After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.
On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.
In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.
Firefox has had one hidden away in about:config since they started adding AI. Are they going to put it in the settings page now?
You can also disable ai via toggling browser.ml.enable to false on about:config. For now at least…
What is it actively doing now with AI? There is the ai sidebar, but if you don’t use that it isn’t used, right?
There’s the slow-and-not-very-capable link preview thing… and I could’ve sworn the “what’s new” page the other day said they were adding an on-device model to improve search results or something, but I can’t find the reference to it now.
Maybe they removed it after all the AI backlash. 😬
Too late - they already lost me.
Does anyone even talk about what the “AI features” are?
Could I, liked recolor webpages? Automate ublock filters? Detect SEO/AI slop? Create a price/feature table out of a shopping page?
See, this would all be neat like auto translate is neat.
But I’m not really interested in the 7 millionth barebones chatbot UI. I’m not interested in loading a whole freaking LLM to auto name my tabs, or in some cutsie auto navigation agent experiment that still only works like 20% of the time with a 600B LLM, or a shopping chatbot that doesn’t do anything like Amazon/Perplexity.
That’s the weird thing about all this. I’m not against neat features, but “AI!” is not a feature, and everyone is right to assume it will be some spam because that’s what 99% of everything AI is. But it’s like every CEO on Earth has caught the same virus and think a product with “AI” in the name is like a holy grail, regardless of functionality.
You reminded me that one use for AI I’d really like is removing all photos of Trump, Musk and Putin from my screen. Another is filtering the twenty reposts of every event in US politics and the incessant whining about prices. Alas, I need these in phone apps more than the browser.
You don’t need LLMs for that. An iPhone is plenty powerful enough for image recognition and text classification.
That’s sorta the funny thing about AI. There’s tons of potential, but it’s just unimplemented. Even on PC, you pretty much have to have some Nvidia GPU and fight pip setting up python repos to get anything working.
Right right. If they had real innovation, they would have defined it clearly as you suggested. But they didn’t, so they don’t. It’s all snake oil, again, because that’s the entire AI industry.
- AI chatbot in sidebar (you can choose which chatbot you want, similar to how you choose default search engine)
- Shake to summarize page (on mobile)
- AI Window (separate from Normal and Private window, upcoming). Apparently it lets you chat with an AI agent to power-browse the internet.
So, nothing.
Can’t wait to power browse.
Are we goong to get power browse or drunk browse?
The last feature is the mildly interesting one, but in my experience just not useful enough to do much, even on specific browsing finetunes or augmented APIs.
I guess shake to summarize is mildly interesting, but not really? I simply can’t trust it. And I can just paste the (much more concise) relevant text into a chat window and get a much better answer.
Apparently it lets you chat with an AI agent to power-browse the internet.
… I feel I have an idea of what this means, but it still breaks my brain just a little bit.
IDK guys, do you think a web browser should be a “broader ecosystem of trusted software” or a web browser?
I like the accessibility features like offline page translation
Not buying it. Kill switch will migrate further and further into about:config until it eventually too goes away without notice in an update six months from now.
No that’s way too paranoid. Honestly 20 years not 6 months. And by then ladybird will be viable so nbd
No six months to a year is probably about right. They’ll have enough data by then to say “most people don’t turn it off” because realistically most people will use the default, which is on.
Twenty years from now Firefox will be in a new controversy that we can’t even begin to guess.
Plus, while I can’t predict when the AI bubble will pop, whatever they add in the next year will be removed within the next five years. AI isn’t like browser tabs, or extensions, stuff that will always be a great idea, it’s just the current fad.
Well time will tell won’t it, but we’re both just guessing at the end
Firefox is no longer trusted. Fuck that AI bullshit. We don’t want it, we don’t need it, and they don’t care.
Why not just ship it without any of the AI stuff and give users the option to install and use it instead of bloating the application? This also confirms that the stuff is essentially OPT OUT instead of OPT IN
The bubble is AI and they want some of that bubble investor money is my guess, so they put optional AI
“On by default unless you run down a setting buried in a menu” is the thinnest type of optional in computing.
