4 ms·

Mozilla's new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox

61 points by latexr 11mo ago

saubeidl 11mo ago
Ugh.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
wkat4242 11mo ago
https://archive.is/li0ig https://archive.is/li0ig
- freedomben 11mo ago
  Server timeout for me on that one. Got this one now as well: https://archive.ph/li0ig https://archive.ph/li0ig
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    It's the same site, just different domain name. But the site owner has some huge beef with Cloudflare DNS, so if you're using quad 1 it won't load. It's strange that .ph did load for you!
everdrive 11mo ago
It's clear that the professional managerial class (PMC) has its own social circles and inputs. I don't see how else they could continue to lean so aggressively into positions which are alien to most normal people. I don't necessarily just mean "the elite are out of touch," although that's a fair reading of the situation as well. Rather, we all talk about people being in a bubble. (and these days, everyone is in a bubble) The PMC is for certain in their own bubble and I really have no idea what the inputs are. They're totally alien to me.
- tylerchilds 11mo ago
  Exactly this. The managerial class found my LinkedIn findings irritating I just got a job recently after getting laid off three years ago I spent a lot of time in the San Francisco Bay Area talking to people That data is simple: 100% of the people excited about the prospects of AI are currently employed. And even then, I do sense a wavering in the voice where they’re making sure to tell their manager that they use ai just enough to not need to be replaced by a different person or the machine they’re training. Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano was written for this current moment
christophilus 11mo ago
Help me, Ladybird. You’re my only hope.
- buster 11mo ago
  That or the Kagi Browser... Waiting for a Linux release.
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    More Webkit :/
    - _eslr 11mo ago
      Just curious, what don't you like about Webkit?
      - saubeidl 11mo ago
        It's the IE of the 21st century. Browser monoculture is bad for the open web and if all we have is Webkit (Safari on iOS, Macs) and its fork Blink for all the Chromium browsers, then the web will start becoming a mess of proprietary extensions instead of open standards.
        no_wizard 11mo ago
        >It's the IE of the 21st century I see this claim often. As someone who learned web dev during the days of IE dominance, I don't understand it. Internet Explorer never kept up, especially after IE6 reigned supreme. They weren't "a little behind" or didn't have some more niche APIs missing or implemented in a buggy or proprietary way. It actively ignored standards, it didn't receive real updates for a long time (IE11 being the fruition of what the best they could offer was) and generally with few exceptions (namely, the invention of CSS Grid and XMLHttpRequest) generally degraded the ecosystem for over a decade. It actively held back companies from adopting new web standards. Its why polyfilling became as proliferated as it is now. Safari / WebKit has not induced any of this. Yes, sometimes Safari lags behind in ways that are frustrating. Yes, sometimes Apple refuses to implement an entire API for political rather than technical reasons (see the FileSystem API), but largely it has managed to stay up to date with standards in a reasonable time frame. While their missing or subset implemented APIs can feel really frustrating, they haven't actively held back any work nor the mass adoption of newer browser APIs. Apple has their faults, but this isn't even close to the drudgery that was the IE heyday era.
jsheard 11mo ago
> “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. Bold words from a browser whose finances hinge almost entirely around pushing one search engine over others.
- skizm 11mo ago
  Maybe this is a lever that they now have to finally break free of their total dependence on Google. Get someone like Meta to pay them to be the default AI model / interface.
  - glenstein 11mo ago
    Wow, to be honest I hadn't thought of it that way but that might be exactly what's on the horizon. Hard to survive on a search licensing deal in a world where LLMs threaten to eclipse search, but it may mean that LLMs want to compete to be in the browser space.
  - marcusb 11mo ago
    Yeah. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” may be a statement of current fact, not of values.
  - JohnFen 11mo ago
    So, jump out of the frying pan and into the fire?
ZeroConcerns 11mo ago
All the more reason to ditch Firefox for the only viable alternative, Chrome, which famously has a much more restrained approach to AI. Sigh... (And yeah, I know, Degoogled Chromium, *Fox, curl... But viable is not only doing heavy, but required lifting here...)
- everdrive 11mo ago
  The alternatives are not so viable. Librewolf is nice, but is still just 99% Firefox. Same with the Chromium-based browsers. We need real alternatives in this space.
  - hkt 11mo ago
    The capital intensity of browsers is so high that there won't be any alternatives unless standards evolve to be simpler and easier to implement. That won't happen while Google and co are driving.
    - everdrive 11mo ago
      > unless standards evolve to be simpler and easier to implement. It's almost impossible for people to prevent themselves from saying "we could do just a _bit_ more here" until over time they've built something complex enough they cannot manage it.
  - ZeroConcerns 11mo ago
    You're... pretty much conceding my point, while appearing to disagree? But, yeah, I'll ask ChatGPT how to be less obtuse next time...
- SV_BubbleTime 11mo ago
  Does Brave not exist anymore?
phantasmish 11mo ago
