Live data from Hacker News

Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

mistral.ai

71–80 of 211 posts

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#71
post #5

This is an excellent use case for completely local, small model inference, yet for inexplicable reasons Mozilla wants to normalize uploading your entire private browsing history to a cloud. These (Mistral's and Mozilla's) marketing pages aren't candid enough to clearly explain the difference between local and cloud inference, and that they're asking you to consent to enabling the latter. I'd call that the bare minimu…

This is ridiculous. Not only does Mozilla support BYOM with Smart Window, but do we seriously expect your average user to be able to locally run it with ease?

Imagine for a moment the complaints that would arise the very next day because their browser is now revving up their laptop fans and hoarding precious RAM.

Local models aren't yet light enough to handle the required processing at the lowest end, so Mozilla chose the most responsible stewards they could find. There is no news here.

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#72
post #5

This is an excellent use case for completely local, small model inference, yet for inexplicable reasons Mozilla wants to normalize uploading your entire private browsing history to a cloud. These (Mistral's and Mozilla's) marketing pages aren't candid enough to clearly explain the difference between local and cloud inference, and that they're asking you to consent to enabling the latter. I'd call that the bare minimu…

the average user has nowhere near enough the capability to run a model fast enough to do useful things

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#73
post #5

This is an excellent use case for completely local, small model inference, yet for inexplicable reasons Mozilla wants to normalize uploading your entire private browsing history to a cloud. These (Mistral's and Mozilla's) marketing pages aren't candid enough to clearly explain the difference between local and cloud inference, and that they're asking you to consent to enabling the latter. I'd call that the bare minimu…

Anyone else's extensions not work on support.mozilla.org?

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#74
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privacy policy for Smart Window[1] indicates that prompts are not only sent to an LLM provider (Mistral in this case), but also to Mozilla servers first. > The assistant sends the full prompt (including your query, any relevant Memories, and any additional relevant browsing context) to a Mozilla server. > > Upon receipt, Mozilla forwards the request to a third-party large language model (LLM) on your behalf. The…

This sentence is eye-opening: > Smart Window infers information about you based on your interactions with the assistant and your Firefox browsing activity, including websites you have visited. This may include activity outside of Smart Window (such as in classic windows)... Privacy-minded users who want to try this feature would need to create a totally separate browser profile to avoid data leaks.

You can control this in the settings:

    - Learn from chats in Smart Window
    - Learn from browsing in Classic and Smart Windows

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about that. When I hear people reference "Google" it seems to me they do mean Google. Similar with "Claude".

People still use “Google” as a synonym for “online search.”

Yes, and IME it also is true that "online search" means in fact google.com. And there's no distinction for search results and reading the google AI summary.

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#76
post #5

This is an excellent use case for completely local, small model inference, yet for inexplicable reasons Mozilla wants to normalize uploading your entire private browsing history to a cloud. These (Mistral's and Mozilla's) marketing pages aren't candid enough to clearly explain the difference between local and cloud inference, and that they're asking you to consent to enabling the latter. I'd call that the bare minimu…

I am not trying to defend Mozilla doing this, and I don't support sending data to cloud based services like this in a way that users won't understand. But I also think that the state of the art in small LLM and user device capabilities aren't there yet to put a "good enough to be actually useful" local-only LLM as a prepackaged thing in a mass market distributed browser. You don't want a browser that takes 10GB of ex…

Agree, advocating for Firefox developing features only for rich hobbyists(people who can afford large RAM and GPU) is absurd.

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#77
post #5

This is an excellent use case for completely local, small model inference, yet for inexplicable reasons Mozilla wants to normalize uploading your entire private browsing history to a cloud. These (Mistral's and Mozilla's) marketing pages aren't candid enough to clearly explain the difference between local and cloud inference, and that they're asking you to consent to enabling the latter. I'd call that the bare minimu…

I am not trying to defend Mozilla doing this, and I don't support sending data to cloud based services like this in a way that users won't understand. But I also think that the state of the art in small LLM and user device capabilities aren't there yet to put a "good enough to be actually useful" local-only LLM as a prepackaged thing in a mass market distributed browser. You don't want a browser that takes 10GB of ex…

>But I also think that the state of the art in small LLM and user device capabilities aren't there yet to put a "good enough to be actually useful" local-only LLM

so then don't add it in as highly advertised feature until it is. doing things right and living up to your core values is a lot to expect from businesses these days but, at minimum, a non-profit foundation should be able to live up to these goals, yes?

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#78
I really do not get the obsession with translation, particularly bad translations and translating by default. Most people who browse websites in languages other than the official local one are fluent in that other language.

Google Chrome keeps insisting that Spanish is Galician. PowerPoint insists on changing the spell checker back to the wrong language and ignores setting the language for the whole presentation. On Linux, ChatGPT insists it must enable the spell checker in the local system language, so everything is always red.

Privacy aside, a lot of software seems to be built assuming people cannot be multilingual.

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#79

I really do not get the obsession with translation, particularly bad translations and translating by default. Most people who browse websites in languages other than the official local one are fluent in that other language. Google Chrome keeps insisting that Spanish is Galician. PowerPoint insists on changing the spell checker back to the wrong language and ignores setting the language for the whole presentation. On…

Both are true, a lot of people are multilingual but a lot are also not.

I know a lot of foreigner for which the feature is really useful (local department store, booking a doctor appointment etc.)

Re: Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has been in a bit of a recursive feedback loop death spiral for years now of: Browser loses market share -> try some weird thing -> very few people like or use it -> browser loses market share -> management says "oh shit we're losing market share we better try some weird thing" I say this as a person that uses firefox with ublock origin 99.5% of the time. It's better in my opinion than Chrome. I can at least…

very few people like or use it -> browser loses market share I very much doubt trying weird things meaningfully changed their market share (aside from UI redesigns)

I think it didn't help. Constantly adding or changing features makes it less consistent and predictable. For example several family members were confused by what is "pocket".
Post reply on HN