topic Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together in Discussions

Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Jolie — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 14:31:07 GMT

Hi everyone,

We recently shared how we’re approaching AI in Firefox with user choice and openness at the center of everything we build. We’ve heard from many of you who’d prefer not to have AI in your browser at all, and we get it: We will soon provide additional settings for you to control how AI is used (or not) in Firefox.

Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it. That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web, in ways that promote openness, transparency, and choice. That way, users and developers can use it freely, help shape it, and truly benefit from it.

You’ve already seen this approach in some of our latest features:
💬 AI Chatbot in the sidebar – Access your preferred chat assistant without switching tabs.
📱 Shake to Summarize on iOS – Quickly summarize pages and stay focused on what matters.

Now we’re working on something new, and we’d love your input.

What is AI Window?

AI Window is an intelligent space we’re building that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse, all on your terms.

✅ Completely opt-in: You decide if and when to use it.
🔄 Model flexibility: Pick the AI model that best fits your needs.
⚙️ Full control: Easily toggle it on or off anytime.

Help us shape the future

We’re still early in development and want your feedback. Starting today, you can sign up to receive updates.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

DonutRush — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 15:33:40 GMT

Once again Mozilla is SPRINTING to chase after the stupidest tech brained trends and not actually focused on improving the product at all.

> Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it.

I heard the same nonsense from crypto and NFT brained weirdos, and from Mozilla until they were rightfully bullied into dropping cryptocurrency donation support.

Stop chasing slop and actually work on making sure your browser competes with Chromium in REAL areas like speed and functionality, not in digital hallucinations.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

dmarti — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:02:25 GMT

Does `browser.ml.enable` turn this off?

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

amoroso — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:14:44 GMT

The only AI related thing I want is a single, prominent, easily accessible switch to turn off absolutely all opt-out AI features. No chasing about:config entries.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Awkes — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:16:49 GMT

Short answer: don't.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

nube — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:57:15 GMT

Mozilla, get it: you can't compete with chromium, you can't target a mainstream audience, you can't win. You're just going to lose us, the little audience you still have, stop making fun of your users

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

deathkitten — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:01:03 GMT

Joining everyone in here in saying that you all need to stop this. With chrome doubling down on spying on users with ads, kneecapping browser extensions, adding AI that can't be turned off at all, and generally just making their product worse, you all have a real opportunity to regain market share by offering privacy and sanity. Instead you're chasing the same AI fever dream they are.

The way everyone and their creepy marketing dude shove AI into everything without stopping to ask if anyone wants it (most of us don't), and make sure it's difficult to impossible to turn off, shows they know we don't want it. If people liked it, you all wouldn't need to force feed it to us. We'd opt in ourselves.

Thank you for at least giving us a switch to turn it off this time, now give us a single switch to completely opt out of all AI and then stop wasting your devs time making them put this garage in the browser and focus on making a privacy friendly no-AI browser.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

ddg — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:03:09 GMT

Put down the Kool-aid and step away.

As others have said, what users actually want is a functional, customisable and performant browser that isn't following everything Google is doing. i.e. a real browser alternative.

You don't need (and we definitely don't want) the latest thought-bubble nonsense (eg AI). Just a good functional solid browser. Stop being distracted and focus on your core strengths.

Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it. That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web, in ways that promote openness, transparency, and choice. That way, users and developers can use it freely, help shape it, and truly benefit from it.

"Everyone else is doing it so we need to too" is never a great reason to do something. Nor is "something bad is happening to the web, so we'll do that, but don't worry, we'll do it in a way that sucks less".

Take a stand, show some gumption, leave the AI bull to the plugin authors for those that are too far down that rabbit-hole.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

miclgael1 — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:04:12 GMT

Oof. I'm sorry you have to work on this, Jolie.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

jernejs — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:18:55 GMT

What's the best way to disable this (and any future slop features) organisation-wide?

