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Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

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Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#101

Post by recursivegirth »

austin-cheney wrote: post #40

I wonder if this is a generational thing of fresh young people that already cannot live without LLMs versus crusty old people that don’t want to require a super computer just to run a web browser that violates all their privacy. To me this sounds like the point where people start looking at and developing alternatives to the browser/web.

A little off-topic, I honestly don't think it's as much as the browser interface that needs to be reworked as it is the idea of operating systems in general.

I don't know what the right answer is, but having used Niri/Wayland vs. GNOME vs. Windows vs. Mac... I will never go back to a non-tiling desktop and a none-kb driven workflow for desktop window management.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#102

Post by [deleted] »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #77
hmokiguess wrote: post #72

The nice thing about open protocols is that we don't have to endorse or use one implementation over another, yet, somehow, the browser monopoly continues to be a standing dilemma. There are nice projects, like ungoogled chromium, tor, and many more, but I find the biggest issue is that there isn't a voice out there for the average person and a project that connects with the masses. I think another issue is that a lot…

> How do we solve this? How do we make the browser ours, by the people, and for the people? Simple. Break up all the big tech corporations via anti-trust legislation. They are the robber barons of our time.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#103

Post by getpokedagain »

concinds wrote: post #46
benterix wrote: post #7

> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.[0] Are they? [0] https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/blob/main/R...

Sure. macOS, iOS and Windows have local model APIs for third-party devs. Chrome is trialing it. Firefox uses models to generate alt-text, but no API. In theory it's useful. If devs can rely on local models, it's more private and decentralized, they don't need to funnel money to AWS or Anthropic. There are low-stakes use cases that only make sense if they're local (available offline) and free. But in practice I've see…

I don't think thus is what was meant. I don't think they were questioning if OS and browser makers were embedding llm features but rather if people want them.

I find many frustrating. I had an iphone previously and the llm summaries of text messages are what drove me to finally drop ios. I have a family member who is undergoing cancer treatment. I can't explain to you the frustration of seeing wrong text summaries when an llm goes wild hallucinating test results when the actual text simply said taking a test. OS basics and communication should be trustable. Not perhaps hallucinations of a small shitty model.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#104

Post by ilaksh »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #84

The objections seem clear: tight-coupling of prompts to models, and model neutrality in the TOU. From https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1213 : "A personal example: I created a system prompt for creating announcements for a home automation system. The Gemini model I was using initially responded in a very US-American way, which didn't fit the British voice of my speaker. I told the model, via the s…

If that was a good argument to not support an LLM feature, then it would be a reason to not add it to any platform API. And yet, it has been added to numerous platforms already.

Different models are just a core aspect of how the technology works.

It's like a canvas can have different possible width and height depending on the device or it's orientation. Or the geolocation API giving more or less accuracy depending on the device. Or Speech Synthesis sounding different depending on the device.

This is really just anti-AI sentiment rather than being constructive.

For now, it needs a permissions UI if it doesn't already have one. And maybe at some point they will add a n IQ level like low, medium, high or something. But developers are going to rely on the specific model 90% of the time anyway if they care about it.

What's going to change is really just that the AI hatred will die down some as people realize how much it helps them, and people will realize not having this feature in Firefox is a failure for personal data autonomy.

And the TOU that are related in Chrome being problematic is an argument FOR Firefox to add this feature, without problematic model terms.

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#106

Post by domenicd »

benterix wrote: post #7

> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.[0] Are they? [0] https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/blob/main/R...

(I wrote those words originally.)

Wow. I had no idea that people would misinterpret what I was saying in this way. I was not meaning to imply it was an expectation of users or developers. I was meaning it as a statement of what was currently a growing industry trend by OS and browser vendors, of shipping or preparing to ship LMs.

By now the statement could probably be amended from "expected to gain access to" to "shipping with".

I hope the team maintaining the project now makes such an update, since apparently it's confusing so many people!

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#107

Post by [deleted] »

swyx wrote: post #32

^ didnt realize who posted the opposition - this is Jake Archibald, a longtime googler on the Chrome team, now joining Mozilla and posting opposition to the Chrome API. no wonder the criticism is so well argued. most be a relief to not have to toe the party line on this one.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#108

Post by benterix »

domenicd wrote: post #106
benterix wrote: post #7

> Browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models.[0] Are they? [0] https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/blob/main/R...

(I wrote those words originally.) Wow. I had no idea that people would misinterpret what I was saying in this way. I was not meaning to imply it was an expectation of users or developers. I was meaning it as a statement of what was currently a growing industry trend by OS and browser vendors, of shipping or preparing to ship LMs. By now the statement could probably be amended from "expected to gain access to" to "shi…

[dead]

Re: Mozilla's opposition to Chrome's Prompt API

#110

Post by domenicd »

AntiUSAbah wrote: post #100

I find this a weird discussion at the current point. Shouldn't be there a basic process for allowing such an API as a alpha people can play around with and then there will be adjustments? No one will start using this in production if they don't have a very good and specific use case. I mean you don't just run 2gb ML models in your browser today on a massive scale.

(Former Chrome team member who worked on this API, now retired.)

There was such a process! They shipped as first Dev Trial around 2025-04, then Origin Trial in 2025-05. Since then a number of people tried it and gave lots of feedback, leading to model quality improvements, language support expansion, API additions like structured responses and tool use, etc. You can find a lot of feedback and case studies if you search around.

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