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No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

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Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#181
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I use it sometimes in Firefox with my local LLM server. Sometimes i come across an article I'm curious about but don't have the time or energy to read. Then I get a TL;DR from it. I know it's not perfect but the alternative is not reading it at all. If it does interest me then I can explore it. I guess I do this once a week or so, not a lot.

I highly doubt that no information would be worse than wrong information. Both wars in Ukraine and Gaza show this very clearly.

I just use it for personal information, I'm not involved in any wars :) I don't base any decisions on it, for example if I buy something I don't go by just AI stuff to make a decision. I use the AI to screen reviews, things like that (generally I prefer really deep review and not glossy consumer-focused ones). Then I read the reviews that are suitable to me.

And even reading an article about those myself doesn't make me insusceptible to misinformation of course. Most of the misinformation about these wars is spread on purpose by the parties involved themselves. AI hallucination doesn't really cause that, it might exacerbate it a little bit. Information warfare is a huge thing and it has been before AI came on the scene.

Ok, as a more specific example, recently I was thinking of buying the new Xreal Air 2. I have the older one but I have 3 specific issues with it. I used AI to find references about these issues being solved. This was the case and AI confirmed that directly with references, but in further digging myself I did find that there was also a new issue introduced with that model involving blurry edges. So in the end I decided not to buy the thing. The AI didn't identify that issue (though to be fair I didn't ask it to look for any).

So yeah it's not an allknowing oracle and it makes mistakes, but it can help me shave some time off such investigations. Especially now that search engines like google are so full of clickbait crap and sifting through that shit is tedious.

In that case I used OpenWebUI with a local LLM model that speaks to my SearXNG server which in turn uses different search engines as a backend. It tends to work pretty well I have to say, though perplexity does it a little better. But I prefer self-hosting as much as I can (of course the search engine part is out of scope there).

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'll just find a new browser. The problem is that if Firefox dies, there are no browsers left. I don't want to use a re-skin of Chrome.

> The problem is that if Firefox dies, there are no browsers left. I don't want to use a re-skin of Chrome.

Lynx is still not a re-skin of Chrome, unless I missed something changing.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#183

> Machine learning technologies like the Bergamot translation project offer real, tangible utility. Bergamot is transparent in what it does (translate text locally, period), auditable (you can inspect the model and its behavior), and has clear, limited scope, even if the internal neural network logic isn’t strictly deterministic. This really weakens the point of the post. It strikes me as a: we just don't like those…

To me it sounds like a reasonable "AI-conservative" position.

(It's weird how people can be so anti-anti-AI, but then when someone takes a middle position, suddenly that's wrong too.)

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll just find a new browser. The problem is that if Firefox dies, there are no browsers left. I don't want to use a re-skin of Chrome.

> The problem is that if Firefox dies, there are no browsers left. I don't want to use a re-skin of Chrome. Lynx is still not a re-skin of Chrome, unless I missed something changing.

Can you manage your bank in Lynx?

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#185

This feature can be easily disabled with policies: https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#generativeai https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#preferences https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/app/profil... https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/modules/libpref/in...

This is like when people defend Windows 11's nonsense by saying "you can disable or remove that stuff". Yes, you can. But you shouldn't have to, and I personally prefer to use tools which don't shove useless things into the tool because it's trendy.

The difference is that on Windows all unwanted features eventually become mandatory, with no way of switching them off. With Firefox, it never happens.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting example to use. I only use turn signals when there are other cars around that would need the indication. I don't view a turn signal as politeness, its a safety tool to let others know what I'm about to. I do also find that only using a turn signal when others are around is a good reinforcement to always be aware of my surroundings. I feel like a jerk when I don't use one and realize there was so…

I would strongly suggest you use your turnsignals, always , without exception. You are relying on perfect awareness of your surroundings which isn't going to be the case over a longer stretch of time and you are obliged to signal changes in direction irrespective of whether or not you believe there are others around you. I'm saying this as a frequent cyclist who more than once has been cut off by cars that were not i…

I am a frequent pedestrian and am often frustrated by drivers not indicating, but always grateful when they do!

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Every time i reinstall Firefox on a new machine, the number of annoyances that I need to remove or change increases. 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 prev…

It's ridiculous that all those things aren't just config in a plain text file.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the complaint isn’t the AI itself, but the updated privacy policy that was rolled out prior to the AI features. Regardless of me using the AI features or not, I must agree to their updated privacy policy. According to the privacy policy changes, they are selling data (per the legal definition of selling data) to data partners. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/firefox-deletes-...

This is an absurd take. The meaning of "selling" is extremely broad, courts have found such language to apply to transactions as simple as providing an http request in exchange for an http response. Their lawyers must have been begging them to remove that language for the liability it represents. For all purposes actually relevant to privacy, the updated language is more specific and just as strong.

If they were only selling data in such an 'innocent' way, couldn't they clearly state that, in addition to whatever legalese they're required to provide?

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#189
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had on so many cases autocomplete forms puts something in a field it shouldn't and messes up a submission. I've had it happen on travel documents that caused headaches later at the airport - especially if it fills in a hidden field because some bad web dev implemented it poorly.

It gets it wrong because the current "AI" for filling out forms is extremely weak and brittle compared to the general language models we have now.

Do you have an example form field that a general language model could fill out better than a human + highly focussed deterministic algorithm?

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I do sympathize with the thought behind it, general user is already equating llm chat box as 'better browsing'. In terms of simple positioning vis-a-vis non-technical audience, this is one integration that does make fiscal sense.. if mozilla was a real business. Now, personally, I would like to have sane defaults, where I can toggle stuff on and off, but we all know which way the wind blows in this case.

Firefox is not for general users, which is the problem that Mozilla's for a literal decade now. There is no way to make it better than Chrome or Safari (because it has to be better for every day users to switch, not just "as good" or even "way more configurable but slightly worse". It has to be appreciably better). So the only user base is the power user. And then yes: sane defaults, and a way to turn things on and o…

These comments are full of people explaining how Firefox can differentiate from chrome and safari: don't force AI on us.
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