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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

#211

Post by [deleted] »

zamadatix wrote: post #210
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #200

Why is it that Google is fixated on bolting on ever more junk and turning browsers into Homermobiles[0] instead of putting those vast resources towards fixing the numerous structural weaknesses in everything that browsers are already capable of? Why not focus on foundational things that will improve quality of life for everything on the web platform ranging from static blogs to e-commerce to cutting edge web apps? Re…

Google doesn't build Chrome to make a better web. Building a good browser for the sake of building a good browser is throwing billions towards goodwill while Google's goal with Chrome is to further replace the user's OS as the platform users do things on their devices with. Google has Android & ChromeOS to directly try to do that but Chrome makes it so the average user using e.g. Windows still ends up in a Google wor…

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by throwawa14223 »

ilaksh wrote: post #75
jaffathecake wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the objection here is unrelated to the love or hate of LLMs. It's about the viability of this particular proposed open web API. I personally use LLMs for coding assistance, and some home automation stuff, but I do not think this particular API is good for the web.

Meaning you do not want text generation in the web API at all, or you think the prompt API needs to be different? And if so can you give one sentence on how it should change? https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet If you glance at that then you may see that I am for the idea of leaner alternatives to the current web platform. But in the context of the existing web API which has just about everything and the whole kitchen…

I do not want text generation in the web API at all.

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

#213

Post by bigbadfeline »

raincole wrote: post #17
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...

Browsers: Chrome (proposed this Prompt API) Operating Systems: Windows (built-in Copilot), MacOS, iOS (Apple Intelligence) So it's >90% desktop browser and OS, plus >30% mobile OS. Yes, I think it's very safe to say "browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models."

> So it's >90% desktop browser and OS, plus >30% mobile OS. > Yes, I think it's very safe to say "browsers and operating systems are increasingly expected to gain access to language models."

Doesn't follow. Every case you listed justifies LLM inclusion with a similar "everything is expected to be defiled by LLMs" argument, mine is a better wording but still evasively passive and the "expected" part is still nonsense.

Just don't tell me LLM inclusion is justified by "expected" all the way down, like the bottomless money pit it is.

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

#214

Post by throwawa14223 »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #8
croes wrote: post #4

So the next anti trust case for the EU. Chrome is clearly dominating the browser market and now they try to abuse that (again)

It's exhausting having such reflexive thoughtless ragging anytime Chrome is mentioned. Oh no! Chrome is trying to enhance user agency again! Oh no! Chrome is trying to make the web better for end users! Mozilla's concerns aren't totally bogus, I'm not going to try to laugh them out of the room. But their pearl clutching & belly-aching about "oh no what if not all implementations of ai prompts work exactly the same" f…

It is non-obvious that adding an LLM to a web browser makes anything better for the web browser user.

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

#215

Post by lxgr »

dabockster wrote: post #162
codedokode wrote: post #134

I am against this. 1) This will be a new source of fingerprinting information and this is difficult to fake to fool fingerprinting scripts, so it can be abused for "device verification". There should be no ability to "verify" a browser, and anyone should be able to emulate any browser. This is the most important point, I thought Google people are smart enough to see it. 2) LLMs use lot of memory and CPU time, for man…

> There should be no ability to "verify" a browser, and anyone should be able to emulate any browser. Hard disagree. The AI industry has absolutely shredded the various anti-scraping and anti-botting social contracts that were in place prior to the covid pandemic. Like it's now common knowledge that robots.txt isn't a hard requirement and can be avoided entirely, for example. They have absolutely turned the open web…

> it's now common knowledge that robots.txt isn't a hard requirement and can be avoided entirely, for example

Was it ever not? It's a text file, not law.

> They have absolutely turned the open web into a dark forest.

Only if you have an ideological problem with people you don't like using the things you publish on the open web.

I'd say the web can be very open even without being copyleft. It makes some business models non-viable, but it doesn't prevent anyone from publishing what they want.

On the other hand, I don't think I would call something that preserves copyright at the cost of only admitting "approved/certified non-LLM scrapers" via attestation or similar "the open web".

> Having a browser session able to be verified as untampered and/or "trusted" is probably going to be a thing going forward. Sucks a ton, but we all did this to ourselves.

Who did what to whom?

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

#216

Post by lxgr »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #200

Why is it that Google is fixated on bolting on ever more junk and turning browsers into Homermobiles[0] instead of putting those vast resources towards fixing the numerous structural weaknesses in everything that browsers are already capable of? Why not focus on foundational things that will improve quality of life for everything on the web platform ranging from static blogs to e-commerce to cutting edge web apps? Re…

How would not implementing a prompt API make them dedicate their resources to something else they didn't consider important before? This seems like a false dichotomy.

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

#217

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

john_strinlai wrote: post #154
MisterTea wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the most important point, I thought Google people are smart enough to see it. Google just points towards the money like other bacterium and beats its flagella until it gets there. I don't know why or how anyone would EVER think Google is going to do something good for the web or humanity.

> I don't know why or how anyone would EVER think Google is going to do something good for the web or humanity. i dislike google as much as the next guy, but sometimes it can be good to remember that actual humans work at google. some of them want to improve things for people. some of them even have a conscience. one immediate "good" that comes to mind, from google, is the project zero team.

That some trees in a mudslide veer to the left does not mean that your house isn't going to be plowed down the hillside.

The momentum of the mass-entity that is Google simply cannot be overridden by some outliers trying to change direction.

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

#218

Post by darkwater »

izacus wrote: post #47
darkwater wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Internet did make better?

The one you're using every day filled with web apps that runsl securely without you dowloading sketchy binaries or being locked into walled garden app stores.

It's also the one where I find sites where I can't even login if I'm using Firefox. i.e. my bank just redesigned their website and now you can login only with Chrome. For some weird bug, Firefox isn't allowed.

The same exact issues we had with IE.

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

#219

Post by slightlyoff »

domenicd wrote: post #122

I was formerly the design lead / spec editor for this API while I worked at Google. I retired in 2025-09, before it got shipped. The following contains no inside knowledge. I am sympathetic to all of Mozilla's concerns here, even though on balance I believe Chromium's decision to ship was the right one. --- On interoperability, I agree that this is a tough case. But I am more optimistic than Mozilla that developers w…

Hey Domenic,

Sucks to be corresponding via The Second Worst Website In The World (TM), but here we are. Hope all's well on your end.

A minor correction from Edge's perspective: we've participated in OT using Phi models, but have not shipped to Stable, and are unlikely to given the current shape of things. Developers have not given us feedback that they're relaxed about compatibility, but I would obviously welcome that sort of data in case anyone has it to hand.

Best,

Alex

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

#220

Post by dismalaf »

MisterTea wrote: post #152
codedokode wrote: post #134

I am against this. 1) This will be a new source of fingerprinting information and this is difficult to fake to fool fingerprinting scripts, so it can be abused for "device verification". There should be no ability to "verify" a browser, and anyone should be able to emulate any browser. This is the most important point, I thought Google people are smart enough to see it. 2) LLMs use lot of memory and CPU time, for man…

> This is the most important point, I thought Google people are smart enough to see it. Google just points towards the money like other bacterium and beats its flagella until it gets there. I don't know why or how anyone would EVER think Google is going to do something good for the web or humanity.

The sheer amount of OSS projects that have come out of Google would suggest otherwise...

Stuff like Go, Bazel, Ninja, V8, Dart, MLIR, Tensorflow, Chromium, Android, and countless others I can't remember off the top, plus their contributions to Linux, LLVM, Python, and so on... I can't think of any company that has given as much sheer volume of open source code as Google.

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