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I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

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Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#631

Post by Certhas »

xinayder wrote: post #545
slightwinder wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone want AI in anything? Well, if you phrase it this way, then yes, people want this. AI can be useful, and integration is beneficial. But if we are talking about the momentary hype, then no, most people are against stupidly blindly shoving AI into something and getting annoyed with it the whole time. Personally, I would prefer for apps to safely open up for any kind of integration, and AI being just one au…

> Well, if you phrase it this way, then yes, people want this. No? If anything, adding AI features to something is just driving away your user base. No one asked for a built-in AI. Why not provide an extension?

And you know this how?

Have you seen usage statistics of AI integrations?

I personally don't like them, but I don't expect that I am a representative user. Nor are the people I know.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#632

Post by moffkalast »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #445
moffkalast wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla really just needs to do three things: allow adblocking, have feature parity with Chrome, and render HTML correctly. Currently they've at least got one of the three.

They also need to integrate with windows/enterprise setups better, that's one of the main reasons people use chrome based browsers.

You'd think so, you'd really fucking think so, but Firefox is genuinely by far the slowest on Linux. On Windows it's closest to Chrome.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#633

Post by flaburgan »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #553
toomuchtodo wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My two cents is Mozilla should be in a European tech hub, with some component of their funding coming from the EU, where the EU's belief in regulation and nation state efforts to protect humans exceeds that of the US.

What stops the EU from doing that now? Regulation.

Wrong. They are actually doing it, with NLNet and NGI (Next Generation Internet) but they chose to funs Servo not Firefox.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#634

Post by dimal »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #216
railka wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a regular Firefox user; it is literally the tool I use most often during my working hours. I like it more than Chrome. Firefox is steadily losing market share, and any attempts to do something about it are met with negativity. The 2-4% of users who use it care about their privacy. But they are not being deprived of it; the AI tab is optional, and no one is removing the regular tab. (Of course, it would be better…

I am not a Firefox user, but I am baffled by the fact that every time I see news about it is because its developers are trying to push something that users dislike. All the comments I read always highlight how they keep wasting time and money instead of working on more important things. My impression is that this is the reason why they keep losing market share. I never see any positive news about Firefox or Mozilla,…

> every time I see news about it is because its developers are trying to push something that users dislike

Don't blame developers for management decisions.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#635

Post by kelvinjps10 »

seszett wrote: post #622
kelvinjps10 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate it how they're gonna change the power button to something else that's not power options. Just to push their annoying google assistant

What are you guys talking about? I have a Pixel 8, didn't install Lineage OS on it, and my power button works fine?

Some phones with the lastest android, when you press the power button instead of showing you the power options, it opens google assistant.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#636

Post by rollcat »

lukan wrote: post #280
rollcat wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has started so many incredibly ambitious projects: Firefox OS, Rust, Servo/Stylo, Quantum... A slack-alike would at best give them a +1 against killedbygoogle.com. Yep, a federated social network is indeed an ambitious problem, perhaps Mozilla would've been well-suited to tackle it. The problem is not the tech or scope, but timing. 15 years ago everyone was happy to be on FB / Twitter. 10 years ago, Microsoft…

"but had no idea what federation is, or why it's important" Maybe the ideal technical solution would not require them to know?

Yep. Everyone understands email, not everyone understands that email is federated, and yet everyone benefits from federation.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#637

Post by Krasnol »

everdrive wrote: post #4

Does anyone want AI in anything? I can see the value of navigating to an LLM and asking specific questions, but generally speaking I don't want that just running / waiting on my machine as I open a variety of applications. It's a huge waste of resources and for most normal people is an edge case.

I would love it if it could clean up my mp3 collection.

I know there are tools where you can do it yourself but it is a hellish mess. I just move it drive to drive through the decades until it comes.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#638

Post by nulld3v »

burnte wrote: post #527
creatonez wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, a chatbot sidebar isn't something new to try, it's a tired dead-end idea that never delivered any value to the multiple competitors that tried the exact same thing. Firefox's implementation of a chatbot sidebar is especially cookie-cutter because it just plugs into existing LLM APIs, it doesn't make use of local AI the way the alt text generator and local machine translation features do. What were they th…

The absolute last thing I need in my browser is AI. What's it going to do, read the page then rewrite it for me to read? Why would I not just read the page? Is it going to generate images of the webpage for me? AI is a great tool, but it's not useful in every circumstance. Right now product managers are trying to think of any place to shoehorn AI into regardless of it being a good idea or useful just to be able to pu…

It's nice for extracting data from a page into some structured format (e.g. CSV). Much quicker than trying to whip up a JS script or something.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#639

Post by mrandish »

transcriptase wrote: post #10

Nobody wants anything from Mozilla except Firefox/Thunderbird to be high-performance alternatives to Chrome/Outlook with fewer restrictions on extensions. That’s it. The rest is just activism and kids playing in a sandbox with non-profit money to pad out their resume with whatever topical keywords might land them their next gig.

I agree with your point and have long disliked when Firefox squanders their limited resources on side quests - which is too often. But, to 'steelman' their motivation to 'do something' on AI, this analysis article sums up why major AI and browser vendors are pushing : https://entropytown.com/articles/2025-10-31-openai-atlas-ai-....

I just think Firefox is taking the wrong approach. Trying to run with the pack of large commercial entities supporting their multi-prong corporate agendas does nothing for Firefox long-term (while annoying their users and looking like a buzzword-chasing 'me too'). This is a perfect example of when Firefox should zig instead of zag. Per the article I linked:

> “the hard part of an AI browser is not chat, it’s process and trust isolation.”

Instead of feature parity on AI, Firefox should race to technically position with APIs as the friendliest 'host browser' for AI companies outside the big five (eg "everyone else"). That gets some AI vendors actually recommending Firefox as the "works best with..." option instead of ignoring FF. Plus AI projects, researchers and LocalLLama-type hobbyists will be attracted. Sure, that's currently a small segment but they have high-potential for growth. It's very early days and today's AI leaders may not be tomorrow's AI giants.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#640

Post by s3p »

DaSHacka wrote: post #307
metabagel wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why anyone would choose Chrome over Firefox. I get that it's performant, but it's developed by a dominant advertising company. Why would you trust Chrome if you care about your privacy? Firefox is excellent, despite the grumbling of people who want it to have a narrower focus (which I'm not disagreeing with).

> if you care about your privacy? I think you just answered your own questions.

I'm not sure they did. What do you think is the answer to "Why would you trust chrome if you care about privacy?"
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