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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

#751

Post by betamint »

rkomorn wrote: post #743
betamint wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Containers. Firefox has this ability to separate cookies etc into different partitions, and users can make use of this feature by opening tabs in different containers. Many times when I use profiles in other browsers what I really want is container tabs. That combined with sideberry makes Firefox the superior one when I was checking if Vivaldi was worth switching to.

Containers seemed great to me at first but eventually they actually got in my way just as profiles do. I just ended up with mounds of rules about what to open in the same container vs not, what urls to force in a given container, etc. I still want to like them, but TBH, I don't miss them in Vivaldi. Totally willing to accept I was doing containers wrong, I guess, but in that case, I don't know what "right" would've l…

That was also my story and I abandoned containers that time. But it turns out to be more about bad default UI.

The game changer is Sideberry. It makes manually managed container tabs almost effortless. Instead of messing with auto rules, you would:

- Set default containers for each pane;

- Use shortcuts to open new sibling/child tab in the same container;

- Save/restore tabs as bookmarks keeping their containers.

It’s still not perfect UI, but in reality covers all the use cases where I’d reach for a container.

It’s just so much peaceful to know that I won’t accidentally tie anything to the google account, while still have gmail open in that cyan backgrounded tab just a ctrl-tab away.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#752

Post by maleldil »

nativeit wrote: post #482
maleldil wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's time to throw in the towel And do what? Use a Chromium-based browser, which is infinitely worse?

Forks exist

If Mozilla needs ill-fated diversification attempts to try to stay afloat, forks are in an even worse situation.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#754

Post by jjaksic »

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.

Yes, exactly. AI has its uses and can sometimes be extremely useful. But at this point it's not nearly as ubiquitously useful as various companies would want us to believe, based on how much they're forcing it on us, pushing it in our faces, shoving it down our throats, etc. I don't want that. I'll use it if and when I want to, thank you very much. Microsoft is of course the worst offender.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#755

Post by chii »

railka wrote: post #153
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 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…

> any attempts to do something about it are met with negativity

because these attempts have all been poorly thought out, and in fact are following the corporate playbook that only works if the product is producing revenue.

It's an attempt to make firefox like chrome, in the hopes of getting some of chrome's marketshare.

Stop it - firefox should be it's own identity, and serve the user's needs. It should depend in large part on donations from users, and not from corporations except as no-string attached donations.

It should not have such a large team of non-contributors drawing funds and working on initiatives unrelated to improving the browsing experience.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#756

Post by rkomorn »

betamint wrote: post #751
rkomorn wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Containers seemed great to me at first but eventually they actually got in my way just as profiles do. I just ended up with mounds of rules about what to open in the same container vs not, what urls to force in a given container, etc. I still want to like them, but TBH, I don't miss them in Vivaldi. Totally willing to accept I was doing containers wrong, I guess, but in that case, I don't know what "right" would've l…

That was also my story and I abandoned containers that time. But it turns out to be more about bad default UI. The game changer is Sideberry. It makes manually managed container tabs almost effortless. Instead of messing with auto rules, you would: - Set default containers for each pane; - Use shortcuts to open new sibling/child tab in the same container; - Save/restore tabs as bookmarks keeping their containers. It’…

So I'd need an extension from my extension? :)

Maybe I can go back to Zen just to get more layers out of my browser sammich.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#757

Post by dcminter »

dpark wrote: post #686
dcminter wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I could pretty easily have been persuaded by Google Plus. At that time I had broadly positive sentiments towards Google. Two things put me off. Firstly, that whole account-unification thing where YouTube accounts were getting merged with Google[+] logins. That rubbed me the wrong way. Then the Google+ promotional stuff all talked about how you could use "Circles" to silo posts to different "circles" of friend…

All that is true, but the primary problem with Google Plus was the network effect. Whenever I logged into Google plus, most of the content from friends was basically “cool, so this is Google plus” and nothing else, because everything at the time was on Facebook. Later Google started filling my feed with stuff from strangers because there was no organic content from people I actually cared about. If you can’t solve th…

I'd probably have signed up if it were not for those two issues. Step zero in breaking the network effect is not to piss off those who might join despite it.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#758

Post by tremon »

cornholio wrote: post #158
andy99 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of the features doesn’t bother me. It’s the constant nagging about them. I can’t use a google product without being harassed to the point of not being able to work by offers to “help me write” or whatever. Having the feature on a menu somewhere would be fine. The problem is the confluence of new features now becoming possible, and companies no longer building software for their users but as vehicles to…

> no longer building software for their users but as vehicles to push some agenda All companies push an agenda all the time, and their agenda always is: market dominance, profitability, monopoly and rent extraction, rinse and repeat into other markets, power maximization for their owners and executives. The freak stampede of all these tech giants to shove AI down everybody's throat just shows that they perceive the t…

I think in the case of in-app tooltips, the cause is much more banal: it's UX managers having to defend their team and budget with usage metrics, and so they all try to shove their new features in your face to inflate their numbers.

If we didn't have pervasive telemetry, we also wouldn't have these obnoxious nudges; UX teams would get their feedback from QA testing and focus groups, and leave the end users in peace.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#759

Post by Lord_Zero »

mikkupikku wrote: post #621
burnte wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What's it going to do, read the page then rewrite it for me to read? In some cases I do find that useful, but more generally I find that having a quick chat about a document after reading it is a good way to interrogate my own understanding of the document. I agree that it's probably not for everybody. But I do think that by putting tools like this out there, Firefox users may find unanticipated uses for it, which…

Brave user here, I use Leo way more than I thought I would for this exact reason. I ask it to summarize a large .NET documentation topic for me, or explain a coding topic while I try and learn the latest thing. It reads the page and I dont have to copy URLs or paste texts, I just click and ask.

Re: I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla

#760

Post by mnbpdx »

nyeah wrote: post #18
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #6

I want AI in VSC as an assistant, but that's it. If I could have set a systemwide setting to say "Only add AI to things I want", then I would have ticked that box a long time ago. Maybe YT could add an option for "filter out AI slop". I might pay for YT if they did that.

Yeah, I think there's a market for suppressing AI slop.

would be funny if openAI couldn't turn a profit but somebody could suppressing it
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