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Mfitts — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:25:20 GMT

This is discouraging. I do not want this. You are moving me away from Firefox.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Firesphere — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:29:20 GMT

Dear Mozilla,

Please stop what you are doing. Take a breath. You don't have to chase every new thing, like a kitten chasing a shred of paper

Please, stop this AI nonsense. As you can see from the responses in the community, the overwhelming response is that people are not waiting for you to join in on the craze.

Focus on what needs to be done, before adding what can be done. Right now, your users are asking for a simple way to turn all this genAI nonsense off. Focus on that. A single setting, easily found, which will completely remove any trace of these Large Lying Machine integrations.

And of course, respect this setting (unlike Microsoft/Google, who will turn it back at every corner).

You’ve already seen this approach in some of our latest features:
💬AI Chatbot in the sidebar – Access your preferred chat assistant without switching tabs.
📱Shake to Summarize on iOS – Quickly summarize pages and stay focused on what matters.

What I'm seeing in these features, is not an open, transparent, choice. I had to go and find all the toggles in about:config. That's not open nor transparent that's hidden. Sure one could argue that it is possible to find. It does not, however, make it open or transparent. It reminds me of the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

For users that are not used to digging into the configuration, this is how the current state of affairs is regarding to the genAI integrations you are building.

I'll leave the quote from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy here

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

BenjaminGeer — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 21:00:07 GMT

I don’t want AI in my web browser, or anywhere else in my life, at all, ever. And I think that most Firefox users probably feel the same way. In adding AI, you seem to be determined to lose the tiny fraction of users that are still loyal to Firefox.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

nuh — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 21:10:36 GMT

I'm assuming the AI window refers to agentic browsing. Will it run on local models, or will we need to choose a third-party service like with the sidebar chatbot? I appreciate that Mozilla is offering these features, but I'd prefer an option to download and use local models, even if they are larger and slower

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

AmigaPete — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 21:22:25 GMT

Absolutely not. I want a big off switch to disable absolutely all AI. Better would be for it to be completely disabled by default and opt-in only. Best of all would be good just not put ai in firefox at all.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Janeishly — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 21:22:34 GMT

"standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it"

All of your users get this. But this technology is not moving forward. Have you actually used it for anything you truly understand? It doesn't work. It's sole purpose is to capture the attention of CEOs who know nothing of their actual business – or anyone else's – while burning the planet's already stretched resources.

Mozilla users do NOT want this stuff. And you'd gain far more users fleeing from other browsers if you were the only one not to be taken in by the hype.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

KittyDorkling — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 21:28:56 GMT

I mean, if you want me to go and find another browser, AGAIN, I can. I've done it before, after all! I don't want AI in my browser, or my phone, or my games, or my search, or my **bleep** fridge. Please do not implement it, I'm tired of having to delete previously useful services.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Who_Me — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 05:47:37 GMT

I have been using Firefox for many years now. Because of it's privacy and how extentions like Ublock Origin still work. With the other browsers virtually sitting in the background watching everything you do. Where you are the product not the browser. Please devote your development efforts to making Firefox the best browser it can be and not chasing the latest fad.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

mort2 — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 22:27:02 GMT

You used AI to write this, didn't you?

✅ Completely opt-in: You decide if and when to use it.
🔄 Model flexibility: Pick the AI model that best fits your needs.
⚙️ Full control: Easily toggle it on or off anytime.

Bullet-point list where the bullets are emoji and every point is on the form "Two Words: Some longer description" is an absolute dead give-away. Never seen a human do that, yet ChatGPT does it constantly.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

assimilateborg — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 22:38:38 GMT

Is there a single option to chose at install which will not put all the AI features on my system? It would really be helpful. If I want your AI, I could still go to something like mozilla.ai to have all the bells and whistles. But I do not want it by default.

Thank you.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Azuaron — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 22:50:22 GMT

My input: don't. Just don't. Anyone who wants to use all the surveillance and AI nonsense is using some flavor of Chrome. You need to figure out how to be DIFFERENT from Chrome, not chase the same nonsense that Chrome chases.

