171–180 of 344 posts
Then everyone who wants AI can have it and those that don't .... don't.
This whole backlash to firefox wanting to introduce AI feels a little knee-jerky. We don't know if firefox might want to roll out their own locally hosted LLM model that then they plug into.. and if so, if would cut down on the majority of the knee jerk complaints. I think people want AI in the browser, they just don't want it to be the big-corp hosted AI... [Update]: as I posted below, sample use cases would include…
https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2025...
it's the cornerstone of their strategy to invest in local, sovereign ai models in an attempt to court attention from persons / organizations wary of us tech
it's better to understand the concern over mozilla's announcement the following way i think:
- mozilla knows that their revenue from default search providers is going to dry up because ai is largely replacing manual searching
- mozilla (correctly) identifies that there is a potential market in eu for open, sovereign tech that is not reliant on us tech companies
- mozilla (incorrectly imo) believes that attaching ai to firefox is the answer for long term sustainability for mozilla
with this framing, mozilla has only a few options to get the revenue they're seeking according to their portfolio, and it involves either more search / ai deals with us tech companies (which they claim to want to avoid), or harvesting data and selling it like so many other companies that tossed ai onto software
the concern about us tech stack dominations are valid and probably there is a way to sustain mozilla by chasing this, but breaking the us tech stack dominance doesn't require another browser / ai model, there are plenty already. they need to help unseat stuff like gdocs / office / sharepoint and offer a real alternative for the eu / other interested parties -- simply adding ai is mozilla continuing their history of fad chasing and wondering why they don't make any money, and demonstrates a lack of understanding imo about, well, modern life
my concern over the announcement is that mozilla doesn't seem to have learned anything from their past attempts at chasing fads and likely they will end up in an even worse position
firefox and other mozilla products should be streamlined as much as possible to be the best N possible with these kinds of side projects maintained as first party extensions, not as the new focus of their development, and they should invest the money they're planning to dump into their ai ambitions elsewhere, focusing on a proper open sovereign tech stack that they can then sell to eu like they've identified in their portfolio statement
the announcement though makes it seem like mozilla believes they can just say ai and also get some of the ridiculous ai money, and that does not bode well for firefox as a browser or mozilla's future
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, basically every 15 minute YouTube video, because the amount of actual content I care about is usually 1-2 sentences, and usually ends up being the first sentence of an LLM summary of the transcript. If something has actual substance I'll watch the whole thing, but that's maybe 10% of videos I find in experience.
I'd wager there's 95% of the benefit for 0.1% of the CPU cycles just by having a "search transcript for term" feature, since in most of those cases I've already got a clear agenda for what kind of information I'm seeking. Many years ago I make a little proof-of-concept for displaying the transcript (closed captions) of a YouTube video as text, and highlighting a word would navigate to that timestamp and vice-versa. S…
> Large language models are something else entirely*. They are black boxes. You cannot audit them. You cannot truly understand what they do with your data. You cannot verify their behaviour. And Mozilla wants to put them at the heart of the browser and that doesn't sit well. Am I being overly critical here or is this kind of a silly position to have right after talking about how neural machine translation is okay? Ma…
On a purely technical play, you’re right that I’m drawing a distinction that may not hold up purely on technical grounds. Maybe the better framing is: I trust constrained, single purpose models with somewhat verifiable outputs (seeing text go in, translated text go out, compare its consistency) more than I trust general purpose models with broad access to my browsing context, regardless of whether they’re both neural networks under the hood.
WRT to the “scope”, maybe I have picked up the wrong end of the stick with what Mozilla are planning to do - but they’ve already picked all the low hanging fruit with AI integration with the features you’ve mentioned and the fact they seem to want to dig their heels in further, at least to me, signals that they want deeper integration? Although who knows, the post from the new CEO may also be a litmus test to see what the response to that post elicits, and then go from there.
This whole backlash to firefox wanting to introduce AI feels a little knee-jerky. We don't know if firefox might want to roll out their own locally hosted LLM model that then they plug into.. and if so, if would cut down on the majority of the knee jerk complaints. I think people want AI in the browser, they just don't want it to be the big-corp hosted AI... [Update]: as I posted below, sample use cases would include…
They are not "wanting" to introduce AI, they already did. And now we have: - A extra toolbar nobody asked for at the side. And while it contains some extra features now, I'm pretty much sure they added it just to have some prominent space to add a "Open AI Chatbot" button to the UI. And it is irritating as fuck because it remembers its state per window. So if you have one window open with the sidebar open, and you cl…
Putting back the home button, removing the tabs overview button, disabling sponsored suggestions in the toolbar, putting the search bar back, removing the new AI toolbar, disabling the "It's been a while since you've used Firefox, do you want to cleanup your profile?", disabling the long-click tab preview, disabling telemetry, etc. etc.
I just want FireFox to focus on building an absolutely awesome plugin API that exposes as much power and flexibility as possible - with the best possible security sandbox and permissions model to go with it. Then everyone who wants AI can have it and those that don't .... don't.
I just want FireFox to focus on building an absolutely awesome plugin API that exposes as much power and flexibility as possible - with the best possible security sandbox and permissions model to go with it. Then everyone who wants AI can have it and those that don't .... don't.
Did that achieve the last CEOs goals? Presumably if it did they'll use that route again.
Have Google required a default 'on' for Gemini use?
Waterfox is dependant on Firefox still being developed. Mozilla are adding these features to try to stay relevant and keep or gain market share. If this fails, and Firefox goes away, Waterfox is unlikely to survive.
That's true, but as a Waterfox user, I'm not worried! If firefox really completely fails, and nobody is able to continue the open source project, I'll just find a new browser. That's not a huge hassle- Waterfox does what I need in the here and now, that's my only criterion.
The problem is that if Firefox dies, there are no browsers left. I don't want to use a re-skin of Chrome.
> Large language models are something else entirely*. They are black boxes. You cannot audit them. You cannot truly understand what they do with your data. You cannot verify their behaviour. And Mozilla wants to put them at the heart of the browser and that doesn't sit well. Am I being overly critical here or is this kind of a silly position to have right after talking about how neural machine translation is okay? Ma…
Looking back with fresh eyes, I definitely think I could’ve presented what I’m trying to say better. On a purely technical play, you’re right that I’m drawing a distinction that may not hold up purely on technical grounds. Maybe the better framing is: I trust constrained, single purpose models with somewhat verifiable outputs (seeing text go in, translated text go out, compare its consistency) more than I trust gener…