Multi-model or no, “AI in the browser” seems like one of those things destined to be eaten by “AI in the OS”, even more surely and to a greater degree than Dropbox was destined to be an OS feature. Having those same tools available system-wide covers the browser case while being far more useful and easier to use (because it’s one interface and set of behavior everywhere).
wkat4242 11mo ago
> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission Eh yeah, killing the #1 reason why people still use your product is pretty much off-mission yes. I don't really understand how this would make money for them but either way it is the worst idea possible. I understand more that he wants to be all in on AI. It's the big thing now. Billions are splashing around and Mozilla badly needs money. But everyone is doing AI browsers now. What would make Firefox so different from the rest? What is their moat? Better to focus on what makes it different rather than trying to play the same game as everyone else. And yeah the web is in an existential crisis, but that's not really up to Mozilla to fix. I definitely won't stop adblocking that's for sure.
- phantasmish 11mo ago
  Do any of the big-four (counting Edge as its own thing) browsers not easily allow and facilitate ad blockers? Chrome and Safari definitely do, I assume Edge does too? What a deeply weird thing to even bring up, under those circumstances. Why was that kind of a thing even kicking around in his head?
  - JoshTriplett 11mo ago
    It's so incredibly baffling that I wonder if it was a mistaken transcription of something else similar.
  - PaulHoule 11mo ago
    Chrome NERFed the filtering API which limits the effectiveness of ad blockers in Chrome. I think that's the one point of technical superiority that Firefox has. I think Firefox is not alive based on being "a better product" in most respects, it's alive because it's the anti-Chrome, I mean, that's why I run it. In the early 2000s I despaired for the future because I was afraid it would be impossible to browse the web without Internet Explorer and thus, Windows -- Mozilla and Firefox kept hope alive. Mozilla might not be happy with it but a large chunk of their user base are the kind of anti-big tech people who will explode on Mastodon if you confess that you make an AI generated image once in a while. It might not be rational, but the fury is deep. The thing though is that people's connection to Firefox is not rational it's about wanting to feel you have some choice, control and agency in technology. This article which is the top story on HN expresses this sentiment and it's success shows that a lot of HN users [1] feel this way https://blog.mathieui.net/this-is-not-the-future.html https://blog.mathieui.net/this-is-not-the-future.html Firing your customers so that you can get some imaginary new customers is a story that rarely has a happy ending. [1] who I think like those Mastodonsters are inclined to like technology but want to be in control, like political Linux enthusiasts.
gbil 11mo ago
> At some point, though, Enzor-DeMeo will have to tend to Mozilla’s own business. “I do think we need revenue diversification away from Google,” he says, “but I don’t necessarily believe we need revenue diversification away from the browser.” So they want to monetize the browser somehow outside of the Google deal. Future does't look good for Firefox
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- thayne 11mo ago
  I really think they should look into B2B products with a strong synergy with the browser. Some example ideas: - password manager with team and enterprise features that natively integrates with the built in firefox password manager - hosted private addon store that gives employers more control over what plugins employees install, and can easily host internal addons - enterprise grade "zero trust" solution with native browser support. - related to the above, something like Mozilla VPN, but for connecting to a corporate network, possibly with split tunnel features. Etc.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
no_wizard 11mo ago
They’re not in a position to completely ignore some of the current AI trends. That much I can wrap my head around. The seeming double down makes no sense to me. It won’t suddenly make Mozilla more popular. It could be useful, yes, however I doubt it’ll be radically different from other implementations of AI + Browser in such a way that it stands above the others. What I wish they would realize in the Mozilla C-Suite is that there is real appetite browsers that get out of people’s way and focus on productivity. Given their small market share they could stand to grow by addressing that part of the market. Look at the previous success of Arc. They keep chasing trends instead of creating them. And while it is a hard job to do that, I feel they haven’t given it an earnest attempt in some time Firefox is still my daily browser of choice. I really want to see it do better and succeed
- Noaidi 11mo ago
  > What I wish they would realize in the Mozilla C-Suite is that there is real appetite browsers that get out of people’s way and focus on productivity. You cannot sell what cannot be seen. Business 101.
  - no_wizard 11mo ago
    It can be seen though. Thats why I referred back to the Arc browser. People saw the real differences and it had fairly brisk adoption across a number of different type of folks, it didn't narrowly target technologists. Our designers, for example, at my last job, loved the heck out of it. It was good enough for Atlassian to buy the whole company for a good chunk of cash too, if I recall correctly. The abrupt ending of Arc's development has now left a hole in the market that Firefox could fill and gain marketshare.
    - Noaidi 11mo ago