And when you inevitably do this ANYWAY (because Mozilla has become an advertising company instead of a technology non-profit and refuses to listen to feedback), at least actually make this easy to nuke instead of hiding it behind five different settings in about:config. Heck, instead of integrating it directly into the browser, make it an add-on instead. It is, after all, not an integral part of the browsing experience, but an ADDITION to it.

I already said this earlier today, and I'm sure I'll say it again: I absolutely cannot WAIT for the AI bubble to burst. But, I would love for Mozilla to stop wasting time and money "investing" in the obvious bubble when you folks could be doing actually good and interesting things.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

pangolin — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:00:23 GMT

For the love of God, STOP SHOVING "AI" INTO EVERYTHING.

Like other commenters have suggested, if you absolutely must jump on this hype train that, it's becoming increasingly apparent, is speeding towards the edge of a cliff, give users an easily accessible option to turn all of it off, forever.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

iDLe — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:01:25 GMT

No. Do not want. I'll be turning off updates to Firefox.

It's not encouraging knowing that because AI is being forced on us by big tech companies, they haven't realised that they are going to make the web more insecure because people who don't want these features won't upgrade. My MacOS is 2 versions behind now.

It's getting to a point where I'm just going to go back to the Amiga.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Annika — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:20:11 GMT

I look forward to having one big "No AI Features" button that turns all this stuff off.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Holdenweb — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:22:57 GMT

It seems you’ve already decided to add the ai feature. This makes the community engagement too late - had you consulted earlier you might have realised the feature is unwanted. Since I don’t want or need such features, a single switch that allows me to turn all ai interactions off (or on) is top of my wish list.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

DiogoConstantin — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:39:43 GMT

Every time there's a new AI feature on Firefox, there's an avalanche of negative feedback here. So it's clear that a considerable part of the Firefox user base, doesn't like AI, doesn't want AI, and specially doesn't want to be forced to use it. This seems to be a sensitive topic for Firefox users. Yet on this blog post, Mozilla doesn't even recognize that people who don't want AI even exist.

How come this insulting post doesn't violate Mozilla values?

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

pulled-tea — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:45:31 GMT

@Jolie wrote:
Hi everyone,
We recently shared how we’re approaching AI in Firefox with user choice and openness at the center of everything we build.

Then let us decide whether we want the feature or not by providing that option but defaulting to “off” first. Allow us to opt-in, do not make it opt-out.

Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it. That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web, in ways that promote openness, transparency, and choice.

Again, then make it opt-out. Do you people not get what consent is, or has the the political project that is AI also gotten to you? Had you allowed machine learning to be optional features that users can decide to add or not into their daily use, the uproar would have been far less. Instead, you have insisted that the position to not engage in this political project to disenfranchise users is “standing still” instead of “accepting harms”. This is very disappointing to hear from an organization that still tries to trumpet about “openness, transparency and choice”.

The decision was not made within full view of the user community, so that's already betraying openness and transparency. The tools will be activated by default, which sounds like a betrayal of choice.

We get it. You no longer are receiving money from certain large corporations, and you exist in a regime that appears to want to subject its citizens to authoritarianism and unchecked corporate power. But it is still disappointing to see that Mozilla's so-called principles be so easily discarded for an embrace of what will likely become the digital asbestos of the future, which we will all have to spend our lives digging out.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

ltlnx — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 23:58:55 GMT

Please fire every ex-Meta employee. They are non-salvageable.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Turaiel — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:06:30 GMT

Please stop adding more AI features to Firefox. Focus on making the open web better. I don't want you popping open suggestions when I open new tabs, I don't want you adding a sidebar with LLM features. I just want to browse the web with the least obtrusive experience possible.

I've been using Firefox loyally since 2.x because I believed in its mission and I detest Chromium ruling the web. Right now there is no browser I'd rather be using, but I'm getting really sick of seeing Mozilla stoop to the same level as Google and Microsoft. PLEASE cut it out. Make these optional, opt-in features if you insist on adding them, or at least make it easy for me to completely turn off all AI features without having to go into `about:config`.

