Hey all, just a reminder to keep the community rules in mind when commenting on this thread. Criticism in any direction is fine, but please maintain your civility and don't stoop to ad-hominem etc. Thanks.

The more AI is being pushed into my face, the more it pisses me off.

Mozilla could have made an extension and promote it on their extension store. Rather than adding cruft to their browser and turning it on by default.

The list of things to turn off to get a pleasant experience in Firefox is getting longer by the day. Not as bad as chrome, but still.

Just render the page, page renderer.

You want AI in your browser? Just add as a "search engine" option, with a URL like

https://chatgpt.com/?q=%25s

, with a shortcut like @ai. Maybe also add one with a URL with some query pre-written like

https://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page for me: %s

as @ais or something, modern chatbots have the ability to make HTTP requests for you. Then if you want to summarize the page you're on, you do Ctrl+L Ctrl+C @ais Ctrl+V Enter. There, I solved all your AI needs with 4 shortcuts without literally any client-side code.

Hear me out.

This could actually be cool:

• If I could, say, mash in "get rid of the junk in this page" or "turn the page this color" or "navigate this form for me"

• If it could block SEO and AI slop from search/pages, including images.

• If I can pick my own API (including local) and sampling parameters

• If it doesn't preload any model in RAM.

...That'd be neat.

What I don't want is a chatbot or summarizer or deep researcher because there are 7000 bajillion of those, and there is literally no advantage to FF baking it in like every other service on the planet.

And... Honestly, PCs are not ready for local LLMs. Not even the most exotic experimental quantization of Qwen3 30B is 'good enough' to be reliable for the average person, and it still takes too much CPU/RAM. And whatever Mozilla ships would be way worse.

That could change with a good bitnet model, but no one with money has pursued it yet.

Those unhappy have another option: use an AI‑free Firefox fork such as LibreWolf, Waterfox, or Zen Browser.

And I have taken that other option.

Also: Vanadium and/or Ironfox on Android.

Why not just distribute a separate build and call it “Firefox AI Edition” or something? Making this available in the base binary is a big mistake. At least doing so immediately and without testing the waters.

Personally I don't want AI anywhere.

I think Mozilla's base is privacy focused individuals, a lot of them appreciating firefox's opensource nature and the privacy hardened firefox forks. From a PR perspective, Firefox will gain users by adamantly going against AI tech.

I've actually flipped on this position - but before you pull out your pitchforks and torches, please listen to what I have to say.

Do we want mass surveillance through SaaS? No. Do we want mass breach of copyright just because it's a small holder and not some giant publisher - I.e "rules for thee" type vibe? Hell no. But do we throw the baby out with the bath water? Also: heck no. But let's me underline a few facts.

1. AI currently requires power greedy chips that also don't utelize memory effectively enough
2. Because of this it's relegated to massive, globe heating infrastructure
3. SaaS will always, always track you and harvest your data
4. Said data will be used in marketing and psy-ops to manipulate you, your children and your community
5. The more they track, the better their models become, which they'll keep under lock and key
6. More and more devices are coming with NPUs and TPUs on-chip
7. That is the hardware has not caught up to the software yet

See where I'm going with this?

Add to the fact that people like their chatbots and can even learn to use them responsibly, but as long as they're feeding the corpos, it'll be used against them. Not only that, but in true silicon valley fashion, it'll be monopolized.

The libre movement exists to bring power back to the user by fighting these conditions. It's also a very good idea to standardize things so that it's not hidden behind a proprietary API or service.

That's why if Mozilla seeks to standardize locally run AI models by way of the browser, then that's a good thing! Again; not if they're feeding some SaaS.

But it their goal and their implementation is to bring models to the general consumer so that they can seize the means of computing, then that's a good thing!

Again, if you'd rather just kick up dust and bemoan the idiocy and narcissistic nature of Silicon Valley, then you've already given them what they want - that they, and they alone, get to be the sole proprietaries of AI that is standardized. That's like giving the average user over to a historically predatory ilk who'd rather build an autocracy than actually innovate.

Mozilla can be the hero we need. They can actually focus on consumer hardware, to give people what they want WITHOUT mass tracking and data harvesting.

That is if they want to. I'm not saying they're not going to bend over, but they need the right kind of push back. They need to be told "local AI only - no SaaS" and then they can focus on creating web standards for local AI, effectively becoming the David to Silicon Valleys Goliath.

I know this is an unpopular opinion and I know the Silicon Valley barons are a bunch of sociopaths with way too much money, but we can't give them monopoly over this. That would be bad!! We need to give the power to the user, and that means standardization!

Take it from an old curmudgeon. I've shook my fist at the cloud, I've read a ton of EULAs and I've opposed many predatory practices. But we need to understand that the user wants what the user wants. We can't stick our heads in the sand and just repeat "AI bad" ad nauseum. We need to mobilize against the central giants.

We need a local AI movement and Mozilla could be in the forefront of this, if it weren't for the pushback and outright cynicism people trevall generally (and justifiably) have - but we can't let these cretinous bastards hold all the AI cards.

We need libre AI, and we need it now!

Thank you for your consideration.

It depends. If it's just for the sake of plugging AI because it's cool and trendy, fuck no.