      You are a power user if you are using Arc. I know a few people who do not even really understand what a browser is. Atlassian bought Arc to put AI in it by the way; "Welcoming The Browser Company to Atlassian Building the AI browser for knowledge workers" https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-acquires-the-browser-company https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-acqui...
JohnFen 11mo ago
Now I'm even more nervous about what Firefox is going to become.
JoshTriplett 11mo ago
> And Enzor-DeMeo is convinced Mozilla can get there, that people want what the company is selling. “There is something to be said about, when I have a Mozilla product, I always know my data is in my control. I can turn the thing off, and they’re not going to do anything sketchy. I used to think that, but they no longer have as much of that trust, and announcements like this are part of the reason.
ptx 11mo ago
This makes no sense. Their AI solution is all about trust, he says, and we can trust Mozilla because they're not incentivized to push any particular provider. But all we're trusting them with is a frontend for other AI providers, which really doesn't help much since the backend provider also needs to be trusted. But wait! Since Mozilla is trusted, they're also going to provide their own AI backend service. And they're going to do placement deals with AI providers. Which of course incentivizes them to favor their own services and their partners, which nullifies the CEO's stated basis for trusting them, which makes the whole thing pointless.
mindcrash 11mo ago
So that's it then. Zen is going to eat their market share for lunch. https://zen-browser.app/ https://zen-browser.app/
- quaintdev 11mo ago
  Switched to it a month ago and haven't looked back.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- lurk2 11mo ago
  Can I make the window opaque or do I have to also browse whatever is behind the menu bar?
- thayne 11mo ago
  What happens if Mozilla goes down and Zen has to start maintaining the core of the browser themselves?
rixthefox 11mo ago
Unfortunately this is not unexpected because Mozilla needs to continue receiving money to survive and unfortunately nobody wants to have the tough conversation about paying for a browser so when whoever is funneling money into Mozilla (Google) says you need AI in your product you have no choice but to jump. I think their logic is a bit wrong here. Microsoft is a "trusted" entity. Trust doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and even they had to roll back their AI ambitions after seeing the lackluster adoption rates of people using their AI features. The trust part just doesn't matter. It's the principal that we've had browsers for over 20+ years and we never needed AI in our browsers. I would quickly abandon Firefox for an alternative in a heartbeat that doesn't include AI in it. The uncomfortable truth for all these companies though is that most people simply do not need AI in the places they are shoving it into. Like why does notepad need AI?
- rjbwork 11mo ago
  I'm paying for my search engine now. I'd pay for Firefox if Mozilla wasn't a fucking clown car of an organization at the business level. I have a deep respect for the engineering team there, but the bean counters running the place should long ago have been ousted. It's the same cabal paying themselves exorbitant salaries and driving completely inane initiatives that nobody wants (see pocket, now AI). I'm not giving them a dime until they get their corporate shit together and I'll be disabling whatever crap they're shoving into Firefox.
  - rixthefox 11mo ago
    Oh I agree 100%. I also play for my search engine so it's definitely not a lack of interest in doing so. I agree with your point as well. Get rid of the money vultures in the C-suite who are paying themselves exorbitant salaries and hand that money over to the Firefox devs. Give them the runway necessary to bring on more developers that would give Firefox the attention it needs to keep up with Chrome/Chromium and maybe start playing with the idea that if you want the latest updates when they release you pay for the browser. If you don't need immediate updates you'll get the deferred releases under a 1-2 month delay or whatever they deem fit with security fixes obviously being backported to keep those who refuse to pay happy enough to not abandon the browser entirely.
devwastaken 11mo ago
1. reskin chromium, or webkit. firefox is dead tech, cannot be used for anything other than firefox, and is no longer a testing target. it is insane to continually play catch-up with companies 1000x the size of your team. V8 is now the standard JS engine, spidermonkey is an insecure time bomb and again not modular. Brave got it right and then got it wrong with pushing crypto and its buggy. 2. Push for local AI. local tooling is going to get big when we get past the current drought. We need fast reactive systems not dependent on servers. Chatgpt is like gaming on the cloud - its still bad even when its good. Need to learn the meta and understand why people are buying 5090’s just to run agents. 3. Remove everyone that wont follow good engineering or otherwise is using your cashflow as jump. This means no diversity hiring. No h1b’s, no cultural or ethnic political warring. Ignore the fake resumes go for git history only. If its mass firing so be it theres no shortage. 4. youre going to make everyone very upset to get anything of value done.
JonChesterfield 11mo ago
Mozilla spend a lot of time telling me I trust them. I don't think that's having the effect they expect.
exasperaited 11mo ago
EAITD: Everything AI Touches Dies
mghackerlady 11mo ago
Ladybird can't come faster
bitbasher 11mo ago
I literally installed librewolf for the first time on my fresh Debian install. Couldn’t have had better timing!
jonesjohnson 11mo ago
What happened to servo? That looked pretty promising - is it dead?
