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Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

blog.torproject.org

161–170 of 241 posts

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#161
post #143

It makes me a little sad we only ever see FF hit the front page of HN for stuff people are angry about. The FF team building useful features like tab groups that are improving UX. But I guess if it bleeds it leads.

Maybe the Firefox team should stop doing bad things if they don’t want people saying bad things about them.

One person's bad thing is another person's much-anticipated feature. As long as they're optional and useful for enough users to justify the resource expenditure, I really don't see the problem.

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#162

It makes me a little sad we only ever see FF hit the front page of HN for stuff people are angry about. The FF team building useful features like tab groups that are improving UX. But I guess if it bleeds it leads.

They make such strange choices though.

Like `Firefox Data Collection and Use` which includes `Send technical and interaction data to Mozilla` and some other stuff is on by default. [1]

Glean data is here [2]

Historically I don't think FF would have made that decision - now I have to periodically check what else they turned on without me asking.

I generally don't like telemetry but I really don't like telemetry that is on by default - that very much should always be a "Would you like to?" question.

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/technical-and-interacti...

[2] https://dictionary.telemetry.mozilla.org/apps/firefox_deskto...

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#163
post #161
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the Firefox team should stop doing bad things if they don’t want people saying bad things about them.

One person's bad thing is another person's much-anticipated feature. As long as they're optional and useful for enough users to justify the resource expenditure, I really don't see the problem.

Optional and off by default.

Telemetry is on by default in FF.

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#164
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one "AI" feature that genuinely helps the user and preserves privacy is the Translation feature. (Yes, machine translation is in fact AI)

translation is moreso machine learning, not generative hallucinations or a chatbot

it's literally the same technology as LLMs. Transformers were proposed for translation.

(But I don't know what methods the Firefox translation uses. I assume it's a local model but don't even know that for sure.)

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#165

Did you know.. Mozilla get >80% of its revenue from Google, by making Google Search as default search engine on Firefox. While Mozilla pretends to be a non-profit, its CEO makes millions of dollars annually. Mitchell Baker: Stepped down as CEO of Mozilla in February 2024. Her salary for 2023 was reported to be $6.9 million. Laura Chambers: Became interim CEO of Mozilla in February 2024. Mozilla has not disclosed her…

I did but I don't see FF splitting from Mozilla (by whatever mechanism) either sadly and if you lose the name it becomes hard to get adoption for the forked one - see IceWeasel.

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#166
post #50

An AI sidebar doesn't bother me. But it should be an extension, not an inescapable part of the browser.

I'd love to be able to open up an arbitrary web page in this sidebar. It would be super valuable for research. They can obviously do it, since the AI sidebar also loads a web page, but the functionality is locked for some reason, and vertical splitting extensions are pure jank. I really wish Mozilla would focus on addressing some of the numerous user feature requests, rather than whatever the current trend is.

If you're not fan of vertical splitting sidebar check out Jetwriter AI. It opens up as an overlay modal and you can use your own API Key as well.

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#167
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is wasting the time of accessibility engineers If only Mozilla felt the same about wasting people's time. We wouldn't be having this discussion.

It's the same as you screaming at a McDonalds worker for not serving all day breakfast.

Falling down...

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#168

Did you know.. Mozilla get >80% of its revenue from Google, by making Google Search as default search engine on Firefox. While Mozilla pretends to be a non-profit, its CEO makes millions of dollars annually. Mitchell Baker: Stepped down as CEO of Mozilla in February 2024. Her salary for 2023 was reported to be $6.9 million. Laura Chambers: Became interim CEO of Mozilla in February 2024. Mozilla has not disclosed her…

I did but I don't see FF splitting from Mozilla (by whatever mechanism) either sadly and if you lose the name it becomes hard to get adoption for the forked one - see IceWeasel.

that being said IceWeasel is a particularly bad name

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overstating the hostility relative to what an average user might say (biased pro-firefox user myself but I don't take their browser imperfections as active hostility). And yeah, despite your protestations to the contrary, not wanting one company to have a browser monopoly really is a legitimate reason to support alternatives. In fact it's one of the best reasons. That's the problem with ridicule detach…

>I'd love for real conversation about, say, keeping Servo, Web Assembly, the fallacy of "privacy preserving ads" What is a "real" conversation? And what do those conversations help with here? Do you think Mozilla listens or cares about your conversations when they have all those billions coming from Google and can just sit and do nothing? >how it would be nice to have a Firefox OS now with Android forcing "verified d…

Mozilla is constantly responding to community feedback, almost to a fault, encompassing everything from user interface changes, to features requests, to rolling back undesired changes. I would recommend reading more about Mozilla Connect, which I would argue was specifically launched to get ahead of spurious accusations like these. For a big flashy example, their blog post introducing Tab Groups is titled "You Asked for it, we built it", and the first line is "What happens when 4,500 people ask for the same feature? At Firefox, we build it."

Moreover they've revised their Terms of Use following criticism (much of it here on HN), wound down Pocket and Fakespot in response to feedback about these being outside of their core mission, implemented visual search in response to community requests, made it easier to switch between different profiles again based on community requests, added a rollback option for extensions to previously approved versions in response to developer requests, brought back night mode on iOS after having removed it because the community asked for it, changed the design of the iOS toolbar to get rid of the share button, centralized developer support tools in an all-in-one add on hub. And offered extensive explanations when choosing not to implement or maintain features (e.g. Live Bookmark tool).

The trouble with the real work of responding to requests is it's often granular and unsexy, even when examples abound, and it's easy to not know what they're really doing and reach for the pitchfork.

A good place to start is this explainer on all the community feedback they've been taking in: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/about-mozilla-connect/

Re: Tor browser removing various Firefox AI features

#170

Mozilla's beginning to lose its way. There are far too many "luminaries" in the tech industry who've had the last 20 years of "must create value!" go to their heads, even in the FLOSS space. When profit motive does not exist (and it shouldn't in FLOSS) then you need to stick to things like the UNIX philosophy and KISS (keep it simple, stupid) in order to create good software. Trends mean nothing when you're in this m…

This is an opinion, yet you state it like fact. While I'm hesitant to want any AI features in my browser, what a "browser" does isn't necessarily a settled debate.
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