That’s fair, but also if you search AI in the settings it shows you all the options
And also … will the kill switch turn off the AI entirely … or partially? Since the AI system is baked in, will elements of it still operate in the background even if you turn off the switch?
Not sure what you mean by “will it operate in the background”? The current (and planned) features collect no data. The “operate” when you use them. Disabling them will remove them from the UI.
lol … so they won’t change how they function … just remove them from sight
out of sight, out of mind, right?
Whenever I trust big corporations … or even big organizations with a lot of power in their hands … it’s never usually good for common people like me and you.
What he wrote doesn’t seem ambiguous on this at all. But we’ll see.
So you agree that it will be baked in and impossible to actually turn off. Yep.
Otherwise, they would have made it an extension, right? If it’s optional, it needs to actually be optional … that’s what am extension is. That’s the whole point of them.
No
You can not push the button that says AI.
You can also hit the kill switch that completely removes that button.
That’s opt-in enough.
If it starts reading pages or doing things without you pushing a button, that’s an issue.
If it starts reading pages or doing things without you pushing a button, that’s an issue.
And therein lies the rub. The question is whether or not people trust that it won’t be doing that regardless of whether or not you hit the kill switch.
All AI features will also be opt-in. I think there are some grey areas in what ‘opt-in’ means to different people (e.g. is a new toolbar button opt-in?), but the kill switch will absolutely remove all that stuff, and never show it in future. That’s unambiguous.
Sounds like they will be opt in, not opt out
No, go deeper into that mastodon thread.
The dev has a really hinky defention of “opt-in” thats basically “yes we push all this on by default and realize it will be the norm for most of our users because of that, but you technically dont have to interact with it so thats opt-in.”
Somehow, eventually having a buried menu option that “opts out” of AI is also part of how it will be opt-in as well? Its a self serving mess of rationaliztions and doublethink, no matter the claim on the tin.
I mean yeah, that’s a fair point, and the dev said that themselves, that the definition of opt in is ambiguous. The definition they seem to use is that AI won’t run unless you explicitly tell it to, and I think that’s ok. There’ll be a button that you can press to do some AI action and you can hide it using the kill switch.
I do hope the kill switch isn’t hidden behind 5 layers of menus
Thats not ambuguity. AI will be opt out in firefox, which is them abandoning core principles like user choice and privacy.
They can do that, but playing like they aren’t by redefining well established terms in UI/UX is disengenious, and cuts right through the “we will earn your trust back” messaging made by the same dev.
I think it’s quite clear there’s ambiguity (hence this discussion). How would you define opt in? Should a user not even see the button for an opt in feature?
I think the big defining question is what will the AI features that they will implement do exactly and how will they run. If it’s something that runs in the background (even as unintrusive as the summaries on a search engine like DDG), then it’s opt out by default as it’s constantly running whether you want it to or not. If it specifically and exclusively runs when you hit the button to activate it and doesn’t run at any other time, then I’d say it’s unequivocally opt in. And regardless of what a company says that their software will do, at this point I won’t believe it until somebody has done a full teardown and discerned what exactly it does behind the scenes. I’ve seen enough nonsense like the Epic Games Store accessing your browser history and recording keyboard inputs or whatever the other absurd incident was.
Nah, I think it should be optional. Some AI features may even be useful — like an AI script to get rid of AI slop or something, idk.
I don’t see why there is a big outrage. Sure I’m not a fan of the AI features and I certainly will disable them but it’s tot like they’re forced upon me. Some people like (want) AI in the browser and good for them, this makes the browser better and easier to use for them. For me, it doesn’t change my experience at all
(Commented this separately on purpose)
I’ve been thinking the same thing. The online tech community is a very small part of a much larger pie and they need to serve multiple audiences. As long as it can be turned off and truly be off, who cares?
People don’t trust that it can be truly turned off and that it won’t act maliciously in some way. That’s really the crux of the whole saga. We’re at a point where phone companies are getting survey results that say that 80% of users either don’t care about AI nor use it or find that it actively makes their user experience worse.
