5 ms·

Respect. This is what Firefox could have been. In the real world, in the same line as the article suggests, there was a brief time when the "puts you back in c

Respect. This is what Firefox could have been. In the real world, in the same line as the article suggests, there was a brief time when the "puts you back in control" browser needed you to change the following about:config settings to disable the force-pushed ai: browser.ml.enable, browser.ml.chat.enabled, browser.ml.chat.sidebar, browser.ml.chat.menu, browser.ml.chat.page, extensions.ml.enabled, browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled, browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled, browser.ml.smartAssist.enabled, browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled, browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled, pdfjs.enableAltTextModelDownload, pdfjs.enableGuessAltText A bit of community feedback later, and we've got one big "off" button, and me wondering which footgun the executives will shoot themselves with next.

gib444 4mo ago
And those are some of the better named config options. Some are pretty opaque, as are their values (and often poorly documented). You can tell there isn't an edict to make config options highly accessible
franga2000 4mo ago
You're complaning that the browser that "puts you back in control" ... put you back in control of which AI features you want to enable/disable? How horrible! What? They didn't make these 10 distinct features one single all-or-nothing button? They let you switch them on or off individually?? How dare they?!? What? They shipped new features to the browser...turned on?!? Instead of spending all those development hours and then...hiding them behind a setting by default? I need "AI" in my browser, so I don't use the AI features. No data was sent anywhere. No 4 GB model was downloaded. Nothing happened, except for a popup saying "hey, by the way, if you want to do X, just press this button here". It's just UI elements. No AI-related code runs, no data is sent to AI companies unless you directly tell the browser to do that. Imagine if Firefox shipped a brand new GPU-accelerated compositor, improved hardware video decoding and WebGL/WebGPU. You people cry about why they didn't add a big "disable GPU features" button? And that they dared to enable this by default?
- noir_lord 4mo ago
  You either missed the point or deliberately missed the point. The issue was they shipped AI features built into everything and the only way to switch them off was to "about:config" a bunch of settings, they shouldn't have shipped it without the off switch and "Open about:settings and then disable things manually" isn't control for the average user.
  - franga2000 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - skywhopper 4mo ago
      This attitude is exactly why Mozilla is failing. Total contempt and ignorance of the users that are the core of Firefox’s user base. If someone doesn’t want to use AI features, that’s not “living in a fantasy world”. And if Mozilla had any respect for its users, they would have realized the need to make this sort of thing a first class setting. Pretending that their core users are delusional freaks who only deserve “niche” settings is exactly why they are rapidly losing that audience.
      - franga2000 4mo ago
        You're missing the point. If someone doesn't want to use AI features, they can just NOT. USE. THEM. That's it. Just don't press the AI button. Is it that hard? Would you say Mozilla is deleting all your data because there's a "Delete cookies and history" button in the menu? You can just NOT. PRESS. THE. BUTTON. The master AI switch doesn't actually change whether the browser uses AI features - it never does unless you specifically run them. What it does is hides them from the user, pretending they don't exist. Browsers that don't respect their users' choices about using AI do things like automatically download large models in the background, integrate cloud-based speech recognition and synthesis as an API available to any website and make the default search engine which they also own show LLM slop above actual results.
