6 ms·

I had a look at what it actually does in the Firefox settings and all it seems to do is to disable one AI feature flag, change the default search engine, and th

I had a look at what it actually does in the Firefox settings and all it seems to do is to disable one AI feature flag, change the default search engine, and then set a few other flags that are changes that you may or may not want to make, unrelated to AI. Not sure you want to run a 3rd party shell script just to do that…

youngtaff 9mo ago
There seems to be quite a lot missing from the Chrome configuration too
- dylan604 9mo ago
  Are all options available to the group policy? Since this is not directly modifying your app and merely creating a group policy for the browser to use, there might be some things not able to be set there. I have not experience with these group policies. Just thinking of why something might be missing as you stated. It could also be considered out of scope for the dev making this project.
- troyvit 9mo ago
  It's a pretty simple project, and the license is MIT. Wouldn't be hard to let them know what's missing: https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
Seems like this is for the people that need to execute random powershell scripts they don't understand in order to turn of telemetry and copilot on Windows because reading about the registry and group policy is too much for them.
- pbhjpbhj 9mo ago
  I mean, yes ...? Stupid to run random scripts you find online, but browser makers push users into it. My son wants to eat "Chinese" food with chopsticks, but he can only really use a fork, so we adapt the chopsticks. He'll be able to use them eventually, but not everyone has a) the desire, nor b) the dexterity. Making it easier to do what users want with a computer without telling them 'just learn to program' (or script in this case) is actually a good thing imo.
  - lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
    It's not hard to search for a few keys in the about:config menu or to set a group policy. If you can't be bother to do this you have zero business running random scripts that update your system configuration that you have no idea how it works. Normie users would be better off reading some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to do it by hand using built-in methods than to run random code from the internet that can be malicious. My mom is 75 years old and barely knows how to use a web browser to begin with. There is zero chance I encourage her to run random pwsh scripts from the internet. God forbid we're going to start giving them AI agents to do this kind of stuff for them. God help us.
    - tapland 9mo ago
      Yes, if someone wrote a guide on how to do it and why, that’d be great. Knowing where to look and which settings are relevant, for yourself, is a crazy ask of even very computer savvy users.
      - lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
        > a crazy ask of even very computer savvy users Why? When Mozilla updated Firefox with the AI chatbot feature the first thing I did was look in settings in how to remove it. When that failed I just googled it, which pointed me to about:config and which keys to look for. Much easier to figure out with your intuition what `browser.ml.chat.enabled` could possibly mean than running pwsh script. All it takes is a bare minimum of curiosity.
flanbiscuit 9mo ago
For anyone interested This is the shell script it runs on Mac/Linux: https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/main/main.sh https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/mai... For FireFox it downloads this: https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/main/firefox/policies.json https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/mai... { "policies": { "DisableFirefoxStudies": true, "DisableTelemetry": true, "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true, "FirefoxHome": { "SponsoredStories": false, "SponsoredTopSites": false, "Stories": false }, "GenerativeAI": { "Enabled": false }, "SearchEngines": { "Remove": [ "Perplexity" ] } } }
joemi 9mo ago
The second sentence in the Getting Started section invites you to follow the manual guides instead of running the 3rd party shell scripts. I think this is a good way to do it -- have both options and tell people about them right at the start of the process. Is there some other way you wish they'd share this info?

youngtaff 9mo ago

There seems to be quite a lot missing from the Chrome configuration too

dylan604 9mo ago
Are all options available to the group policy? Since this is not directly modifying your app and merely creating a group policy for the browser to use, there might be some things not able to be set there. I have not experience with these group policies. Just thinking of why something might be missing as you stated. It could also be considered out of scope for the dev making this project.
troyvit 9mo ago
It's a pretty simple project, and the license is MIT. Wouldn't be hard to let them know what's missing: https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

lifetimerubyist 9mo ago

Seems like this is for the people that need to execute random powershell scripts they don't understand in order to turn of telemetry and copilot on Windows because reading about the registry and group policy is too much for them.

pbhjpbhj 9mo ago
I mean, yes ...? Stupid to run random scripts you find online, but browser makers push users into it. My son wants to eat "Chinese" food with chopsticks, but he can only really use a fork, so we adapt the chopsticks. He'll be able to use them eventually, but not everyone has a) the desire, nor b) the dexterity. Making it easier to do what users want with a computer without telling them 'just learn to program' (or script in this case) is actually a good thing imo.
- lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
  It's not hard to search for a few keys in the about:config menu or to set a group policy. If you can't be bother to do this you have zero business running random scripts that update your system configuration that you have no idea how it works. Normie users would be better off reading some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to do it by hand using built-in methods than to run random code from the internet that can be malicious. My mom is 75 years old and barely knows how to use a web browser to begin with. There is zero chance I encourage her to run random pwsh scripts from the internet. God forbid we're going to start giving them AI agents to do this kind of stuff for them. God help us.
  - tapland 9mo ago
    Yes, if someone wrote a guide on how to do it and why, that’d be great. Knowing where to look and which settings are relevant, for yourself, is a crazy ask of even very computer savvy users.
    - lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
      > a crazy ask of even very computer savvy users Why? When Mozilla updated Firefox with the AI chatbot feature the first thing I did was look in settings in how to remove it. When that failed I just googled it, which pointed me to about:config and which keys to look for. Much easier to figure out with your intuition what `browser.ml.chat.enabled` could possibly mean than running pwsh script. All it takes is a bare minimum of curiosity.

flanbiscuit 9mo ago

For anyone interested This is the shell script it runs on Mac/Linux: https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/main/main.sh https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/mai... For FireFox it downloads this: https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/main/firefox/policies.json https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/mai... { "policies": { "DisableFirefoxStudies": true, "DisableTelemetry": true, "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true, "FirefoxHome": { "SponsoredStories": false, "SponsoredTopSites": false, "Stories": false }, "GenerativeAI": { "Enabled": false }, "SearchEngines": { "Remove": [ "Perplexity" ] } } }

joemi 9mo ago

The second sentence in the Getting Started section invites you to follow the manual guides instead of running the 3rd party shell scripts. I think this is a good way to do it -- have both options and tell people about them right at the start of the process. Is there some other way you wish they'd share this info?