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Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

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Re: Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

#41
post #7

Firefox is the only holdout against the ad companies, and I'm counting Microsoft amongst those. It's a very good browser, independent with its own renderer, with decent ad blocking and decent performance. It continually amazes me how people use a Google product on their desktop, as if they don't send enough data to an ad company. Actually, I'm not sure why I type this, any rational arguments are definitely not winnin…

In theory you are not incorrect, but Google bribes Firefox and Google makes most money via ads. Mozilla gave up on firefox a long time ago. > It continually amazes me how people use a Google product on their desktop, as if they don't send enough data to an ad company. I'd love to have alternatives, but which ones are there? Firefox is not an alternative; audio does not work for me as I am pulseaudio free here. On chr…

> I could recompile it but compiling firefox is a pain in the ...

Would second this. Mach uses Python, and the dependencies they use are a pain whenever no pre-built wheels are available. Especially so when you see that an "optional" Mach dependency for build system telemetry is what busting the configuration (not build) stage...

Re: Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

#43

This just blocks AI features within Firefox. The feature I would really want here is a switch that blocks AI summaries, overviews, etc. on any websites you browse.

That's the job of uBlock origin.

Eg here's a list

https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist#...

Re: Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

#44
post #7

Firefox is the only holdout against the ad companies, and I'm counting Microsoft amongst those. It's a very good browser, independent with its own renderer, with decent ad blocking and decent performance. It continually amazes me how people use a Google product on their desktop, as if they don't send enough data to an ad company. Actually, I'm not sure why I type this, any rational arguments are definitely not winnin…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

#47

[dead]

Thing is, there's a large (or at least certainly vocal) contingent of users (and mostly techies, to boot) that view "AI" as the Devil, and transformer models as the original sin, and they want to refuse to partake, wholesale.

This feature seems to be a nod to people with this worldview.

EDIT: See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47133786 liking AI features to defecating on your food. It's not a technical objection, it's a principled one.

Re: Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

#50
post #36

That's why I use Helium now.

yet another chromium clone iirc.

It's basically ungoogled-chromium with manifest v2 support. Chromium is just technically superior than Firefox. It's a simple fact. The problem is the telemetry and AI features they added in it, which Helium or ungoogled-chromium doesn't have.
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