I've used Firefox for 15 years and I really don't want to use Chrome. Can Mozilla just, like, make a good browser?
Firefox focus
Disable AI in Firefox
81–90 of 161 posts
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#82Mozilla could have had the no-nonsense, high performance browser backend that everyone uses to build their own browsers (like the recent glut of AI browsers), instead of everyone using Chromium/Blink. In the past, Gecko was really the go-to choice for this. They almost had a second shot with Servo. But they kinda really dropped the ball on the technical capability of the browser while continuing to be distracted by a…
Gecko was always hard to embed, which is why WebKit was developed by Apple and then widespread in open source projects.
More accurately, why WebKit was forked from khtml by Apple.
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gecko was always hard to embed, which is why WebKit was developed by Apple and then widespread in open source projects.
More accurately, why WebKit was forked from khtml by Apple.
Sure. KHTML wasn’t embeddable outside KDE either until Apple made that happen.
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#84Feels like people making a big deal out of it. You can also just, you know, not use these features. I can't remember the last time I use the "Print" dialog, the "Manage bookmarks" or the "Homepage" button. But these things don't have AI in their name, so people aren't so obsessed with removing them. IMHO just like many companies are obsessed with adding AI features, some users are obsessed with rejecting them. Both s…
And honestly it seems ironic that a lot of people on HN want Firefox to be used by everyone but don't want Mozilla to add features that the "normies" want.
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#85it's easier to change browser
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#86I've used Firefox for 15 years and I really don't want to use Chrome. Can Mozilla just, like, make a good browser?
Firefox focus
I use focus daily, but it’s not a daily driver.
It doesn’t to tabs, and links that the site forces to open in a new tab often don’t work. It also doesn’t do JS well by design.
I use Firefox focus for throw away links I come across, but for everything else I need a full browser
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally (I’m not the person you asked) I’m missing AppleScript support. Firefox is the only major browser without it, and the bug report for it is old enough to drink in every country. That lack of capability prevents it from being my daily driver, even if the rest were good enough (I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m saying I have no reason to find out). I am certain I have inadvertently pushed many people away from Fir…
Interesting! The last time I used a Mac was many years ago, so I'm not sure what would you do with AppleScript in the browser. What are some example use cases?
Just so we’re on the same page, you use AppleScript outside the browser, but it interacts with the browser. Some basic use cases:
- Change to first browser tab whose URL or title matches .
- Close every browser tab matching .
- Grab all your tabs and backup their URLs to a file.
- Join all tabs from all windows into a single window.
- Execute JavaScript on a page and get results back.
- Grab the URL of the current tab and open it in a different browser in a Private window.
- And many more things.
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#88I've used Firefox for 15 years and I really don't want to use Chrome. Can Mozilla just, like, make a good browser?
Not defending mozilla adding AI to firefox, but... If you've tried chrome recently, you'll know that it's jam packed full with even more stuff you don't want. And the article lays out how to easily disable all AI in firefox (which you cant do at all in Chrome)
I'm very pleased that disabling browser.ml.enable doesn't disable local translation. I don't need a dedicated UI for chat bots, but I find local translation very useful.
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#89Apart from the browser.ml.* config the newest update also adds and activates the @perplexity search shortcut. Deleted it in my config. I'm solely relying on DuckDuckGo.
> I'm solely relying on DuckDuckGo
I've been fully on DDG for years but becoming slowly skeptical & looking for alternatives.
1. They're leaning heavily into "responsible AI", much like Mozilla
2. Might be just me but I feel like their algorithm became significantly worse recently. Over the years they've gone from being worse than Google in the early days to steadily improving & overtaking Google on quality (I made heavy use of !g until I started slowly realising it was no longer giving me better results). But now I feel like they've reversed & regressed again.
Re: Disable AI in Firefox
#90Mozilla could have had the no-nonsense, high performance browser backend that everyone uses to build their own browsers (like the recent glut of AI browsers), instead of everyone using Chromium/Blink. In the past, Gecko was really the go-to choice for this. They almost had a second shot with Servo. But they kinda really dropped the ball on the technical capability of the browser while continuing to be distracted by a…
Mozilla is a C-suite vanity organization disguised as software company. I love Firefox (I'm using it write this comment) and I really appreciate the developers who continue to work and improve it -- I just wish they were given far more resources to do it.
I doubt the Mozilla C-suite even uses FF on their macbooks/iPhones.