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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

#171

Post by AuthAuth »

tsimionescu wrote: post #150
AuthAuth wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most laptops are now shipping with a NPU for handling these tasks. So it wont be getting computed on your GPU.

That doesn't mean anything, it's just a name change. They're the same kind of unit. And whatever accelerator you try to put into it, you're not running Gemini3 or GPT-5.1 on your laptop, not in any reasonable time frame.

Also it does mean something. An NPU is completely different from your 5070. Yes the 5070 has specific AI cores but it also has raster cores and other things not present in an NPU.

You dont need to run GPT5.1 to summerize a webpage. Models are small and specialized for different tasks.

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

#173

Post by VortexLain »

This would be useful for many people who want to avoid AI features being forced on them by every piece of software imaginable. Hopefully, a centralized kill switch like this will also make it easy for Firefox forks such as Zen and Floorp to let users enable AI features if they want to without changing about:flags.

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

#174

Post by catapart »

ekr____ wrote: post #170
catapart wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

lol

whatever you say

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

#175

Post by Intermernet »

tsimionescu wrote: post #150
AuthAuth wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most laptops are now shipping with a NPU for handling these tasks. So it wont be getting computed on your GPU.

That doesn't mean anything, it's just a name change. They're the same kind of unit. And whatever accelerator you try to put into it, you're not running Gemini3 or GPT-5.1 on your laptop, not in any reasonable time frame.

Over the last few decades I've seen people make the same comment about spell checking, voice recognition, video encoding, 3D rendering, audio effects and many more.

I'm happy to say that LLM usage will only actually become properly integrated into background work flow when we have performant local models.

People are trying to madly monetise cloud LLMs before the inevitable rise of local only LLMs severely diminishes the market.

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

#176

Post by MisterTea »

sigmar wrote: post #163
MisterTea wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)?

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

Yes. Firefox and Chrome already offer this.

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

Yeah. And?

> 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)?

No because I ctrl-f for that topic/key words and find the text.

These are incredibly poor AI sells...

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

#177

Post by BloondAndDoom »

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…

My problem here is this; products are designed with a vision. If you are designing with 2-3 visions it won’t be that good, if you design with one vision (AI) then non-AI version of the product will be an after thought. This tells me non-AI version of it will suffer (IMHO)

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

#178

Post by sigmar »

MisterTea wrote: post #176
sigmar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

> Do you ever need a website you're visiting translated? Yes. Firefox and Chrome already offer this. > Have you ever not understood a term or phrase on a website and had to go to wikipedia/urbandictionary/google to explain it? Yeah. And? > 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 topi…

>Yes. Firefox and Chrome already offer this.

yes, both use machine learning methods to translate pages. You're already using AI and don't realize it.

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

#179

Post by cadamsdotcom »

sigmar wrote: post #178
MisterTea wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you ever need a website you're visiting translated? Yes. Firefox and Chrome already offer this. > Have you ever not understood a term or phrase on a website and had to go to wikipedia/urbandictionary/google to explain it? Yeah. And? > 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 topi…

>Yes. Firefox and Chrome already offer this. yes, both use machine learning methods to translate pages. You're already using AI and don't realize it.

That’s different from an agentic browser in a few key ways.

Most importantly it’s far more difficult for a bad actor to abuse language translation features than agentic browser features.

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

#180

Post by brokencode »

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.…

I totally agree. It’s just going to become an expectation that AI is in the browser.

It’s so nice just to be able to ask the browser to summarize the page, or ask questions about a long article.

I know a lot of people on Hacker News are hostile to AI and like to imagine everybody hates it, but I personally find it very helpful.

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