- thayne 11mo ago
  Mozilla dropped it. It's still getting developed, but it is now focused more on embedded webview use cases. That's not to say someone couldn't build a full browser from it, but that isn't a goal of the current servo devs. Servo also isn't quite mature enough for that.
freedomben 11mo ago
First want to address the general hate/distrust Mozilla is getting. Based on their behavior the last many years, this is fair. However, we've got a new CEO, and one from the Firefox side who openly talks about Firefox being the core focus for Mozilla. This is exactly what we've been asking for! I think we should give them a chance. On the AI thing - I don't personally want AI in my browser. However, I do see some inevitability there, and I appreciate the stated approach: > there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. If I can easily turn it off or point it at my own provider, this seems fine to me (maybe even good). I'm quite hesitant to let AI take any actions, but if there is sufficient user control/configurability then it could end up being a useful feature. If it's programmable through an API (such as with extensions) I could see some real personal use for that! Let's not forget that Mozilla is one of the most important players in the open web. They made some big mistakes, but if they course correct and become what we need them to be, they could be one of the most important heroes of the time.
- hysan 11mo ago
  > However, we've got a new CEO, and one from the Firefox side who openly talks about Firefox being the core focus for Mozilla. This is exactly what we've been asking for! I think we should give them a chance. You know the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”? Mozilla is well beyond a count of 2 for me and I assume everyone else who is generally pessimistic about every new plea for giving Firefox another chance. While I understand the angle you’re coming from, I think this argument will read as disrespectful to those who have given Firefox multiple chances. Actions speak louder than words. I think that Mozilla has to make multiple moves in the right direction before this type of plea can be made.
- remram 11mo ago
  When the device sync finally works reliably or bookmark tags work on mobile, I will concede that you've turned a corner. What I expect is more theming and AI bullshit, time will tell.
- t23414321 11mo ago
egorfine 11mo ago
They can alienate whatever users left by introducing AI or they can alienate whatever investors left by not introducing AI. Sucks to be Mozilla.
throwawa14223 11mo ago
How can they be this oblivious?
- SV_BubbleTime 11mo ago
  The food and wine at the fancy galas they’re more interested in attending than making a web browser must be really great.
ChrisArchitect 11mo ago
Related: Mozilla Appoints New CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491
Froztnova 11mo ago
To be honest while I dislike most AI integration that gets pushed, I really enjoy Firefox' local translation model features. I appreciate that I can conveniently translate things with a reasonable degree of accuracy without having to send that text to god knows where. More stuff like that would be appreciated, though I don't know if their plans for the future will fit that definition.
pupppet 11mo ago
Nobody got fired for pivoting to AI.
- timbit42 11mo ago
  Yet.
jillesvangurp 11mo ago
It's the n-th iteration of "maybe this will work ... nope that didn't work either". The core value for Firefox users using Firefox is that it's a no-nonsense browser that protects you from ads, obnoxious popups, cooky hoarding social networks looking to sell your data, etc. AI is not a core browser feature. Nobody is waiting for a Mozilla sanctioned or hosted AI model. Some AI companies are building their own browsers. Given how OpenAI has stopped talking about theirs, you might conclude it is not that successful though. Google is vaguely threatening to add some Gemini stuff to Chrome (not Chromium). The point here is that all the AI browsers are Chromium based. That points to a problem in Firefox: it's a monolith that is hard to use as the basis for specialized applications that use it as the application runtime. That would be the core problem to fix for Mozilla. Not just cherry picking a particular application and doing a "me too" version of that without any obvious added value whatsoever. Which is what Mozilla is doing here and why it is obviously doomed to fail. Again. For some reason, Mozilla ceded the whole bespoke application on top of the browser market to Chromium and Electron, even though the starting point of Mozilla was actually to be a generic application platform with things like Xul. Xul kind of flopped but otherwise it was the right move. Instead of chasing this AI stuff without a coherent plan, which is what this looks like, that would be a more coherent plan.
ochronus 11mo ago
bye-bye Firefox then
strict9 11mo ago
Almost all tech CEOs think we want an AI button on every window, every app, every dialog. Always there no matter what to make workers more productive or need fewer workers or whatever. The reality is that even the most ardent supporters of AI want it only in a single web page or in their IDE and that's about it.
josefritzishere 11mo ago
All I want is an off button. The AI results are just trash. If other people enoy the garbage data they are welcome to it.
tjpnz 11mo ago
How about doubling down on your strengths? Privacy, customizability, open standards, defacto stewardship of the open web - to name but a few. What do any of them have to do with AI? Here's a hint: none of them. I'm so tired of this bullshit. I can live with tweaking flags to remove the AI "features" in Firefox but I'm not going to use a fucking AI or "Agentic" browser. That's not what I or a significant chunk of your users want.

