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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

#181

Post by eipi10_hn »

charcircuit wrote: post #59
reddalo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do it. It's the only truly independent browser left. It's not perfect, but it works, and unlike Chrome you can have full ad blocking with uBlock Origin.

With Brave you can have ad blocking built into the browser itself and not have to depend on a third party developer.

And Brave's built-in blocker uses uBO's and other lists, including allowing trusted filters (which can inject high risk scripts into your sites) automatically. So yes, you are using 3rd party scripts already, and no, they can't monitor all of the commits from all those lists.

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

#182

Post by [deleted] »

ItsBob wrote: post #180

Maybe it's just me but why is it on by default? Why is this shit not off in the first place? Why can't Firefox just be a browser with great html, css, js rendering and then have a bunch of toggles for extra crap that people want? Do they actually have metrics that show "When we enable this crap by default we make an extra $X Million per year"? I'd put money on that being untrue. I bet it's like the data-driven ad spe…

[deleted]

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

#183

Post by godelski »

mort96 wrote: post #170
gkbrk wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people like chat bot sidebars. My code editor has a built-in chat bot sidebar that I use every day. It's not a huge stretch that people who use chatbot sidebars in other applications would also want one in their browser. ChatGPT is the #6 most popular website in the world, why wouldn't a browser want tighter integration with such a popular kind of service?

Should Firefox build in a separate side bar for every popular website? Would you want a Facebook side bar and Facebook account integration? I wouldn't.

They kinda already do. Google is built in, just search right in there url bar. You also got DDG, Bing, Wikipedia, Amazon, EBay? They make it easy to add YouTube, I wouldn't be surprised if you could add Facebook.

And like every browser does that. It's been that way for like over a decade...

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

#184

Post by dizhn »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #47
snowhale wrote: post #42

[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 obj…

I use AI for coding, I don't want it on my browser. Actually I don't want it on Firefox. Let Brave be the AI browser. They could have used AI themselves to actually make their pathetic new split tab view usable.

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

#185

Post by fenykep »

vient wrote: post #154
godelski wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read this three times now and still don't understand you. Do you think people don't update their software? Are you just counting every update as people happy about the kill switch? There'll be so much noise in that signal it'll be almost useless. You can't differentiate it from anything else. For all anyone knows it happened because the word Firefox was in the top story on hacker news

Approximately all people update Firefox so you don't need telemetry to count "AI disabled" installations, instead you can derive it as "updates requested" minus "AI enabled".

But the AI and telemetry toggles aren't coupled. While we can assume that users who disable telemetry are more likely to have AI disabled as well this still isn't translating to user numbers.

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

#186

Post by mort96 »

godelski wrote: post #183
mort96 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should Firefox build in a separate side bar for every popular website? Would you want a Facebook side bar and Facebook account integration? I wouldn't.

They kinda already do. Google is built in, just search right in there url bar. You also got DDG, Bing, Wikipedia, Amazon, EBay? They make it easy to add YouTube, I wouldn't be surprised if you could add Facebook. And like every browser does that. It's been that way for like over a decade...

Okay, and? Is anyone complaining about being able to search your favorite search engine from within Firefox?

Do you genuinely think this is comparable to Facebook integration? Do you believe that it Mozilla announced Facebook account integration and a Facebook side bar tomorrow, people's reaction to that would be, "oh this is just like what they did with search, this is fine"?

If not, isn't your comment a tiny bit disingenuous?

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

#187

Post by godelski »

mort96 wrote: post #167
TeMPOraL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is there a chat bot sidebar??? To save users from copy-pasting to a separate chatbot instance, or installing sketchy extensions? It's clunky, but it's helpful and exposes users to more alternatives. AFAIK it can be made to connect to local models now, too. LLM side tab is a powerful mode of AI use that most people haven't experienced yet; for some reason this space seems underdeveloped publicly relative to some…

I don't know what Mozilla means by "AI browser", but one would assume it means more than "regular browser with an optional chat bot sidebar". I don't wanna figure out what it means, I don't wanna use anything that could fairly be described as an "AI browser".

  > I don't know what Mozilla means by "AI browser",
Well it's not like they're being quiet about it. They've openly discussed what features they're working on and planning. So maybe start there.

  >  "regular browser with an optional chat bot sidebar". I don't wanna figure out what it means
It's not a hard thing you figure out. Optional means you don't have to use it. In fact, if you never open it you'll never know it exists and you'll never have to interact with it. It is an opt in system. No one is making you do anything so stop acting like it.

Fwiw, I don't use the AI sidebar. I'd have forgotten it existed if HN didn't bring it up as if it's shoved in your face like some chatbot in an IDE. But I guess if it was the latter people wouldn't be angry

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

#188

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #48
SapporoChris wrote: post #30

[flagged]

It's not all bad is it? On device translation of websites for example is much better than the alternatives.

I don’t want nor need on device translation enabled by default. I’ve gone without it for the three decades in which browsers have been around. I’m sure it’s brilliantly useful for some people. A one time ‘would you like to enable AI on startup’ for at least years with user profiles that are significantly old would at least be a show of good faith.

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

#189

Post by mmsc »

In addition to completely disabling AI, I found the following setting extremely convinent to disable in about:config. They clutter up my right-click on a link or on text selection.

  browser.translations.select.enable
  dom.text_fragments.enabled
  privacy.query_stripping.strip_on_share.enabled
  devtools.accessibility.enabled
Now if only I could get rid of "Print selection" and "Services" when right-clicking, too (on MacOS)

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

#190

Post by godelski »

mort96 wrote: post #159
godelski wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Mozi…

Letting Mozilla torpedo the only non-Google browser is also a bad way to fight Google. It's looking bleak. The only hope is that Mozilla dies and someone more serious picks up the mantle. Not sure who that would be though.

But that's not what happened. That's not the context of the thread. The battle was won. So celebrate. The war may not be over but it's not like we lost.

  > someone more serious picks up the mantle.
Let's cross that bridge when/IF we get there. But until then, maybe don't set the stage for them to take up that mantle. If all we do is complain then obviously they'll just learn to ignore us.

So don't sour the victory, it'll cost you the war

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