I want to love Firefox so bad but you're sure making it hard lately.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

vivicat — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:51:41 GMT

Since it seems impossible to convince you not to add AI features: Please, make AI opt in. Make it possible to disable all AI without resorting to about:config which is not accessible to the majority of users. Stop introducing these features, forcing them on, and making them impossible to turn off without using developer options.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Kad — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:33:12 GMT

Development resources are finite, and spending it on AI crap that zero people have asked for except crypto bros and out of touch C-levels is not how Firefox improves. If anything, taking the time right now to build features that people actually might want would be a great way to differentiate.

Are you paying any attention at all? Do you see a bunch of people really excited for the future of Windows because of their tight AI integration or do you see a pile of people pretty pissed at the state of that operating system? What planet are your decision-makers living on??

Pull your head out of your ass for three seconds and if your CTO is preaching the future of AI, maybe that's a great reason to fire them.

We’re still early in development and want your feedback.

Also, please stop with this crap. No you don't. Everyone, both on this site elsewhere, are constantly saying, 'Stop with AI. Knock it off' and your response here is to ignore it all. If you are going to be idiots, then at least be idiots who aren't patronizing your audience.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

0xHazel — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:35:44 GMT

please stop trying to chase the latest bubble, this stuff is making it very hard to recommend firefox over a chromium browser that doesn't do any of this trash

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Chookity — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:41:22 GMT

Please stop wasting resources on AI. I dont want it in Firefox. Nobody I know that uses Firefox wants AI in it.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

NicknamesOfGod — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:57:06 GMT

If I wanted a browser pane full of AI slop and corporate en**bleep**tification, there are lots of other options. I use Firefox specifically because y'all didn't used to do this kind of thing. I cannot urge you strongly enough to reconsider this course of action. (Also, "completely opt-in" should mean that it doesn't appear at all if I don't turn it on, not that it's there by default and I only get to choose whether or not to use it, as if every stray mouse-click won't activate the thing.)

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

PHUCKOFF_AI — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 06:24:19 GMT

Phuck off with AI.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Agentvirtuel — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 07:39:03 GMT

Hello

Access AI chatbots in Firefox.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ai-chatbot

According to Le Chat mistral here’s a concise, scannable summary of your selection browser.ml.enable

According to Le Chat mistral here’s a concise, scannable summary of your selection browser.ml.chat.enabled

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

amoroso — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 07:53:28 GMT

Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it.

In the early days after the discovery of radioactivity such substances were crammed everywhere, including in beverages and items for kids. Other technologies also showed great effectiveness and promise at first but turned out to be deadly or terribly harmful. Think of thalidomide, asbestos, and CFCs.

There's ample historical evidence that "progress" (or "technology moving forward") can and has been stopped or highly restricted. Sometimes standing still is the most sensible thing to do and delivers the greatest benefit.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

ShrikeBishop — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 08:12:41 GMT

For the love of God Mozilla, please just don’t. Nobody wants this. We can leave for a sane fork anytime. Be the only non AI en**bleep**ified browser, there’s a niche for that. You’re already super niche anyway, this won’t bring you any new user.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

po3mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:01:46 GMT

No AI in browser, please. Please focus on the browser that is: fast, small, stable, secure, compatible with variety of OSes, extensible, doesn't use dark UI patterns, respects users.

This is more than enough of things to focus on.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Zergy — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:23:29 GMT

I use Mozilla Firefox since version 0.8 and it's light to say I'm disappointed by the direction it take.

Instead of following the latest shinny tech bubble and mimic Google you should be very different from it and fight for the open web.

Your user are just now a niche composed of FOSS nerds and we hate AI with a burning passion.

Some advices?

Remove any AI thing, support JPEG XL and XSLT 3, give us back the Delicious Delicacies and the cute red pandas plushies.