61 points by latexr 11mo ago

saubeidl 11mo ago

Ugh.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

wkat4242 11mo ago

https://archive.is/li0ig https://archive.is/li0ig

freedomben 11mo ago
Server timeout for me on that one. Got this one now as well: https://archive.ph/li0ig https://archive.ph/li0ig
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  It's the same site, just different domain name. But the site owner has some huge beef with Cloudflare DNS, so if you're using quad 1 it won't load. It's strange that .ph did load for you!

everdrive 11mo ago

It's clear that the professional managerial class (PMC) has its own social circles and inputs. I don't see how else they could continue to lean so aggressively into positions which are alien to most normal people. I don't necessarily just mean "the elite are out of touch," although that's a fair reading of the situation as well. Rather, we all talk about people being in a bubble. (and these days, everyone is in a bubble) The PMC is for certain in their own bubble and I really have no idea what the inputs are. They're totally alien to me.

tylerchilds 11mo ago
Exactly this. The managerial class found my LinkedIn findings irritating I just got a job recently after getting laid off three years ago I spent a lot of time in the San Francisco Bay Area talking to people That data is simple: 100% of the people excited about the prospects of AI are currently employed. And even then, I do sense a wavering in the voice where they’re making sure to tell their manager that they use ai just enough to not need to be replaced by a different person or the machine they’re training. Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano was written for this current moment

christophilus 11mo ago

Help me, Ladybird. You’re my only hope.

buster 11mo ago
That or the Kagi Browser... Waiting for a Linux release.
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  More Webkit :/
  - _eslr 11mo ago
    Just curious, what don't you like about Webkit?
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      It's the IE of the 21st century. Browser monoculture is bad for the open web and if all we have is Webkit (Safari on iOS, Macs) and its fork Blink for all the Chromium browsers, then the web will start becoming a mess of proprietary extensions instead of open standards.
      - no_wizard 11mo ago
        >It's the IE of the 21st century I see this claim often. As someone who learned web dev during the days of IE dominance, I don't understand it. Internet Explorer never kept up, especially after IE6 reigned supreme. They weren't "a little behind" or didn't have some more niche APIs missing or implemented in a buggy or proprietary way. It actively ignored standards, it didn't receive real updates for a long time (IE11 being the fruition of what the best they could offer was) and generally with few exceptions (namely, the invention of CSS Grid and XMLHttpRequest) generally degraded the ecosystem for over a decade. It actively held back companies from adopting new web standards. Its why polyfilling became as proliferated as it is now. Safari / WebKit has not induced any of this. Yes, sometimes Safari lags behind in ways that are frustrating. Yes, sometimes Apple refuses to implement an entire API for political rather than technical reasons (see the FileSystem API), but largely it has managed to stay up to date with standards in a reasonable time frame. While their missing or subset implemented APIs can feel really frustrating, they haven't actively held back any work nor the mass adoption of newer browser APIs. Apple has their faults, but this isn't even close to the drudgery that was the IE heyday era.

jsheard 11mo ago

> “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. Bold words from a browser whose finances hinge almost entirely around pushing one search engine over others.

skizm 11mo ago
Maybe this is a lever that they now have to finally break free of their total dependence on Google. Get someone like Meta to pay them to be the default AI model / interface.
- glenstein 11mo ago
  Wow, to be honest I hadn't thought of it that way but that might be exactly what's on the horizon. Hard to survive on a search licensing deal in a world where LLMs threaten to eclipse search, but it may mean that LLMs want to compete to be in the browser space.
- marcusb 11mo ago
  Yeah. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” may be a statement of current fact, not of values.
- JohnFen 11mo ago
  So, jump out of the frying pan and into the fire?

ZeroConcerns 11mo ago

All the more reason to ditch Firefox for the only viable alternative, Chrome, which famously has a much more restrained approach to AI. Sigh... (And yeah, I know, Degoogled Chromium, *Fox, curl... But viable is not only doing heavy, but required lifting here...)

everdrive 11mo ago
The alternatives are not so viable. Librewolf is nice, but is still just 99% Firefox. Same with the Chromium-based browsers. We need real alternatives in this space.
- hkt 11mo ago
  The capital intensity of browsers is so high that there won't be any alternatives unless standards evolve to be simpler and easier to implement. That won't happen while Google and co are driving.
  - everdrive 11mo ago
    > unless standards evolve to be simpler and easier to implement. It's almost impossible for people to prevent themselves from saying "we could do just a _bit_ more here" until over time they've built something complex enough they cannot manage it.
- ZeroConcerns 11mo ago
  You're... pretty much conceding my point, while appearing to disagree? But, yeah, I'll ask ChatGPT how to be less obtuse next time...
SV_BubbleTime 11mo ago
Does Brave not exist anymore?