      - breznev 4mo ago
teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
Maybe I just love downvotes, but the Firefox AI sidebar is incredibly useful and I make use of it nearly every day.
- skywhopper 4mo ago
  Good for you. The point is that a lot of Firefox users actively didn't want these sorts of features enabled and pushed on them. That was clear and obvious to anyone paying attention to general reactions to unsolicited AI helper tools, going back decades. For Mozilla to turn this on without any respect for those users’ preferences was a huge mistake that they keep making over and over again.
  - crote 4mo ago
    More specifically: they chose Firebox because it doesn't have those kind of features. If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium. Using Firefox is a political choice. People use it because it's one of the few remaining traditional browsers which isn't a tentacle of Big Tech. Chasing the competition and adding the stuff your users are actively trying to avoid isn't going to work.
    - cassianoleal 4mo ago
      > If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium. I don't mind features existing, especially if I can switch them off if I don't want them. I definitely mind Chrom(ium|e). I don't see how the existence of the Firefox AI sidebar gives Google effective control over web specs.
    - yndoendo 4mo ago
      The main reason for using Firefox is because they support Manifest v2 / Ad-Blockers. This increases security while also harming Google's business model. Win-Win.
Latty 4mo ago
Look, I absolutely agree it sucks they didn't deliver the opt-out/in interface day one, it was obvious people would want it, and yes, it's not the first time they've blundered. At the same time, they did listen to the feedback and deliver. It now has a genuinely good interface for it where you don't have to opt out of everything, but can opt-in where you want it. It's not just a big off button, it's a general out-out including new features, but that then exposes individual opt-ins if you want for each feature. Most other browsers won't respond at all. Firefox is still by far the best browser out there for people who care about their privacy. Especially on HN, Firefox just gets so much more hate than software that is way more user hostile for much less bad behaviour. I'm not saying we shouldn't hold it to a higher standard when that is what it's selling itself on: clearly we can't allow "not as bad" to let it slip into worse and worse, but at the same time, I don't understand how the narrative seems to trend towards "they are essentially the same as google" when that is so clearly not true (to be clear, not saying you are saying that in this post, just that's the vibe of HN's commentary as a whole).
- ekianjo 4mo ago
  > it's not the first time they've blundered It's a recurring pattern of not reading the room
  - b112 4mo ago
    Indeed, and it's on purpose. Everyone was forced to be exposed to it. To see it. Only after that happened, did they let users disable it. It's effectively the equivalent of a spam campaign.
- meibo 4mo ago
  People had to raise hell to get that, while being made fun of by their CMs on social media. Even the opt-out is full of silicon valley dark patterns. Whoever is calling shots about the product at Mozilla doesn't have your best interests at heart.
  - Krssst 4mo ago
Lord-Jobo 4mo ago
They KEEP adding utter cancerous garbage to the homepage/new tab page. I recently installed Firefox from scratch for a coworker who was having chrome-only issues(yes, they do exist!) and was blown away by how insanely gross the default settings are now. It’s straight up adware junk bullshit
spython 4mo ago
I think Mozilla is still mostly made up of tech-optimist people, so they were open and interested in ai from day one. I highly doubt there was any malicious intent.

