Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements

serverhost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 420 posts

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

#141

Post by johnnyanmac »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #103
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.

I think at this point they know all these opinions pretty well, but they simply don't care or see better growth options by targeting users who don't belong to that particular bubble. They see OpenAI approaching the same active user counts as Facebook and they want a slice of that pie. And the majority of that pie is non-techies.

Yup. When people feel like their voice won't matter, they will simply shut off any channels "listening" to them. You need to build up trust first.

As a complete contrast, there's a lot more enthusiasm over Valve surveys.

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

#142

Post by altairprime »

whizzter wrote: post #127
godelski wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If my choice is between a single blatant signal of hostility to AI that can’t be misunderstood, and hoping that a pro-AI company’s executives invested in voluntarily correlating two different sets of logs to prove itself wrong, then I’m taking door number one.

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

#145

Post by mock-possum »

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…

Corpos are not entitled to bones.

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

#146

Post by godelski »

mort96 wrote: post #125
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,…

  > This situation where they're the steward of the only non-Google browser is not tenable, something needs to change.
So what, you're going to help Google shove the knife in deeper? Idk man, seems like a bad way to fight Google.

But honestly it just feels like you didn't even read my comment. I'm sorry that it's a lot, but I'm petty sure people can handle 10-30 seconds of reading. I even said it doesn't matter if Mozilla is evil. How do you turn that into me giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm literally just arguing that there's slim pickings and to not help our bigger enemy to kill their enemies. It doesn't matter if their enemies ate evil, you're just helping the bigger evil get bigger and consolidate power. I'm saying "there's more important problems right now, not be fucking dumb and get distracted or before you know it you'll lose your head"

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

#147

Post by johnnyanmac »

mort96 wrote: post #131
mrklol wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox mentions the following ones: "- Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language. - Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages. - AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names. - Link previews, which show key points before you open a link. - AI chatbot in the sidebar, which lets you use your chosen chatbot as you browse, includin…

I wonder what sort of user testing made them decide that what Firefox users really need is a chat bot in the site bar. Isn't a chat bot in a tab good enough? And calling translation "AI" seems like deceitful retroactive rebranding. Why is machine translation suddenly "AI" now ? It was never branded as such before. Is "AI" here just used to mean machine learning?

Wouldn't be the first time. Google gave an option to turn off gemini in Gmail, and suddenly the inbox tabs they had for over a decade decided to disappear.

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

#148

Post by altairprime »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #128
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.

You wouldn’t know it from how often scripts claiming to disable telemetry hit the front page.

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

#149

Post by input_sh »

mort96 wrote: post #131
mrklol wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox mentions the following ones: "- Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language. - Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages. - AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names. - Link previews, which show key points before you open a link. - AI chatbot in the sidebar, which lets you use your chosen chatbot as you browse, includin…

I wonder what sort of user testing made them decide that what Firefox users really need is a chat bot in the site bar. Isn't a chat bot in a tab good enough? And calling translation "AI" seems like deceitful retroactive rebranding. Why is machine translation suddenly "AI" now ? It was never branded as such before. Is "AI" here just used to mean machine learning?

IMHO no. Every chatbot has so much wasted space, it really doesn't need to be full-width. Also, what's easier?

Option 1: Being on a tab, copying the URL of the tab, switching to the chatbot tab, pasting the URL and writing some instructions about what to do with that tab.

Option 2: Clicking on the "summarise page" button (whether from the sidebar or from right-click context menu), and having the browser pre-fill the prompt with the URL + the reader view version of the content on that page.

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

#150

Post by altairprime »

themafia wrote: post #60
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…

> 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.

Arguing that telemetry is wrong doesn’t seem to have stopped Firefox from using it. If your fight against telemetry is a higher priority than your fight against AI in the browser, good luck and more power to you! I’m just making sure no one makes that decision by accident.
Post reply on HN