phantasmish 11mo ago

Multi-model or no, “AI in the browser” seems like one of those things destined to be eaten by “AI in the OS”, even more surely and to a greater degree than Dropbox was destined to be an OS feature. Having those same tools available system-wide covers the browser case while being far more useful and easier to use (because it’s one interface and set of behavior everywhere).

wkat4242 11mo ago

> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission Eh yeah, killing the #1 reason why people still use your product is pretty much off-mission yes. I don't really understand how this would make money for them but either way it is the worst idea possible. I understand more that he wants to be all in on AI. It's the big thing now. Billions are splashing around and Mozilla badly needs money. But everyone is doing AI browsers now. What would make Firefox so different from the rest? What is their moat? Better to focus on what makes it different rather than trying to play the same game as everyone else. And yeah the web is in an existential crisis, but that's not really up to Mozilla to fix. I definitely won't stop adblocking that's for sure.

phantasmish 11mo ago
Do any of the big-four (counting Edge as its own thing) browsers not easily allow and facilitate ad blockers? Chrome and Safari definitely do, I assume Edge does too? What a deeply weird thing to even bring up, under those circumstances. Why was that kind of a thing even kicking around in his head?
- JoshTriplett 11mo ago
  It's so incredibly baffling that I wonder if it was a mistaken transcription of something else similar.
- PaulHoule 11mo ago
  Chrome NERFed the filtering API which limits the effectiveness of ad blockers in Chrome. I think that's the one point of technical superiority that Firefox has. I think Firefox is not alive based on being "a better product" in most respects, it's alive because it's the anti-Chrome, I mean, that's why I run it. In the early 2000s I despaired for the future because I was afraid it would be impossible to browse the web without Internet Explorer and thus, Windows -- Mozilla and Firefox kept hope alive. Mozilla might not be happy with it but a large chunk of their user base are the kind of anti-big tech people who will explode on Mastodon if you confess that you make an AI generated image once in a while. It might not be rational, but the fury is deep. The thing though is that people's connection to Firefox is not rational it's about wanting to feel you have some choice, control and agency in technology. This article which is the top story on HN expresses this sentiment and it's success shows that a lot of HN users [1] feel this way https://blog.mathieui.net/this-is-not-the-future.html https://blog.mathieui.net/this-is-not-the-future.html Firing your customers so that you can get some imaginary new customers is a story that rarely has a happy ending. [1] who I think like those Mastodonsters are inclined to like technology but want to be in control, like political Linux enthusiasts.

gbil 11mo ago

> At some point, though, Enzor-DeMeo will have to tend to Mozilla’s own business. “I do think we need revenue diversification away from Google,” he says, “but I don’t necessarily believe we need revenue diversification away from the browser.” So they want to monetize the browser somehow outside of the Google deal. Future does't look good for Firefox

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
thayne 11mo ago
I really think they should look into B2B products with a strong synergy with the browser. Some example ideas: - password manager with team and enterprise features that natively integrates with the built in firefox password manager - hosted private addon store that gives employers more control over what plugins employees install, and can easily host internal addons - enterprise grade "zero trust" solution with native browser support. - related to the above, something like Mozilla VPN, but for connecting to a corporate network, possibly with split tunnel features. Etc.

deleted 11mo ago

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no_wizard 11mo ago

They’re not in a position to completely ignore some of the current AI trends. That much I can wrap my head around. The seeming double down makes no sense to me. It won’t suddenly make Mozilla more popular. It could be useful, yes, however I doubt it’ll be radically different from other implementations of AI + Browser in such a way that it stands above the others. What I wish they would realize in the Mozilla C-Suite is that there is real appetite browsers that get out of people’s way and focus on productivity. Given their small market share they could stand to grow by addressing that part of the market. Look at the previous success of Arc. They keep chasing trends instead of creating them. And while it is a hard job to do that, I feel they haven’t given it an earnest attempt in some time Firefox is still my daily browser of choice. I really want to see it do better and succeed

Noaidi 11mo ago
> What I wish they would realize in the Mozilla C-Suite is that there is real appetite browsers that get out of people’s way and focus on productivity. You cannot sell what cannot be seen. Business 101.
- no_wizard 11mo ago
  It can be seen though. Thats why I referred back to the Arc browser. People saw the real differences and it had fairly brisk adoption across a number of different type of folks, it didn't narrowly target technologists. Our designers, for example, at my last job, loved the heck out of it. It was good enough for Atlassian to buy the whole company for a good chunk of cash too, if I recall correctly. The abrupt ending of Arc's development has now left a hole in the market that Firefox could fill and gain marketshare.
  - Noaidi 11mo ago
    You are a power user if you are using Arc. I know a few people who do not even really understand what a browser is. Atlassian bought Arc to put AI in it by the way; "Welcoming The Browser Company to Atlassian Building the AI browser for knowledge workers" https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-acquires-the-browser-company https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-acqui...

