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Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

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Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#251

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

someNameIG wrote: post #104
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers. New CEO says they've run the numbers and decided to not kill adblockers, leading to people asking why exactly they were running those numbers (if it was an actual ideological commitment, the numbers wouldn't matter). > Mozilla says they'll add a killswitch for all AI features (so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI m…

> Well, yes. If you build a userbase out of power users and folks who care about privacy and control... Is that their core user base, or just the vocal user base online? Only 5-10% of their user base have UBO installed (FF has almost 200 million users, extension store reports ~10 million UBO installs). Firefox isn't LibreWolf, it's user base are just average people, not much different than that of Chrome, Safari, or…

I don't know how to rigorously verify who their actual users are on the ground, but it seems like that's at least nominally their target; https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ says,

> Firefox: Get the gold standard for browsing with speed, privacy and control.

I hadn't actually seen that when I wrote "power users and folks who care about privacy and control", but that's even mostly the same words, let alone intent.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#252

Post by johnnyanmac »

School-Cotton wrote: post #62
wtallis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has a recurring problem with being unable to provide the simple, obvious right answer . When they re-wrote Firefox for Android, they were unable to give the simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensi…

> simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensions, and took three years from shipping Fenix as stable before they had a broad open extension ecosystem up and running again. That answer is not as obvious to me…

I you can’t take the time to install a new tool. You don’t need it. And I think that’s a great mindset to have with not just software, but when approaching life.

I keep lean and only look for an extension or install amd app when it’s clear what problem I have and want to solve.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#253

Post by hollerith »

knowitnone3 wrote: post #248
gigel82 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to live in your world for a bit... I can't imagine any future where having AI in your browser is a net positive for any user. It sounds like an absolute dystopian privacy and security nightmare.

I don't know. What if the AI can remove all junk from the page, clean it up, and only leave the content - sort of like ublock origin on steroids?

I'd pay a monthly subscription fee for this. All the service would need to do to get my money is guess which words that already exist on the page I will be interested in and show me those words in black-and-white type (in a face and a size chosen by me, not the owner of the web site) free of any CSS, styling or "innovative" manner of presentation.

Specifically, the AI does not generate text for me to read. All it does is decide which parts of the text that already exists on the page to show me. (It is allowed to interact with the web page to get past any modal windows or gates.)

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#255

Post by invl »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #90
gigel82 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to live in your world for a bit... I can't imagine any future where having AI in your browser is a net positive for any user. It sounds like an absolute dystopian privacy and security nightmare.

Why? Imagine you have an AI button. When you click it, the locally running LLM gets a copy of the web site in the context window, and you get to ask it a prompt, e.g. "summarize this". Imagine the browser asks you at some point, whether you want to hear about new features. The buttons offered to you are "FUCK OFF AND NEVER, EVER BOTHER ME AGAIN", "Please show me a summary once a month", "Show timely, non-modal notifi…

I have already clicked the all-caps button

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#256

Post by asadotzler »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #21

I can't imagine any reasonable use case for having AI tightly integrated into a browser (or an operating system, for what it's worth). Why not make a browser plugin or a web page or an app? I don't get it.

Local translation of websites so you don't have to tell Google about all the sites you want to read that are not in your language. Firefox's address bar that learns what you type most often and moves those items higher in the autocomplete list. There are plenty of great cases for AI very tightly integrated in the browser. That you haven't thought very hard about it or even bothered to see what AI Firefox has already had for ages (Awesomebar was about 15 years ago) is precisely why you don't "get it."

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#257

Post by teaearlgraycold »

taurath wrote: post #151
alexgotoi wrote: post #131

This is exactly the kind of boring, unsexy feature that actually builds trust. It’s the opposite of the usual “surprise, here’s an AI sidebar you didn’t ask for and can’t fully disable” pattern. If they want people to try this stuff, the path is pretty simple: ship a browser that treats AI like any other power feature. Off by default, clearly explained, reversible, and preferably shippable as an extension. You can al…

> It’s the opposite of the usual “surprise, here’s an AI sidebar you didn’t ask for and can’t fully disable” pattern. They literally shipped an AI sidebar nobody asked for.

I find it a nice feature.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#258

Post by asadotzler »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #238
freehorse wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local translations?

I had a translation extension for a good 2 years before it was built into FF

You and a few others. Now it's well over 100 million who have it. We didn't make the back button an extension even though we could have. There's good reasons for making some features default and high on that list is "most people would use it and find it valuable for everyday browsing" which well covers web page translation.

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#259

Post by 999900000999 »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #161
999900000999 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then ship a FireFoxAI browser for users who want it. Forcing everyone to by default use AI isn't freedom. I might as well just use Chrome.

So now we're debating compile-time feature flags vs run-time, and the overhead of running/maintaining multiple build configs. And picking good names for each... "Firefox Pro with AI" vs "Firefox Lite for Engineers". This isn't what Mozilla needs to be focusing on right now, imo.

With over 600 million in revenue they can afford to put up a different page for Firefox AI.

A large percentage of users, particularly Firefox users , don't want this AI stuff built in.

Where does this AI even run. Does it have to make an API requests to send all of the webpages I view somewhere else ?

Is it even my computer anymore, my browser, or am I sharing it with people who want to extract more money from me.

As is Google forced me to view often incorrect AI summaries when I have no interest in them.

Do I want the only real Chrome competitor to also force bad ai content in my face ?

Re: Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features

#260

Post by 4k93n2 »

kgwxd wrote: post #209

i don't even want the code present on my machine, only being held back by a checkbox that may or may not be correctly respected. this is what extensions we invented for.

its funny how multi-account containers is a such a killer feature of firefox (that none of the other browsers are able to implement, as far as i remember) but its kept as an extension and they never seem too bothered about promoting it either
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