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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

#121

Post by TylerE »

godelski wrote: post #101
themafia wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will also be users who have disabled Firefox metrics collection and so will not have their opinion counted. Gee. If only there was a way to collect users opinions on things. Welp.. guess we have to live with subtly spying on everything they do with our software.

Most people aren't vocal. Most people who are vocal aren't representative of users. Many vocal people aren't even users. Don't get me wrong, I turn off telemetry, but you're acting like it's easy to get that information. You act like people don't scream when Firefox prompts people with surveys. You act like there isn't bias in survey takers. If you just pretend everything is easy we'll just end up reinventing the sam…

Also, people lie. I don't trust what random users tell me, because years of tech support taught me that they're lying.

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

#122

Post by godelski »

snowhale wrote: post #42

[dead]

Sure, but then the people complaining would need to recognize that that's not happening. All the AI features are local models. The only thing not local is that side window you can open that can connect to a chatbot. It's also easy to disable.

Honestly, I think people just like complaining. I think they like complaining about Firefox even more. There's plenty to complain about, but aren't there bigger fish to fry right now? Seems like complaining about some minnows while we're being circled by a bunch of great whites

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

#123

Post by godelski »

crote wrote: post #88
TeMPOraL wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 obj…

And that's in turn because product managers keep calling everything "AI" and shoving the bad kind in every feature they possibly can.

What is the bad kind that Firefox is shoving in?

Do they have any good kind?

What's the ratio?

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

#124

Post by bpavuk »

Zardoz84 wrote: post #109
bpavuk wrote: post #35

last time when I updated Firefox, the package manager began building ONNX Runtime from source, which my "minuscule" 16GB of RAM couldn't handle. I want that during install time, as I don't like the idea of rebuilding ONNX every time Firefox updates, period.

Gentoo ?

no, NixOS Unstable. normally, they precompile such stuff, but ONNX decided that it wants to link against my ROCm instance specifically. looks like soon we will have to resort to dirty workarounds akin to those in Blender (HIP, CUDA support)

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

#125

Post by mort96 »

godelski wrote: post #84

Firefox does what some people want, people complain. Firefox does what other people want, people complain. Firefox does what both people want, people complain. I'm sorry, but we'll never get corporations to do what we want if we don't throw them the smallest bone when we get our way. You need positive reinforcement too, not just negative. If it's all negative they just stop caring and you get companies lot Google who…

Who has expressed a desire for Firefox to become "an AI browser"?

Because that's the source of the complaints. I don't want to use an "AI browser", kill switch or not. If this "AI browser" dies because of their mission to destroy community goodwill, good. I'm sick of giving the benefit of the doubt every time they royally fuck up. This situation where they're the steward of the only non-Google browser is not tenable, something needs to change.

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

#126

Post by vitorgrs »

ddxv wrote: post #102

Where are the AI features in Firefox? Looking around right now the only one I see is right click tab -> Summarize page (NEW). I googled a bit and see they have some grouping of tabs feature I've never used/seen (or want). The only other maybe AI feature I remember seeing is the odd left hand bar that is there on fresh installs and I usually remove to declutter. Are those the features this kill switch removes or was t…

Lol. At first I was thinking it was a AI kill switch on web pages (like Google overview...). I guess was being naive that they would do that, and also weird because there's barely any AI stuff on Firefox indeed...

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

#127

Post by whizzter »

godelski wrote: post #91
altairprime wrote: post #34

Ironically, I bet that a significant majority of the users that turn on the AI kill switch — which must have some kind of phone-home telematics attached — will also be users who have disabled Firefox metrics collection and so will not have their opinion counted. So, the most effective path here for y’all to be heard is not flipping the switch off yourself (do so anyways!) — anyone who cares at this stage has probably…

The other thing people can do is install Firefox and use it. An uptick in user share also serves as a metric to reinforce the move. Let's be honest, most people complaining are using chrome or some flavor. But current Firefox users could probably temporarily turn on telemetry, activate the kill switch, and turn telemetry back off. Just make sure you wait long enough to ensure the information is sent

They should get the best metrics out of update server communications anyhow, 30% or more users getting update downloads than having AI enabled should be obvious.

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

#128

Post by TiredOfLife »

altairprime wrote: post #34

Ironically, I bet that a significant majority of the users that turn on the AI kill switch — which must have some kind of phone-home telematics attached — will also be users who have disabled Firefox metrics collection and so will not have their opinion counted. So, the most effective path here for y’all to be heard is not flipping the switch off yourself (do so anyways!) — anyone who cares at this stage has probably…

The best thing about Firefox telemetry is that it can't be easily disabled. There are many setting that control it. Including an external scheduled task that can't be disabled using Firefox itself. And even if you delete the task it will come back after update.

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

#130

Post by TiredOfLife »

sickmartian wrote: post #32

Great, let's see how it works out. Firefox for Android has been killing it for me with the latest ux updates, I didn't expect major improvements there and was pleasantly surprised.

How do you make closing tabs from taking literally seconds.
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