I hope Zen disables this by default, or completely removes it if that’s an option.
Such features should be disabled by default, but as a user of Zen, I really hope it'd be possible to enable AI features.
Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
181–190 of 554 posts
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#182Earlier 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.
"AI" as it's used nowadays is unfortunately usually a shorthand for LLM. When firefox talks about "AI features", I think most people interpret that as "LLM integration", not the page-translation feature that's been around for ages.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#183This 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.
Worse yet, burying in settings where they give a big disclaimer that they can (and often are) reset when the browser updates.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#184This 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.
Currently disable switch is right next to AI chat bot settings. It’s pretty on your face.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#185I'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.
Considering pirating the whole internet and boiling the planet is required to summarize a single page in a mediocre manner, it’s understandable that people who knows how the sausages are made are against it.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#186Earlier 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.
Even if they didn't realize it, I don't believe they were arguing that firefox and chrome didn't/wouldn't use machine learning already, rather that they just thought the use cases you provided don't really sell the cost of having a full LLM integrated into every browser install.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#187This 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…
It is well-known as a result of the expert reports in US v Google that generally software users do not change defaults
Whereas providing an option or a setting that the user must locate and change doesn't really mean much. Few users will ever see it let alone decide to change it
For example, why pay 22 billion to be "the default" if users can just change the default setting
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#188I'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.
I want an application to serve me webpages and manage said webpages. It wasn't a "non-starter" for me 2 years ago when I switched off Chrome who chose to be too user hostile to ignore. It won't be a non-starter here.
>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." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.
If "it just works" is all my non-tech family needs, I'm not really gonna intervene and evangelize for Mozilla. I don't work for them (if you do, that's fair). Most browsers "just work" so mission accomplished. These are parents who were fine paying Hulu $15/month to still see ads, so we simply have different views. I'm sure they felt the same way about my pots falling apart and insisting "well, they still work".
Meanwhile, my professional and personal career revolves around the internet, and I don't want to be fighting my screwdriver because it wants to pretend to be a drill. At some point I will throw the drill out and buy a screwdriver that screws.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#189I'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.
>but I personally find it very helpful.
Options are nice. They were (and poteitally will) not making it optional and if people like me weren't "hostile to Ai" they wouldn't have had to back-track with this.
Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
#190Firefox 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 (…
Firefox should be a browser, period. It should render pages. All other features should be extensions.
That would've been possible if they didn't kill XUL.