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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

#161

Post by Tempest1981 »

999900000999 wrote: post #148
Tempest1981 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing everything into a plug-in is architecturally more complex, and less performant... I'm imagining proxying from native code through JavaScript APIs, then back to native code for LLM operations and context storage. But might lead to creation of some new AI extension APIs.

Then ship a FireFoxAI browser for users who want it. Forcing everyone to by default use AI isn't freedom. I might as well just use Chrome.

So now we're debating compile-time feature flags vs run-time, and the overhead of running/maintaining multiple build configs. And picking good names for each... "Firefox Pro with AI" vs "Firefox Lite for Engineers". This isn't what Mozilla needs to be focusing on right now, imo.

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

#162

Post by troupo »

alexgotoi wrote: post #131

This is exactly the kind of boring, unsexy feature that actually builds trust. It’s the opposite of the usual “surprise, here’s an AI sidebar you didn’t ask for and can’t fully disable” pattern. If they want people to try this stuff, the path is pretty simple: ship a browser that treats AI like any other power feature. Off by default, clearly explained, reversible, and preferably shippable as an extension. You can al…

The trust is built by not enabling this by default, and by not burying the "kill switch" somewhere in settings that non-power users will never find.

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

#163

Post by sigmar »

MisterTea wrote: post #149
samschooler wrote: post #23

I'm going to chime in here, I think 1. This is great and Mozilla is listening to it's core fans and 2. I want Firefox to be a competitive browser. Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years. I want my non-tech family members/friends to install Firefox not because I come over at Christmas, but because they want to. Because it's a browser that "just works.…

> this will be a non-starter in 2 years. Why though? Seriously.

Do you ever need a website you're visiting translated?

Have you ever not understood a term or phrase on a website and had to go to wikipedia/urbandictionary/google to explain it?

Have you ever wanted to do a 'fuzzy search' of a 300 page document (where you don't know the exact string of text to ctrl-f, but want to see where they talk about a particular topic)?

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

#164

Post by Saris »

baobun wrote: post #156
Saris wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zen, Waterfox, Librewolf, Floorp.. For android there's Fennec, Iceraven. There are more, those are just the ones I can recall.

Zen and Floorp are not obvious improvements from a privacy and control perspective. Waterfox, Librewolf and Mullvad Browser are worth considering.

Why is that? I remember seeing that Zen strips out the Firefox telemetry.

Librewolf is nice but breaks a lot of stuff, sites that use webrtc or canvas related things, lots of banking sites refuse to load, and some other issues I can't remember.

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

#165

Post by sethops1 »

andrepd wrote: post #138
samschooler wrote: post #23

I'm going to chime in here, I think 1. This is great and Mozilla is listening to it's core fans and 2. I want Firefox to be a competitive browser. Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years. I want my non-tech family members/friends to install Firefox not because I come over at Christmas, but because they want to. Because it's a browser that "just works.…

> Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years. The confidence with which people say these things... s/AI/NFT and I've heard this exact sentence many times before.

Hacker News was borderline insufferable during the 2022/23 NFT craze when all the startups, investments, and headlines were going into whatever new disruption NFTs/blockchain were allegedly going to cause.

At least with AI I do get some value out of asking Gemini questions. But I hardly need or want my web browser to be a chatbot interface.

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

#169

Post by skydhash »

starik36 wrote: post #147
tsimionescu wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you click it, the locally running LLM gets a copy of the web site in the context window, and you get to ask it a prompt, e.g. "summarize this". I'm also now imagining my GPU whirring into life and the accompanying sound of a jetplane getting ready for takeoff, as my battery suddenly starts draining visibly. Local LLMs for are a pipe dream, the technology fundamentally requires far too much computation for any…

That's the point. For things like summarizing a webpage or letting the user ask questions about it, not that much computation is required. An 8B Ollama model installed on a middle of the road MacBook can do this effortlessly today without whirring. In several years, it will probably be all laptops.

But what you would want to summarize a page. If I'm reading a blog, that means that I want to read it, not just a condensed version that might miss the exact information I need for an insight or create something that was never there.

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

#170

Post by ekr____ »

catapart wrote: post #141
ekr____ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I be required to download and ignore your translation feature, when I could just as easily not have it included in the first place? This seems like special pleading. The browser (and any software package) is full of features that some people use and others don't. Just off the top of my head, these include: the password manager, PDF viewer, dev tools, and the extensions store. Each new SKU that the vendor…

lol. I didn't ask for SKUs, I asked for plugins. I wouldn't mind the dev tools, and PDF viewer being plugins too. Again, include those plugins in the default download, just let me have a download that doesn't include them. Modularity to the bone, packaging for the masses. It really is that easy. But, sure, I need to go build it myself because I had the gall to ask "can't I just have the parts I need?"

> lol. I didn't ask for SKUs, I asked for plugins. I wouldn't mind the dev tools, and PDF viewer being plugins too. Again, include those plugins in the default download, just let me have a download that doesn't include them. Modularity to the bone, packaging for the masses.

This is in fact you asking for two SKUs, one with all the plugins (what you call the "default download") and one without ("let me have a download that doesn't include them.")

As for "really is that easy", as usual, it's easy in some cases and not others. To the extent to which things are already modular and developed separately, then yes, it probably is easy. To the extent that things are not currently modular, then it's separate engineering effort to make them so. In some cases that effort might be small (e.g., the new module is all in HTML/JS) and in some cases that effort might be large (e.g., there is extensive C/C++ code that needs to interface with the browser core). I don't know how much about Firefox's AI features to know which category they fall into. But it's almost certainly not zero effort in any case.

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