I still use and love Firefox, but emotionally I'm detaching from it, because fundamentally: all the other FOSS I use is an actual, factual, open source project. And Firefox the browser is FOSS, but Firefox the corporation isn't, and the problem is the corporation seems to be in charge, not the project, which means all their priorities are to make money and drive donations, not what's best for the user necessarily. It means all their communications are written in Corporatese, with vague waffling about everything they're asked and non-committal statements because the next quarter might demand they about-face, as they've done numerous times.

I love the browser. I increasingly find myself disillusioned with the business entity that rides on it's back, and frankly wish it would sod off. Take the money they're getting, and give it to the people actually building the product. Defaulting AI features to off costs Firefox absolutely nothing and they still won't do it, because of this irrational FOMO that has gripped the entirety of the executive class in charge of seemingly every business on earth. It's pathetic, and it lacks vision.

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

#109

Post by Aardwolf »

homebrewer wrote: post #74
JoeBOFH wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According to Mozilla's own stats, most Firefox users do not have any extensions at all: > Has Add-on shows the percentage of Firefox Desktop clients with user-installed add-ons. > December 8, 2025 > 45.4% https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior Note that language packs are counted as extensions. Some have disabled telemetry, of course, but how many? Here we can only rely on our own observations, and of all…

But what if you weigh this by usage time? The firefoxes without extensions might be hardly ever used

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

#110

Post by dang »

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.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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