If it's to improve privacy, accessibility and minimize our dependency on big tech, then I think it's a good idea.

A good example of AI in Firefox is the Translate feature (Project Bergamot). It works entirely locally, but relies on trained models to provide translation on-demand, without having Google, etc as the middle-man, and Mozilla has no idea what you translates, just which language model(s) you downloaded.

Another example is local alt-text generation for images, which also requires a trained model. Again, works entirely locally, and provide some accessibility to users with a vision impairment when an image doesn't provide caption.

ai can be good as long as you don't let it think for you. i think the problem is taking resources from development and building into a browser would could just be a bookmark to a webpage.

why don't they just instead put vivaldi's web panel sidebar into firefox so you can just add chatgpt or whatever as a web panel. i think that would be infinitely more useful (and can be used for other sites other than ai assistants).

The post stresses the feature will be opt-in and that the user “is in control.”

Nothingburger

I am not really liking AI , sure its good for somethings but in last 2 weeks i seen some very negative and destructive outcomes from AI . I am so tired of everything being AI . It can have good potential but what are risks to users experience?

Cannot wait for Servo & LadyBird to take off

So, will there be an option to disable it?

I considered using AI to summarize news articles that don't seem worth the time to read in full (the attention industrial complex is really complicating my existence). But I turned it off and couldn't find the button to turn it back on.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but how can you be aware of this fact

I don’t know whether the negative reactions reflect the majority of Firefox users or are just a noisy minority. Mozilla, after all, likely has a clearer view of the whole user base.

and then still assume that nobody wants something based on a non-representative sample of 52 comments?

I certainly want it. The current anti-AI wave is irrational.

That isn't to say that AI is not a major potential existential problem when it goes to AGI and to ASI, or that AI in the hands of private Oligarch psychos are not a catastrophe, but the current hatred is of a different kind, are off the charts, actually evil, and have no relation to the tool it self, or the potential existential risks. The group have already been consumed by hatred and unfortunately, they are now also attacking ordinary Lemmy users that 'admit' that they use AI, or 'admit' that they treat it as a 'friend'. You have all seen this. People just mentioning AI are downvoted and hated upon, people that use AI always get a "AI slop !" remark with them on their way. A large percentage, like this post, are subtly attacking that others even have a choice of utilizing AI in their daily life - because they hate it. This is kinder-garden level bullying !

Most of the daily worries of AI, stems from the societal system we are in. Job loss (It's build into the current system!), 'AI'-slop (as if Capitalism didn't create slop?), 'Copyright' idiocy that are only necessary in a combative type of society, AI+biz out-competing ordinary people, becoming poor, homeless etc, big monetary/political powers consolidating more power by misusing AI, an incredible amount of propaganda/marketing and manipulation and so on. The old system is incompatible with AI, so people are seeing things go in a wrong way, and feeling the cracks and dissonance between an old failing system, and the new possibilities we have. We - humanity - are in a transitional phase, where the old systems we follow, are no longer adequate, and will implode/convulse in to a new stable system. But the old system is stubbornly trying to keep going, while not having any answers, or any will, to adapt or even discuss the internal dissonance that are accelerating. THAT is the problem! Almost all current 'AI' problems that result in this hate backlash - comes directly from the failing type of society we have - not the tool/technology it self ! People should focus on the root-problem, not the tool it-self, and certainly not other users that need it.

This whole group of angry people need to chill tf out and admit to them selves that they are mis-directing their hatred (valid or not), and that their hate are currently harming other ordinary people - not much different from them selves. Stop bullying others just because you can't handle the inherent failings of the old crap system, a system build on pure combative ideology, "by the oligarchs, for the oligarchs". Stop fighting for 'Jobs', and start fighting for a system where we don't need 'Jobs', Stop fighting for 'Copyright', or any of the other insane protectionist 'patches' to the current bunkers society/ideology, and start fighting for a society where we don't have to hoard 'property' to survive. Fight for a society that are compatible with where we are technologically/philosophically, one that are actually designed/intended to be compatible with peoples needs and their humble wishes for a safe and stimulating future.

Lastly, being worried/focused on an ASI takeover of humanity, or common people being (more) controlled by the Oligarchs/Big Corp, etc, is completely legit, and it absolutely needs to be talked about, but this group of haters is just hating 'AI' and people using it in general, for the wrong reasons, and then lashing out towards those people that enjoy/need it now. (Good for you if you don't need it in this society).

This bullying has to stop. In the mean time, I and many others, are starting to use current AI to design/build systems that bring us all over this ideological molasses we are in, and land us on the other side as fast and safely as we can. You should probably do the same instead of being consumed by anger, but that is your choice to make. Thanks for reading.

So much whining... Please get to know the things you attack, before you embarrass yourself.

Do you know what a "build in AI" is? It's just some algorithms that makes your day easier. And no one steals your data... sigh

It's a local collection of algorithms, and you are quite safe. You probably already use it in so many ways you can't count them - it's just not called "AI" which I guess is the trigger word for you...

Well if they do I'll just switch to whatever browser that doesn't.

Can I just take my Firefox Profile directory, and copy it over to LibreWolf? Does anybody know?