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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

#291

Post by manphone »

glenstein wrote: post #276
mort96 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No battle has been won. Firefox's market share is dwindling, and they're going full steam ahead with turning Firefox into an "AI browser". Yes, they are adding an option to turn off AI features, but I don't want to use an "AI browser with AI features disabled", I want to use a normal web browser. Mozilla is not delivering that. Note that just not bogging down Firefox with AI features is not enough here. Firefox marke…

This narrative gets endlessly repeated in comment sections despite not even pretending to align with the factual record. The side bets era from roughly 2020-present did not retroactively cause the market share losses from 2010-2015. The problem with this revisionist history is that it's completely helpless to address the actual dynamics that led to the rise of Chrome, and attempts to tell the entire story in terms of…

That may even be true, but many commenters here are saying these things because they actually happened to them and then they switched off of Firefox because it pissed them off. (Myself included) So when you say this is a comment or narrative it’s the commenters you’re talking to and you’re talking past them in a way that is confusing. I’m telling you that I hated the Firefox changes and I finally turned to another fork. This has nothing to do with a narrative.

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

#292

Post by elorant »

mfru wrote: post #243

Please let whoever steers Thunderbird development and road map also steer Firefox. Thunderbird is at the moment the pinnacle of user-centered, focused and down-to-earth development of open-source software.

Apart from the UI which is crap since their last major update. There are menu options everywhere, two ribbons on the top, a hamburger menu on the right and another on the left. For a long time you opened Thunderbird and it didn't default on the last message that you received but somewhere in the middle of the heap.

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

#293

Post by glitchc »

mfru wrote: post #243

Please let whoever steers Thunderbird development and road map also steer Firefox. Thunderbird is at the moment the pinnacle of user-centered, focused and down-to-earth development of open-source software.

I ended up switching over to Betterbird. It's easier to setup and more stable.

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

#294

Post by prmoustache »

mort96 wrote: post #214
godelski wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, i…

No battle has been won. Firefox's market share is dwindling, and they're going full steam ahead with turning Firefox into an "AI browser". Yes, they are adding an option to turn off AI features, but I don't want to use an "AI browser with AI features disabled", I want to use a normal web browser. Mozilla is not delivering that. Note that just not bogging down Firefox with AI features is not enough here. Firefox marke…

> Firefox market share has been going downhill for most of my life

Firefox market shares are the best of any non OEM browser[1] and is beating competition from a number of OEM browser (like Samsung's one on mobile) and is fairly competitive compared to the desktop version of Safari (only 1% below on desktop market share).

Yes market share have been going downhill but mostly because they were abnormaly high for something that doesn't ship with the computer in late 90's early 2000's due to:

- the inertia of being born from the ashes of Netscape, which was the default browser at the beginning of eternal september.

- it had its highest market share at a time when its strongest competition was Internet Explorer: a magnet for malwares.

So its market shares are quite good actually. Note that Opera (and now Vivaldi) never got close despite being appreciated by many.

[1] yes it comes with many linux distro but it is sold with virtually zero device.

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

#295

Post by ginko »

elorant wrote: post #292
mfru wrote: post #243

Please let whoever steers Thunderbird development and road map also steer Firefox. Thunderbird is at the moment the pinnacle of user-centered, focused and down-to-earth development of open-source software.

Apart from the UI which is crap since their last major update. There are menu options everywhere, two ribbons on the top, a hamburger menu on the right and another on the left. For a long time you opened Thunderbird and it didn't default on the last message that you received but somewhere in the middle of the heap.

As a longterm thunderbird user I find this annoying. I appreciate it being maintained more actively again but I really liked the fact that the UI stayed stable for years. Changing things to make them "more modern" is just annoying. No one asked for this.

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

#296

Post by altairprime »

manphone wrote: post #289
altairprime wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

This isn’t about a fight between two things. This is about a company that completely refuses to listen to their users and then some random guy on the Internet who says you should deal with their telemetry to somehow fix the problem that in no way relates to the actual problem and no way has evidence that they would take steps to fix the problem either. It’s very prosocial to think that Firefox actually makes changes…

> It’s very prosocial to think that Firefox actually makes changes based on user feedback

Nope, just hopeful, for me anyways. I already intend to migrate friends & family away from it next year, because from a prosocial standpoint they’re going to be more miserable over time as that sub-2% market share starts breaking banking and government sites, and whatever nostalgia I have for olde Firefox has no place in what’s best for those who depend on me. Regardless, I’m still hopeful that somehow concrete numbers might dissuade Firefox from being daft, or I wouldn’t have bothered commenting on this post at all! If they get the memo, then everyone I’m being prosocial towards benefits, and we all get to invest our limited time and energy into something more interesting and useful for the world than switching browsers.

(Yes, I recognize this is an unlikely outcome, no need to try to shoot my hopes out of the sky like a clay pigeon, I’m well aware that their wings are made of melting wax, etc, etc.)

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

#297

Post by PurpleRamen »

mfru wrote: post #243

Please let whoever steers Thunderbird development and road map also steer Firefox. Thunderbird is at the moment the pinnacle of user-centered, focused and down-to-earth development of open-source software.

What are you talking about? Thunderbird has barely any progress in the last years. It's more busy with breaking and fixing things. Sure, there are reasons for it, but as a user, all I see is stalemate, while one addon after another is dying. Thunderbird Mobile is nice, and I hope Thunderbird Pro will be something good, but so far none of them are the big breakthroughs.

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

#298

Post by techwizrd »

mrklol wrote: post #115
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…

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…

Whoa, I have been looking for AI-enhanced tab grouping for a while. This is actually pretty awesome.

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

#299

Post by PunchyHamster »

glenstein wrote: post #268
PunchyHamster wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla did plant the tree 20 years ago, then decided few years after to abandon it

They push millions of lines of code every year, thousands of patches and all kinds of measurable performance improvements so not sure what you're talking about.

the 2% marketshare. I'm talking about 2% marketshare that they got from being de-facto standard, to 2%
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