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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

#221

Post by yunohn »

Terr_ wrote: post #152
kbelder wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's levels of this, though, more than two: local, open model local, proprietary model remote, open model (are there these?) remote, proprietary model There is almost no harm in a local, open model. Conversely, a remote, proprietary model should always require opting in with clear disclaimers. It needs to be proportional.

> There is almost no harm in a local, open model. Depends what the side-effects can possibly be. A local+open model could still disregard-all-previous-instructions and erase your hard drive.

How, literally how? The LLM is provided a list of tab titles, and returns a classification/grouping.

There is no reason nor design where you also provide it with full disk access or terminal rights.

This is one of the most ignorant posts and comment sections I’ve seen on HN in a while.

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

#222

Post by 998244353 »

Terr_ wrote: post #151
andai wrote: post #139

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…

YouTube already supports that natively these days, although it's kind of hidden (and knowing Google, it might very well randomly disappear one day). Open the description of the video, scroll down and click "show transcript".

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

#223

Post by benrutter »

reddalo wrote: post #179
benrutter wrote: post #169

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.

Yes, I agree. I suppose when I said "I'm not worried" - I meant in the context of "it doesn't put me off using Waterfox". I am worried from an overall software ecosystem point of view.

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

#224

Post by lioeters »

AuthAuth wrote: post #52
mindcrash wrote: post #34

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…

All your complaints can be resolved in a few seconds by using the settings to customize the browser to your liking and not downloading extensions you dont like. And tons of people asked for that sidebar by the way. We have to put this all in the context. Firefox is trying to diversify their revenue away from google search. They are trying to provide users with a Modern browser. This means adding the features that peo…

> Firefox is trying to diversify their revenue

Nobody wants a browser that's focused on diversifying its revenue, especially from Mozilla which pretends to be a non-profit "free software community".

Chrome is paid for by ads and privacy violations, and now Firefox is paid for by "AI" companies? That is a sad state of affairs.

Ungoogled Chromium and Waterfox are at best a temporary measure. Perhaps the EU or one of the U.S. billionaires would be willing to fund a truly free (as in libre) browser engine that serves the public interest.

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

#225

Post by Orygin »

nottorp wrote: post #216
Orygin wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you listen to the doomers in this thread, it will. They "will" remove the option from settings, hide it in about:config, then later on remove it from there! Of course none of that is true...

It's plausible because the team working on the settings screen will be reassigned to the "AI".

That's just doom saying at this point.

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

#226

Post by move-on-by »

hannasanarion wrote: post #116
move-on-by wrote: post #97

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.

The courts have found providing an http request in exchange for an http response- where both the request and response contains valuable data, is selling data? Well that’s interesting because I too consider it selling of data. I’m glad the courts and I can agree on something so simple and obvious.

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

#227

Post by tpoacher »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #187
reddalo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

that you are expected to edit in vim

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

#228

Post by countWSS »

The problem with this is integration: no one would complain if it was an official plugin/extension, but integrating this plugin into Firefox is forced and unexpected decision. Firefox telemetry,labs/experiments and server-dependent features will lose it marketshare slowly in favor of local-only browsers that don't have online dependencies or forced bloatware. Like many i've switched long ago to LibreWolf.

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

#229

Post by XorNot »

charcircuit wrote: post #201
XorNot wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting byte exact text isn't the point though: even if it's different, I as the original writer can still look at roundtripped text and evaluate that it has the same meaning. It's not a lossy process, and N round-trips should not lose any net meaning either. This isn't a possible test with many other applications.

How about a different edge case. It's easier to round trip successfully if your translation uses loan words. It can guarantee that it translates back to the same word. This metric would prefer using loan words even if they are not common in practice and would be awkward to use.

The point of translation is to translate. If both parties wind up comprehending what was said then you've succeeded.

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

#230

Post by _heimdall »

chillfox wrote: post #161
_heimdall wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a huge leap here. I'm raising only had signaling intentionally rather than automatically has made me pay more attention to others on the road. You're claiming that that action which has proven to make me pay closer attention will kill someone.

By not signaling you are robbing others on the road the opportunity to avoid a potential accident should you not have seen them. It's maximum selfish fuck everyone else asshole behavior.

Did you read any of my comments? I signal when anyone is around and don't signal when there is no one to notify of my upcoming turn.
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