JohnFen 11mo ago

Now I'm even more nervous about what Firefox is going to become.

JoshTriplett 11mo ago

> And Enzor-DeMeo is convinced Mozilla can get there, that people want what the company is selling. “There is something to be said about, when I have a Mozilla product, I always know my data is in my control. I can turn the thing off, and they’re not going to do anything sketchy. I used to think that, but they no longer have as much of that trust, and announcements like this are part of the reason.

ptx 11mo ago

This makes no sense. Their AI solution is all about trust, he says, and we can trust Mozilla because they're not incentivized to push any particular provider. But all we're trusting them with is a frontend for other AI providers, which really doesn't help much since the backend provider also needs to be trusted. But wait! Since Mozilla is trusted, they're also going to provide their own AI backend service. And they're going to do placement deals with AI providers. Which of course incentivizes them to favor their own services and their partners, which nullifies the CEO's stated basis for trusting them, which makes the whole thing pointless.

mindcrash 11mo ago

So that's it then. Zen is going to eat their market share for lunch. https://zen-browser.app/ https://zen-browser.app/

quaintdev 11mo ago
Switched to it a month ago and haven't looked back.
deleted 11mo ago
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lurk2 11mo ago
Can I make the window opaque or do I have to also browse whatever is behind the menu bar?
thayne 11mo ago
What happens if Mozilla goes down and Zen has to start maintaining the core of the browser themselves?

rixthefox 11mo ago

Unfortunately this is not unexpected because Mozilla needs to continue receiving money to survive and unfortunately nobody wants to have the tough conversation about paying for a browser so when whoever is funneling money into Mozilla (Google) says you need AI in your product you have no choice but to jump. I think their logic is a bit wrong here. Microsoft is a "trusted" entity. Trust doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and even they had to roll back their AI ambitions after seeing the lackluster adoption rates of people using their AI features. The trust part just doesn't matter. It's the principal that we've had browsers for over 20+ years and we never needed AI in our browsers. I would quickly abandon Firefox for an alternative in a heartbeat that doesn't include AI in it. The uncomfortable truth for all these companies though is that most people simply do not need AI in the places they are shoving it into. Like why does notepad need AI?

rjbwork 11mo ago
I'm paying for my search engine now. I'd pay for Firefox if Mozilla wasn't a fucking clown car of an organization at the business level. I have a deep respect for the engineering team there, but the bean counters running the place should long ago have been ousted. It's the same cabal paying themselves exorbitant salaries and driving completely inane initiatives that nobody wants (see pocket, now AI). I'm not giving them a dime until they get their corporate shit together and I'll be disabling whatever crap they're shoving into Firefox.
- rixthefox 11mo ago
  Oh I agree 100%. I also play for my search engine so it's definitely not a lack of interest in doing so. I agree with your point as well. Get rid of the money vultures in the C-suite who are paying themselves exorbitant salaries and hand that money over to the Firefox devs. Give them the runway necessary to bring on more developers that would give Firefox the attention it needs to keep up with Chrome/Chromium and maybe start playing with the idea that if you want the latest updates when they release you pay for the browser. If you don't need immediate updates you'll get the deferred releases under a 1-2 month delay or whatever they deem fit with security fixes obviously being backported to keep those who refuse to pay happy enough to not abandon the browser entirely.

devwastaken 11mo ago

1. reskin chromium, or webkit. firefox is dead tech, cannot be used for anything other than firefox, and is no longer a testing target. it is insane to continually play catch-up with companies 1000x the size of your team. V8 is now the standard JS engine, spidermonkey is an insecure time bomb and again not modular. Brave got it right and then got it wrong with pushing crypto and its buggy. 2. Push for local AI. local tooling is going to get big when we get past the current drought. We need fast reactive systems not dependent on servers. Chatgpt is like gaming on the cloud - its still bad even when its good. Need to learn the meta and understand why people are buying 5090’s just to run agents. 3. Remove everyone that wont follow good engineering or otherwise is using your cashflow as jump. This means no diversity hiring. No h1b’s, no cultural or ethnic political warring. Ignore the fake resumes go for git history only. If its mass firing so be it theres no shortage. 4. youre going to make everyone very upset to get anything of value done.

