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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

#291

Post by heavyset_go »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #189
brokencode wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is already optional in Firefox, this is just FUD

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

#292

Post by ragequittah »

bayindirh wrote: post #184
troupo wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've been really confused as to what all the hubub is about. I think I saw the sidebar for about 4 seconds on each of my installs before I hid it forever. I tried to reenable it to see what people were complaining about but couldn't find it within 10 seconds so gave up.

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

#293

Post by unethical_ban »

999900000999 wrote: post #114

Have it as a stand alone plugin. I should have to manually install this AI stuff.

I should have to manually install this bookmarks stuff.

I should have to manually install this search bar stuff.

I should have to manually install this FTP client stuff (okay that last one is the case)

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

#294

Post by johnnyanmac »

heavyset_go wrote: post #291
johnnyanmac wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

It is already optional in Firefox, this is just FUD

The FUD is the implications of making it opt out, with reports that there's already other features that requires changing the settings/flags in order to "opt out".

It's doubt based on previous actions.

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

#295

Post by heavyset_go »

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.

No, NPUs are designed to be power efficient in ways GPU compute aren't.

You also don't need Gemini3 or GPT anything running locally.

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

#296

Post by protocolture »

heavyset_go wrote: post #289
protocolture wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So instead of being flexible enough to adapt to new requirements as users demand them, they are blindly implementing things before they are requested just in case?

Believe it or not well-intentioned developers, product managers, etc can read the writing on the wall and see where user expectations are heading based on the apps and products they already use.

Exactly why I am baffled. You would think they could read the writing on the wall.

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

#297

Post by heavyset_go »

protocolture wrote: post #296
heavyset_go wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not well-intentioned developers, product managers, etc can read the writing on the wall and see where user expectations are heading based on the apps and products they already use.

Exactly why I am baffled. You would think they could read the writing on the wall.

I don't like it, but ChatGPT is a product that nearly a billion people are using. It's broken into popular culture. My mom, who has trouble sending an email, uses it. She found it on her own.

More importantly, generative AI is incredibly popular with younger cohorts. They will grow up to be your customer base if they aren't already. Their expectations are being set now.

Again, I don't like it, but that's the reality.

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

#298

Post by tsimionescu »

heavyset_go wrote: post #295
tsimionescu wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, NPUs are designed to be power efficient in ways GPU compute aren't. You also don't need Gemini3 or GPT anything running locally.

Personally, I don't need AI in my browser at all. But if I did, why would I want to run a crappy model that can't think and hallucinates constantly, instead of using a better model that kinda thinks and doesn't hallucinate quite as often?

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

#299

Post by tsimionescu »

Intermernet wrote: post #175
tsimionescu wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Time will tell, but right now we're not solving the problem of running LLMs by increasing efficiency, we're solving it by massive, unprecedented investments in compute power and just power. Companies definitely weren't building nuclear power stations to power their spell checkers or even 3D renderers. LLMs are unprecedented in this way.

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

#300

Post by tsimionescu »

AuthAuth wrote: post #171
tsimionescu wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And all of that is irrelevant for the AI use case. The NPU is at best slightly more efficient than a GPU for this use case, and mostly its just cheaper by forgoing various parts of a GPU that are not useful for AI (and would not be used during inferencing anyway).

And the examples being given of why you'd want AI in your browser are all general text comprehension and conversational discussions about that text, applied to whatever I may be browsing. It doesn't really get less specialized than that.

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