Come to think of it, I do enjoy the translation feature in Firefox
In their defense a very tiny percentage of users even open options and of those an even smaller actually change stuff.
Maybe slighlty different for Firefox as probably more power user use it than other random programs. But basically if something is not enabled by default, it doesn’t exist.
Because they’re counting on people who know nothing about technology using the AI stuff when it’s placed in front of them.
For now…
The frog must boil slowly.
Too late. He’s already shown his true colors.
Everyone has. At least they are small enough to be wary of their user base.
Is there nobody with sanity left? This has blown up so much the user base clearly does not want it. Focus your efforts elsewhere. You gain marketshare by putting users first. Also fuck markets.
If all Firefox users donated to Mozilla it could work. Alas, we don’t.
That’s what I call reverse reasoning.
You sound like mozilla is adding because of lack of donations meanwhile correct is there is lack of donations because features nobody asked for like AI.
I probably would, if the organizational structure and its spending focus(es) weren’t so fucked up. They have been spending insane amounts of money on bullshit like AI instead of core browser features, and their leadership has extremely high wages for something that should be a non-profit open source organization. And it has been like this for years at this point.
Their CEO makes more than I think CEOs should earn in general, but the rest of their executives earn relatively normal to low salaries for their roles and the sector.
Non-profit doesn’t mean everyone works for free.
Well to be fair they only had that or onlyfans to get paid to sit there playing with themselves.
They’d have done less damage going for the OF option.
I mean, I bet they’d make a killing off of Firefox themed thigh highs…
You can donate to Mozilla, you cannot donate to Firefox.
Which is probably a good thing. I appreciate projects like Thunderbird as well.
No money you donate to Mozilla Foundation goes to either Firefox (MozCorp) or Thunderbird (MZLA).
They are separate entities.
Then let’s
How? Where? I’ll donate, take my money, and ads a voting system where paying users can vote for the next features
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/ if you’re actually interested in donating.
I would donate if I ever had spare money but I never do.
$5?
Make fun of the poors yeah?
No, I just don’t believe they really can’t spare $5.
Maybe they can’t but I’m skeptical.
A very vocal portion of the user base, but we don’t actually know what absolute portion cares. I’m personally unlikely to use possible AI features outside translation, but Mozilla has generally done enough that I don’t feel particularly worried they’re going to mess with my privacy or force me to use a feature I don’t want.
They could do a survey amongst Firefox users about what they want.
But if the result is anti-AI they can’t claim anymore that they weren’t aware of their users opinions.
The issue is that there aren’t many of us Firefox users left, so asking us while FF wants to get NEW users to expand the market share (which is badly needed, so they do not lose their seat at the table regarding web standards, and to make them less dependent on googles payments) is not helpful at all.
As long as i can switch it off with one click, i couldn’t care less and will continue using FF, but as you can see many existing users will bitch and moan even if it’s just one click.
so asking us while FF wants to get NEW users
This is a balancing act and Mozilla behaves like an elefant in a porcelain shop right now. Worst case they loose their current users without attracting new ones.
existing users will bitch and moan even if it’s just one click
I’m one of them. Why not make it one click for people who want it instead?
Worst case they loose their current users without attracting new ones.
And where to?
Ladybird, Servo and Floorp are all not useable as a daily driver and will take years to get there (and btw, the ladybird guy is a major shithead and last i heard of Servo was that they were going to cater to the embedded market, not a full blown browser).
Firefox forks can do what they want, even switch off the AI button, but i’d still say they help keeping the browser engine itself afloat, because they still depend on Firefox - there’s not one fork with enough dev staff to keep up. That leaves us with chromium based browsers and safari. I’d say the commitment to the current userbase to make the changes optional is good enough to keep most of them.
I ’m one of them. Why not make it one click for people who want it instead?
I’d put current Firefox users much more in the department of “able to find the settings” than the vast majority of users. The majority wants something that works with everything they throw at it out of the box without rummaging through settings.
And where to?
If both noteworthy browser engines are made by companies who make decisions against their user’s interest I might as well switch to the one with higher development budget.
The majority wants something that works with everything they throw at it out of the box without rummaging through settings.
