this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024

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158

Mozilla roll out first AI features in Firefox Nightly (blog.mozilla.org)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 128 points 4 months ago (21 children)

trustworthy AI

Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral

What

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 4 months ago (16 children)

people please actually read the article not the headline; this is literally about accessibility improvements for blind and visually impaired people for generating alt text inside of documents and pdfs.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's one of the things, but it's also adding a dedicated sidebar for AI. That's the sort of thing that should just be an extension, there's absolutely no reason at all why that needs to be something built into the browser.

Developers should be providing alt text themselves, but in cases where they aren't having a local image recognition model running to provide a description isn't terrible as long as it's either 100% local or completely opt-in.

The dedicated sidebar on the other hand feels very much like a cheap attempt to cash in on the AI fad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

That’s the sort of thing that should just be an extension

It most likely is on the technical level, just shipped by default and integrated into standard settings instead of the add-on ones. And it's going to be opt-in, so you won't have to go into about:config to disable it. Speaking of: You're looking for extensions.pocket.enabled, it should be false. And before you say "muh diskspace" it's probably like 5k of js and css or such.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago

yeah but AI bad no matter if it would be actually useful for once

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

access their preferred AI service from the Firefox sidebar to summarize information, simplify language, or test their knowledge, all without leaving their current web page.

Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 4 months ago (2 children)

"Trustworthy AI" + Recent aquisiton of an advertising analytics company + a call for people to inform on third party sources of Firefox = Down the enshitification rabbit hole we go.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Any recommendations of a good alternative on android? I'm thinking I'll move to librewolf on desktop but they don't appear to have an android version.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I use a fork from F-Droid called Fennec. I'm not sure off the top of my head how closely it tracks with upstream feature-wise but I know it strips out all of Mozilla's tracking components and it's always updated within a couple days of the upstream release.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I do like Mull, but I'm also uninformed and I don't use my mobile browser all too much.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I use Fennec F-Droid on Android and LibreWolf on Linux/Mac/Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Why does my open source browser need proprietary SaaS products stuffed into it?

Isn't this what extensions are for?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It also has google stuffed into it, and apparently the new consensus is that you need AI just as much for browsing as a search engine

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (26 children)

I wish they spent their time fixing bugs, rather than implementing this bullshit

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral, but we will continue adding AI services that meet our standards for quality and user experience.

Is that the same Mozilla that started the Joint Statement on AI Safety and Openness?

What in living hell do proprietary and predatory AI services even doing here?

Mozilla just offered users to feed into the very abomination they claim to fight.

Also, for all things "AI", local is the only way to go if you ever want to have a chance at privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Honestly, the worst part of the AI craze is that so many people hear AI now and immediately hate it even though it can really do some amazing stuff, e.g. in medicine. AI as a blanket term just has so much variance, there's a ton of trash and a ton of great stuff.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

"AI" today mostly refers to LLMs, and whichever LLM you're using, you'll likely face the same issues (wrong answers creeping in, tending towards mediocrity in its answers, etc.) - those seem to be things you have to live with if you want to use LLMs. if you know you can't deal with it, another rebrand won't help anything

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Part of the problem is that all ads anymore want push their version of “AI” in your face and some of these “AI” are nothing new just rebranded.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The new CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers, has a background working at all sorts of evil companies like AirBnB and PayPal. Its absolutely no surprise that the company immediately dropped plans to diversify in ethical, unique and privacy friendly ways as soon as she joined.

CEOs getting paid primarily in stock means grifters like this will drop their USP for whatever trend makes the line go up, if it is crypto, NFTs, or AI.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Shes not the new ceo, shes a temporary interim ceo while they find someone better

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not going to lie, AI can be a very powerfull tool but the "we want your browsing experience to be divine, but don't worry we have your back" scares me shitless. Firefox has always had our backs, why do they feel the need to mention it now? Maybe I'm being paranoid but I feel like a browser shoulf just be a browser.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

Pretty sure the only thing I wouldn't object to AI being used for in Firefox would be ad blocking. Surely they're going to use this for that right?

...

Right?

...

Shit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

native tab grouping would be a much more desirable feature, to me

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Why Mozilla? Why? You were the chosen one... Fuck it, I'm going back to lynx! Tabs? Sure we have tabs in lynx, just run lynx in tmux

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

No fuckin’ thanks.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

The way I see AI being implemented into Firefox, regardless of whether it's gonna be opt-in or out in the future is that they need to keep up with the latest browser trends in the future. If they don't, they will definitely lose more of whatever probably small amount of remaining normies who don't use edge or chrome but instead opt for Firefox. They're not tech literate enough to see a conveniently placed ad telling them that xyz browser now uses AI security features and Firefox doesn't and discern the fact that it's a ploy to get them to switch. We need more normies if we really want a chance to keep Firefox more than just treadingn water, and the best way is to offer more random bullshit of the week to keep them from switching to a competitor.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Any good forks without AI? I really don't want that AI companies with my data.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

As long as I can disable it, sure. Knock yourself out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Anyone have any other good suggestions for Firefox alternatives? Sounds like I may be needing to switch soon.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I highly recommend everyone making the switch to LibreWolf. It's a custom version of Firefox that focuses on the things that matter like privacy and security, while cutting out the annoyances that Mozilla loves to add to their browsers.