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No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

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Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#81

Post by bigstrat2003 »

someothherguyy wrote: post #44

This feature can be easily disabled with policies: https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#generativeai https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#preferences https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/app/profil... https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/modules/libpref/in...

This is like when people defend Windows 11's nonsense by saying "you can disable or remove that stuff". Yes, you can. But you shouldn't have to, and I personally prefer to use tools which don't shove useless things into the tool because it's trendy.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#82

Post by Dylan16807 »

lxgr wrote: post #25
xg15 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a locally hosted LLM would be powerful enough for the supposed "agentic browsing" scenarios - at least if the browser is still supposed to run on average desktop PCs.

Not yet, but we’ll hopefully get there within at most a few years.

Get there by what mechanism? In the near term a good model pretty much requires a GPU, and it needs a lot of VRAM on that GPU. And the current state of the art of quantization has already gotten us most of the RAM-savings it possibly could.

And it doesn't look like the average computer with steam installed is going to get above 8GB VRAM for a long time, let alone the average computer in general. Even focusing on new computers it doesn't look that promising.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#83

Post by _heimdall »

infotainment wrote: post #15
clueless wrote: post #5

This whole backlash to firefox wanting to introduce AI feels a little knee-jerky. We don't know if firefox might want to roll out their own locally hosted LLM model that then they plug into.. and if so, if would cut down on the majority of the knee jerk complaints. I think people want AI in the browser, they just don't want it to be the big-corp hosted AI... [Update]: as I posted below, sample use cases would include…

This 100% -- the AI features already in Firefox, for the most part, rely on local models. (Right now there is translation and tab-grouping, IIRC.) Local based AI features are great and I wish they were used more often, instead of just offloading everything to cloud services with questionable privacy.

Local models are nice for keeping the initial prompt and inference off someone else's machine, but there is still the question of what the AI feature will do with data produced.

I don't expect a business to make or maintain a suite of local model features in a browser free to download without monetizing the feature somehow. If said monetization strategy might mean selling my data or having the local model bring in ads, for example, the value of a local model goes down significantly IMO.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#85

Post by koolala »

someothherguyy wrote: post #44

This feature can be easily disabled with policies: https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#generativeai https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#preferences https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/app/profil... https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/modules/libpref/in...

Is it really in all 4 of those places? Just need to change it in the first two, right? I hate the new AI tab feature and wish they had a non-AI option.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#86

Post by koolala »

xg15 wrote: post #17
clueless wrote: post #5

This whole backlash to firefox wanting to introduce AI feels a little knee-jerky. We don't know if firefox might want to roll out their own locally hosted LLM model that then they plug into.. and if so, if would cut down on the majority of the knee jerk complaints. I think people want AI in the browser, they just don't want it to be the big-corp hosted AI... [Update]: as I posted below, sample use cases would include…

I don't think a locally hosted LLM would be powerful enough for the supposed "agentic browsing" scenarios - at least if the browser is still supposed to run on average desktop PCs.

This is probably their plan to monetize this. They will partner with a AI company to 'enhance' the browser with a paid cloud model and the local model has no monetary incentive not to suck.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#88

Post by koolala »

Groxx wrote: post #65
koolala wrote: post #55

Did Firefox already add AI into Tabs? Today I just got my first 'Tab Grouping' and it says "Nightly uses AI to read your Open Tabs". That's the worst way to do grouping ever... just group hierarchically based on where it opened from...

Particularly since they clearly keep this info around - if you install TreeStyleTabs or Sideberry, you'll see it immediately show the historical-structure of your current tabs (in-process at least, I'm not 100% sure about after kill->restore). That info has to come from somewhere.

I wish there was a Horizontal solution instead of vertical tabs. Maybe someone could mod their AI system with a non-AI backend.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#89

Post by htx80nerd »

I was a FF driver for ages and now making the switch to Chrome based browser simple because it's faster and websites are all tested against Chrome / Safari. I see both of these issues manifest IRL on a weekly basis. Why do I want to burn up CPU cycles and second using FF when Chromium is literally faster.

Re: No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter

#90

Post by calvinmorrison »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #81
someothherguyy wrote: post #44

This feature can be easily disabled with policies: https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#generativeai https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#preferences https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/app/profil... https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/modules/libpref/in...

This is like when people defend Windows 11's nonsense by saying "you can disable or remove that stuff". Yes, you can. But you shouldn't have to, and I personally prefer to use tools which don't shove useless things into the tool because it's trendy.

not to mention firefox routinely blows up any policies you set during upgrades, incompatibilities, and an endless about:config that is more opaque than a hunk of room temperature lard.
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