And where does AI come into play here? It’s not like a browser without AI doesn’t work.
At least Firefox isn’t an extension of the worlds largest ad company, no amount of dev budget can fix that.
Context aware search, summarizing in side view or importing an agent directly from a repository into your browser are things that come to mind without much thinking, and i am not a developer.
Chill out. It’s literally just a sidebar for your LLM of choice.
Don’t like it? Don’t use it.
Don’t want it to clutter up your context menu? The same menu contains the option to disable it. Boom! Problem solved.
Gonna use Chromium-based with no µBlock because your feelings got hurt? Have fun.
We need valve but for browsers.
Funny. That’s exactly what Mozilla used to be.
Ehh, I’d pass on Ladybird. I’ve been donating to Servo myself.
Ladybird I follow since it’s an entirely new browser engine and can help restore a little democracy to the web, but why Floorp? I’m looking through its website and it seems to be a more customizable Firefox, which is nice, but doesn’t seem particularly revolutionary (and forks of Chromium/Firefox are kinda a dime a dozen).
Floorp misses the mark for me. Waterfox and librewolf seem to be a better fit for most people.
Always celebrate more options, though. I hope ladybird does well and doesn’t shit the bed the moment it gets some market share.
These days I’m tempted to just write myself a super minimal front end to Servo though because I don’t want 90% of what modern browsers ship with.
No idea why Floorp has garnered attention but other seem interested.
It seems to me that the issue is how we consume the web versus games: We’re used to pay to play but not to browse the internet. Valve is able to make money without relying on affiliations or donations.
I’ll believe it when I see it
Thats nice mozilla.
Installed and set up Librewolf yesterday. Absolutely recommend to everyone.
Yes. LibreWolf ships correctly configured, no switches needed.
Some websites doesn’t work with librewolf like Onshape.com . Is there an easy solution for website like those?
Weaken some fingerprint protections like canvas, of course at cost of some privacy.
Or you can try forks that have less aggresive protection so breaks less like waterfox.
Have you tried a user agent switcher?
Too late. I switched to librewolf.
Firefox is been my second/third choose for years.
Same. I’ve been using Firefox as my primary or secondary browser since early 2000’s. No longer.
Some websites doesn’t work with librewolf like Onshape.com . Is there an easy solution for website like those?
Use Firefox.
User agent switchers?
I have a better kill switch: Waterfox and LibreWolf. Don’t have to worry about of that nonsense right out the gate.
👍
I jumped to LibreWolf this week. Really like it, it looks acat and feels the same. But I trust it more. Been a FF user for over 10 years.
I’m considering it. The only reason being to get away from a corporate stance that could shift at any time, even though I don’t think it’s quite there yet.
However on issue of Firefox going the way of all the other browsers, I swear that the last update or so of Firefox asked me if I wanted to enable AI, I said no, and it told me how to turn it on if I ever wanted it. Much like when I first used DuckDuckGo. So wasn’t that opt in? Did it change how it prompts a new user?
It’s worth a try. It’s only a few min to do. My extensions seem to be all from Mozilla and working fine.
The only real difference is it has a bit of a classic FF apathetic and seems to highlight who’s abusing privacy. I can click that off but I like it.
I also use DDG but that’s gone downhill on its results in the last few years.
Zen has also committed to not include AI features
Some websites doesn’t work with librewolf like Onshape.com . Is there an easy solution for website like those?
But that’s just saying that instead of using Firefox and not turning on the feature, you’ll use a less maintained version of Firefox where they didn’t enable the feature. I don’t feel like those projects have much value add in the privacy spectrum compared to Firefox, particularly when one of them was owned by an advertising company, and neither of them actually has the resources to maintain or operate a browser in isolation, which is a major concern regarding security and privacy both.
While I can’t speak for LibreWolf, I can tell you that Waterfox is based on the latest ESR builds and is extremely well maintained to the point of evolving into its own thing entirely. It’s one of the oldest forks I’ve known. The fact it’s been around this long should speak volumes. That being said, most modern forks that I’ve tried tend to base themselves on ESR as well and evolved in a similar way.