gib444 4mo ago

And those are some of the better named config options. Some are pretty opaque, as are their values (and often poorly documented). You can tell there isn't an edict to make config options highly accessible

franga2000 4mo ago

You're complaning that the browser that "puts you back in control" ... put you back in control of which AI features you want to enable/disable? How horrible! What? They didn't make these 10 distinct features one single all-or-nothing button? They let you switch them on or off individually?? How dare they?!? What? They shipped new features to the browser...turned on?!? Instead of spending all those development hours and then...hiding them behind a setting by default? I need "AI" in my browser, so I don't use the AI features. No data was sent anywhere. No 4 GB model was downloaded. Nothing happened, except for a popup saying "hey, by the way, if you want to do X, just press this button here". It's just UI elements. No AI-related code runs, no data is sent to AI companies unless you directly tell the browser to do that. Imagine if Firefox shipped a brand new GPU-accelerated compositor, improved hardware video decoding and WebGL/WebGPU. You people cry about why they didn't add a big "disable GPU features" button? And that they dared to enable this by default?

noir_lord 4mo ago
You either missed the point or deliberately missed the point. The issue was they shipped AI features built into everything and the only way to switch them off was to "about:config" a bunch of settings, they shouldn't have shipped it without the off switch and "Open about:settings and then disable things manually" isn't control for the average user.
- franga2000 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - skywhopper 4mo ago
    This attitude is exactly why Mozilla is failing. Total contempt and ignorance of the users that are the core of Firefox’s user base. If someone doesn’t want to use AI features, that’s not “living in a fantasy world”. And if Mozilla had any respect for its users, they would have realized the need to make this sort of thing a first class setting. Pretending that their core users are delusional freaks who only deserve “niche” settings is exactly why they are rapidly losing that audience.
    - franga2000 4mo ago
      You're missing the point. If someone doesn't want to use AI features, they can just NOT. USE. THEM. That's it. Just don't press the AI button. Is it that hard? Would you say Mozilla is deleting all your data because there's a "Delete cookies and history" button in the menu? You can just NOT. PRESS. THE. BUTTON. The master AI switch doesn't actually change whether the browser uses AI features - it never does unless you specifically run them. What it does is hides them from the user, pretending they don't exist. Browsers that don't respect their users' choices about using AI do things like automatically download large models in the background, integrate cloud-based speech recognition and synthesis as an API available to any website and make the default search engine which they also own show LLM slop above actual results.
    - breznev 4mo ago

teaearlgraycold 4mo ago

Maybe I just love downvotes, but the Firefox AI sidebar is incredibly useful and I make use of it nearly every day.

skywhopper 4mo ago
Good for you. The point is that a lot of Firefox users actively didn't want these sorts of features enabled and pushed on them. That was clear and obvious to anyone paying attention to general reactions to unsolicited AI helper tools, going back decades. For Mozilla to turn this on without any respect for those users’ preferences was a huge mistake that they keep making over and over again.
- crote 4mo ago
  More specifically: they chose Firebox because it doesn't have those kind of features. If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium. Using Firefox is a political choice. People use it because it's one of the few remaining traditional browsers which isn't a tentacle of Big Tech. Chasing the competition and adding the stuff your users are actively trying to avoid isn't going to work.
  - cassianoleal 4mo ago
    > If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium. I don't mind features existing, especially if I can switch them off if I don't want them. I definitely mind Chrom(ium|e). I don't see how the existence of the Firefox AI sidebar gives Google effective control over web specs.
  - yndoendo 4mo ago
    The main reason for using Firefox is because they support Manifest v2 / Ad-Blockers. This increases security while also harming Google's business model. Win-Win.

Latty 4mo ago

Look, I absolutely agree it sucks they didn't deliver the opt-out/in interface day one, it was obvious people would want it, and yes, it's not the first time they've blundered. At the same time, they did listen to the feedback and deliver. It now has a genuinely good interface for it where you don't have to opt out of everything, but can opt-in where you want it. It's not just a big off button, it's a general out-out including new features, but that then exposes individual opt-ins if you want for each feature. Most other browsers won't respond at all. Firefox is still by far the best browser out there for people who care about their privacy. Especially on HN, Firefox just gets so much more hate than software that is way more user hostile for much less bad behaviour. I'm not saying we shouldn't hold it to a higher standard when that is what it's selling itself on: clearly we can't allow "not as bad" to let it slip into worse and worse, but at the same time, I don't understand how the narrative seems to trend towards "they are essentially the same as google" when that is so clearly not true (to be clear, not saying you are saying that in this post, just that's the vibe of HN's commentary as a whole).

ekianjo 4mo ago
> it's not the first time they've blundered It's a recurring pattern of not reading the room
- b112 4mo ago
  Indeed, and it's on purpose. Everyone was forced to be exposed to it. To see it. Only after that happened, did they let users disable it. It's effectively the equivalent of a spam campaign.
meibo 4mo ago
People had to raise hell to get that, while being made fun of by their CMs on social media. Even the opt-out is full of silicon valley dark patterns. Whoever is calling shots about the product at Mozilla doesn't have your best interests at heart.
- Krssst 4mo ago

Lord-Jobo 4mo ago

They KEEP adding utter cancerous garbage to the homepage/new tab page. I recently installed Firefox from scratch for a coworker who was having chrome-only issues(yes, they do exist!) and was blown away by how insanely gross the default settings are now. It’s straight up adware junk bullshit

spython 4mo ago

I think Mozilla is still mostly made up of tech-optimist people, so they were open and interested in ai from day one. I highly doubt there was any malicious intent.