JonChesterfield 11mo ago

Mozilla spend a lot of time telling me I trust them. I don't think that's having the effect they expect.

exasperaited 11mo ago

EAITD: Everything AI Touches Dies

mghackerlady 11mo ago

Ladybird can't come faster

bitbasher 11mo ago

I literally installed librewolf for the first time on my fresh Debian install. Couldn’t have had better timing!

jonesjohnson 11mo ago

What happened to servo? That looked pretty promising - is it dead?

thayne 11mo ago
Mozilla dropped it. It's still getting developed, but it is now focused more on embedded webview use cases. That's not to say someone couldn't build a full browser from it, but that isn't a goal of the current servo devs. Servo also isn't quite mature enough for that.

freedomben 11mo ago

First want to address the general hate/distrust Mozilla is getting. Based on their behavior the last many years, this is fair. However, we've got a new CEO, and one from the Firefox side who openly talks about Firefox being the core focus for Mozilla. This is exactly what we've been asking for! I think we should give them a chance. On the AI thing - I don't personally want AI in my browser. However, I do see some inevitability there, and I appreciate the stated approach: > there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. If I can easily turn it off or point it at my own provider, this seems fine to me (maybe even good). I'm quite hesitant to let AI take any actions, but if there is sufficient user control/configurability then it could end up being a useful feature. If it's programmable through an API (such as with extensions) I could see some real personal use for that! Let's not forget that Mozilla is one of the most important players in the open web. They made some big mistakes, but if they course correct and become what we need them to be, they could be one of the most important heroes of the time.

hysan 11mo ago
> However, we've got a new CEO, and one from the Firefox side who openly talks about Firefox being the core focus for Mozilla. This is exactly what we've been asking for! I think we should give them a chance. You know the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”? Mozilla is well beyond a count of 2 for me and I assume everyone else who is generally pessimistic about every new plea for giving Firefox another chance. While I understand the angle you’re coming from, I think this argument will read as disrespectful to those who have given Firefox multiple chances. Actions speak louder than words. I think that Mozilla has to make multiple moves in the right direction before this type of plea can be made.
remram 11mo ago
When the device sync finally works reliably or bookmark tags work on mobile, I will concede that you've turned a corner. What I expect is more theming and AI bullshit, time will tell.
t23414321 11mo ago

egorfine 11mo ago

They can alienate whatever users left by introducing AI or they can alienate whatever investors left by not introducing AI. Sucks to be Mozilla.

throwawa14223 11mo ago

How can they be this oblivious?

SV_BubbleTime 11mo ago
The food and wine at the fancy galas they’re more interested in attending than making a web browser must be really great.

ChrisArchitect 11mo ago

Related: Mozilla Appoints New CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491

Froztnova 11mo ago

To be honest while I dislike most AI integration that gets pushed, I really enjoy Firefox' local translation model features. I appreciate that I can conveniently translate things with a reasonable degree of accuracy without having to send that text to god knows where. More stuff like that would be appreciated, though I don't know if their plans for the future will fit that definition.

pupppet 11mo ago

Nobody got fired for pivoting to AI.

timbit42 11mo ago
Yet.

jillesvangurp 11mo ago

It's the n-th iteration of "maybe this will work ... nope that didn't work either". The core value for Firefox users using Firefox is that it's a no-nonsense browser that protects you from ads, obnoxious popups, cooky hoarding social networks looking to sell your data, etc. AI is not a core browser feature. Nobody is waiting for a Mozilla sanctioned or hosted AI model. Some AI companies are building their own browsers. Given how OpenAI has stopped talking about theirs, you might conclude it is not that successful though. Google is vaguely threatening to add some Gemini stuff to Chrome (not Chromium). The point here is that all the AI browsers are Chromium based. That points to a problem in Firefox: it's a monolith that is hard to use as the basis for specialized applications that use it as the application runtime. That would be the core problem to fix for Mozilla. Not just cherry picking a particular application and doing a "me too" version of that without any obvious added value whatsoever. Which is what Mozilla is doing here and why it is obviously doomed to fail. Again. For some reason, Mozilla ceded the whole bespoke application on top of the browser market to Chromium and Electron, even though the starting point of Mozilla was actually to be a generic application platform with things like Xul. Xul kind of flopped but otherwise it was the right move. Instead of chasing this AI stuff without a coherent plan, which is what this looks like, that would be a more coherent plan.

ochronus 11mo ago

bye-bye Firefox then

strict9 11mo ago

Almost all tech CEOs think we want an AI button on every window, every app, every dialog. Always there no matter what to make workers more productive or need fewer workers or whatever. The reality is that even the most ardent supporters of AI want it only in a single web page or in their IDE and that's about it.

josefritzishere 11mo ago

All I want is an off button. The AI results are just trash. If other people enoy the garbage data they are welcome to it.

tjpnz 11mo ago

How about doubling down on your strengths? Privacy, customizability, open standards, defacto stewardship of the open web - to name but a few. What do any of them have to do with AI? Here's a hint: none of them. I'm so tired of this bullshit. I can live with tweaking flags to remove the AI "features" in Firefox but I'm not going to use a fucking AI or "Agentic" browser. That's not what I or a significant chunk of your users want.