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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

#521

Post by godshatter »

tliltocatl wrote: post #506
rPlayer6554 wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so walk me through how _only_ focusing on the browser core will make them money other than continuing to be dependent on Google. How can they diversify their revenue streams? I agree they should make the browser core good, but right now they are entirely dependent on their biggest competitor.

- Start accepting small individual donations solely for the Firefox team (rather than generalized Mozilla stuff that goes on anything but Firefox). - Start crowdfunding for features. - Go RedHat route, offer an enterprise version with centrally managed profiles and DLP feature. Not exactly free-as-in-freedom stuff but still better than adtech. - Get some EU bureaucrats thru a FUD session against Chrome (does it count…

> - Start accepting small individual donations solely for the Firefox team (rather than generalized Mozilla stuff that goes on anything but Firefox). > > - Start crowdfunding for features.

Just these two things would make me happy (assuming the crowdfunding goes to the Firefox team as well).

I don't know any of the Mozilla execs but from the outside it looks an awful lot like some grifters were attracted to the free Google money and took money from the people doing the actual work.

If I'm wrong, my apologies. There just seems to be a lot of high salaries and a lot of developer layoffs.

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

#522

Post by msla »

ben_w wrote: post #480
runarberg wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI crap has already been crammed into everything for months now, and nobody like it nor wants it. There is no proof that AI will continue to improve and no certainty that it will become a disadvantage not to use them. In fact, we are seeing the improvements slow down and it looks like the model will plateau sooner rather then later.

> There is no proof that AI will continue to improve and no certainty that it will become a disadvantage not to use them. In fact, we are seeing the improvements slow down and it looks like the model will plateau sooner rather then later. While I expect the improvements to slow down and stop, due to the money running out, there's definitely evidence that the models can keep improving until that point. "Sooner or late…

> While I expect the improvements to slow down and stop, due to the money running out

This will certainly happen with the models that use weird proprietary licenses, which people only contribute to if they're being paid, but open ones can continue beyond that point.

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

#523

Post by gitlinuxgreat »

When a company has monopolistic practices, its products ride their anticompetiveness to majority market share by force of their dominance. The result is the Netscapeification of anything that competes with any monopoly. A monopoly anticompetitiveness needs to be dealt with powerfully by Congress to increase competition. Though the lobbyists of these anticompetitive companies and the billions deployed from the lobbying companies effectively is a significant detriment to competitors, healthy competition, and always in many subtle, loss of innovation ways, the consumer. This is the tip of the iceberg for anyone in competition to the oligarchical status quo that is in effect, and detrimenting the consumer in multitude ways that you are not comprehending.

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

#524

Post by gitprolinux »

When a company has monopolistic practices, its products ride their anticompetiveness to majority market share by force of their dominance. The result is the Netscapeification of anything that competes with any monopoly. A monopoly anticompetitiveness needs to be dealt with powerfully by Congress to increase competition. Though the lobbyists of these anticompetitive companies and the billions deployed from the lobbying companies effectively is a significant detriment to competitors, healthy competition, and always in many subtle, loss of innovation ways, the consumer. This is the tip of the iceberg for anyone in competition to the oligarchical status quo that is in effect, and detrimenting the consumer in multitude ways that you are not comprehending.

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

#526

Post by veeti »

AuthAuth wrote: post #36

I'm glad to see some mozilla employees standing their base in the comments. That guy trying to make the point that Mozilla was wasting resources chasing trend only for an employee to say it was a few people checking it out while 1000 people continued work on the normal stuff is nice to see. The non mozilla people in that thread are so petty. Maybe it'd be better to have them go use another browser and stop dragging d…

People on Mastodon being insufferable, say it ain't so

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

#527

Post by illiac786 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #470
tliltocatl wrote: post #355

I think people screaming "but AI is the future" doesn't recognize what the problem is. The problem is not AI. The problem is that Mozilla keeps jumping on fads instead of focusing on their browser core. There are a tons of "we bundled all the latest crap" Chrome forks out there. Nobody needs more those. Stop pushing bells and whistles. Give us more extensibility instead. Keep supporting v2 manifest and add more. Ther…

I am waiting for a serious fork of Mozilla to emerge at this point that pays the maintainers better in a bid to overtake Mozilla itself. People would donate to get a better browser, people dont donate because Mozilla wastes all their donor funds on nonsense.

I kind of gave up hope tbh. I still use Firefox but I am waiting for ladybug. It will probably take a couple of years to get there, but it’s what I would have wanted Firefox to be.

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

#528

Post by fl0id »

zdragnar wrote: post #458
braiamp wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that Mozilla keeps jumping on fads instead of focusing on their browser core No, the problem is that Mozilla needs money if they want to stop leaning off Google, and people are simply too blind by their hatred of AI that doesn't figure out that Mozilla needs money. What is giving shit loads of money right now? A-fucking-I. If their investors portfolio doesn't include AI on their products, nobody will…

A-fucking-I doesn't make the product better. Mozilla constantly runs in every direction other than what their core users want or need. > You want Mozilla to stop doing that? Guarantee their moneis flow. Sure, just as soon as they sell something a privacy focused user of a browser wants. Privacy focused password management built into Firefox with paid sync or enterprise integration. Privacy focused paid email hosting,…

They have some of that. Password sync is free for example though. (If private enough for you) and they have email relay and vpn as a paid feature

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

#529

Post by mort96 »

aryonoco wrote: post #517
giancarlostoro wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am waiting for a serious fork of Mozilla to emerge at this point that pays the maintainers better in a bid to overtake Mozilla itself. People would donate to get a better browser, people dont donate because Mozilla wastes all their donor funds on nonsense.

There are those. I pay to support Floorp. But I also donate to Firefox and Thunderbird cause the forks wouldn’t exist without them.

I may be prematurely judgemental here but I just can not take a project named "floorp" seriously.

Your second paragraph is more important though: none of these let's call them Firefox distributions are proper forks. They're not developed by teams who could develop and maintain a browser independent of Mozilla. I believe that's what your parent comment means by a "serious fork". Floorp and Waterfox and LibreWolf are not that.

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

#530

Post by ben_w »

msla wrote: post #522
ben_w wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no proof that AI will continue to improve and no certainty that it will become a disadvantage not to use them. In fact, we are seeing the improvements slow down and it looks like the model will plateau sooner rather then later. While I expect the improvements to slow down and stop, due to the money running out, there's definitely evidence that the models can keep improving until that point. "Sooner or late…

> While I expect the improvements to slow down and stop, due to the money running out This will certainly happen with the models that use weird proprietary licenses, which people only contribute to if they're being paid, but open ones can continue beyond that point.

The hyperscalers are buying enough compute and energy to distort the market, enough money thrown at them to distort the US economy.

Open models, even if 100% of internet users joined an AI@HOME kind of project, don't have enough resources to do that.

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