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Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

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Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#101

Post by drnick1 »

esperent wrote: post #41
drnick1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Since Firefox claims to be a privacy-first browser, it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting), and include uBlock Origin out of the box. But it should go even further; the ultimate goal should be for all Firefox users to basically look the same from the point of view of third parties and put an end…

> report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting How much do these break functionality? If I spoof language, am I going to start seeing websites in German? If I spoof screen size, am I going to get weirdly zoomed websites?

The settings used by Arkenfox broadly mirror that of the Tor browser. If you find Tor usable, then Firefox with this config should be fine.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#102

Post by hxorr »

I think for Firefox to be successful in breaking free from google funding is to make gecko easily embeddable in other apps, ala WebKit / electron / etc. I think it would get more funding from a wider variety of independent parties that way. Unfortunately they seem to have gone in the opposite direction... Although I am sure they have their reasons.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#103

Post by olyjohn »

addandsubtract wrote: post #91
boredpudding wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's automatic. So if you open Facebook, or any Meta site, it automatically puts it in it's own container. Together with Privacy Badger, Meta has no clue what you're doing on the rest of the web.

But MAC does that, too, if you create a "Facebook" container.

But I think you have to add every Meta domain into that container manually. The other one sounds like it's got them all already put into their own container. Convenient if you one day decide to set up an account on Instagram but never used it before, and forget to add it to the container.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#104

Post by gaigalas »

blks wrote: post #88
gaigalas wrote: post #32

I'd say browsers are a pretty good way of delivering models that run locally. Currently, this tech is a sleeper because consumer hardware is not there yet. Extensions, even websites, could benefit a lot from offering small models on demand and powering client-side features with them. That is very different from a browser that embeds AI access through an API, and totally acceptable.

To be used for what? Summarising web pages?

I can give you a couple of examples:

1.

I recently made an extension to "bookmark data". It's an auto scraper, but client side.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lidar/eckcmnibplmme...

The user has to pick the elements so the extension knows which selectors to track across similar pages.

While developing it, I imagined a near future in which a small enough model could do that for me.

In fact, if I had the resources, I could probably train one specifically for that and use webnn or onnx or something to deliver it.

2.

I also made a quick drum beat generator https://alganet.github.io/quick-beats/

One of the things I wanted to do is improved beat detection. Several music apps have some sort of tempo detection (you tap on the desk and the microphone catches it and figures out the tempo).

While I can certainly use audio analysis to do that, it has its limits. If I wanted to detect a full drum pattern (the user taps on different objects for kick and snare, and the app fills them), something machine-learny sounds much more appropriate for the job.

---

Your poke at the issue "for what? summarising web pages?" is valid though. While I don't have the resources to train those models I mentioned, the resulting weights should be fairly compatible with todays consumer hardware.

I blame the complete and utter lack of imagination of small-to-mid AI labs for the missing variety in that space.

It results in people not being very creative in imagining valid, non-shitty spammy marketing ways of using AI. They exist though.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#105

Post by nxtbl »

bxparks wrote: post #97
em-miyamoto wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could just use user.js and not have to change every setting manually each time you start from scratch.

Did not know about 'user.js', thanks! I guess creating a document that lists all my overrides was the first step. Now I have to figure out how to create a user.js that works on Linux, Macos, Windows, and maybe Android?

Same file works everywhere. Just leave out the ones that are different on platforms:

- browser.download.dir

- browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk

And instead of making a "google doc" a plaintext file would be better.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#106

Post by fsckboy »

lencastre wrote: post #79
shawn_w wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only things I do with a new copy of Firefox is install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and it works quite nicely. (Oh, and an extension that redirects reddit links to old reddit, and RES)

privacy badger is still alive??

i think what keeps it alive is that it shows up on the default "extensions you might especially like" screen inside the "install extensions" menu

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#108

Post by BrendanEich »

kotaKat wrote: post #74
yeukhon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you read “crypto mining in the browser while you browse” should be an immediate red flag that you should run away. Absolutely no need to respect him even when he was the creator of JS. So what.

“but it’s opt in, bro, you dont have to use it” — every Brave stan

We never, as in not ever, offered crypto mining in the browser.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#109

Post by BrendanEich »

eukara wrote: post #55
GCUMstlyHarmls wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time brave gets walked out as some good alternative I cant get past the vc / crypto coin / brave-reward holding garbage. Maybe they're ok now but they had some really gross mistakes (?).

[flagged]

> ... things like "Come home, white man" and other dog-whistles on image-boards

Wow, that's a new lie.

Do you have any evidence? This isn't something Brave ever did, but it's easy to make unfalsifiable "There's probably archives" b.s. claims on HN.

Re: Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

#110

Post by jonathansampson »

BrendanEich wrote: post #108
kotaKat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“but it’s opt in, bro, you dont have to use it” — every Brave stan

We never, as in not ever, offered crypto mining in the browser.

In fact, Brave was the first browser to block nasty crypto-jacking/mining scripts (e.g., CoinHive) when they began to appear on the scene, nearly a decade ago.
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