Oh, and get ride of your C Suite, they are good at nothing. Remember that back in the day when some of your devs were creating Firefox and Thunderbird they wanted to cling on the Mozilla Suite.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

antiphasis — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:26:30 GMT

As all others had said before: Stop the AI-Crap. Noone needs it, almost noone wants it. Those who want it can use whatever other browser, whatever other plugin / extension to use it.

Think about what AI is - for real. It's a stochastic parrot - nothing less, nothing more. There is no intelligence at all. It's a idiocratic waste of time and resources.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

valpackett — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:27:58 GMT

No one asked for this.

*Not* having *any* "AI" integration would be a real differentiating feature. Look at the new Steam hardware announcement from Valve.. ZERO mention of "AI" ANYWHERE!

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

beatnikqueen — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:44:34 GMT

hear hear.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

underlap — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:59:35 GMT

That, but with the ability to opt out of any/all AI features. But actually I'd like Firefox to consider the opportunity cost of AI features and spend their development effort elsewhere. The carbon cost of LLMs alone shows AI is best avoided.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

kensanata — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:04:18 GMT

The things I liked about AI and Firefox:

Local translation.

The things I hate about AI and Firefox:

How to turn it off. The fear of it leaking information to surveillance capitalism. The fear of suspecting there is yet another option that I might habe missed. The sadness of knowing all the resources spent on features I don’t want.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

pittance — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:13:10 GMT

The main thing I want to know for any AI integration is how to turn it off. Integrating AI is already close to being a deaIbreaker but it's not an exaggeration to say that any AI integration that can't be turned off is a complete red line

You need to stop. You're not going to "beat" Chrome by being Chrome, your only option is to be different; why are you copying the worst, most toxic user-hostile parts of everyone else's business model?

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

CelianGdfrd — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:31:54 GMT

@Jolie wrote:
We get it: We will soon provide additional settings for you to control how AI is used (or not) in Firefox.

you did, in fact, not get it.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

ndw — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:30:41 GMT

"No."

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

suikaz — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:36:42 GMT

competing with chromium on the functionality area would mean making Quantum even less capable than it is now, so let's not do that

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

bpenris — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:36:42 GMT

@Jolie wrote:
What is AI Window?

Something nobody asked for and nobody wants and it would be nice if Mozilla would get off the train of pushing AI-stuff down our throats.

Focus on making the current product better, do not add stuff nobody wants.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

CSStrowbridge — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:04:10 GMT

I am already looking for alternatives and I will drop Mozilla if Mozilla continues to pursue AI.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Rodentata — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:32:07 GMT

Please stop, nobody wants this.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

dtw_ — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:36:48 GMT

Based on the MS announcements yesterday, an absence of AI is what is really going to put Linux/OSS on the desktop. Apparently Mozilla doesn't want to be part of that.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

SnyperWolf — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:16:08 GMT

It would be really great to have a firefox installer that never would install any AI features in the first place. Disabling AI is good, but I would prefer to never have it installed to begin with

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

jamestomasino — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:20:52 GMT

> We’ve heard from many of you who’d prefer not to have AI in your browser at all, and we get it: We will soon provide additional settings for you to control how AI is used (or not) in Firefox.

It's not just that we don't want AI in our browser, it's that we see you spending the energy and focus of Mozilla in a direction that's antithetical to your community's view of web technology. We don't want you focusing on AI at all. I'm not sure how much louder or more clear we need to be on that front for you to hear it.

> Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it.

This is true and why we need groups like yours pushing the latest developments of the web: accessibility, standards, CSS improvements. Not AI.

> That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web, in ways that promote openness, transparency, and choice.

You do this by building a better web, with structured data, with tooling that extends beyond the screen layout, with care and humanity that keeps content focused on people.

Just stop. Pivot back before you lose your audience completely and we're all stuck with Google deciding the future.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

ArtistSynth — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:21:06 GMT

Nope, stop it with the AI

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

modulux — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:35:51 GMT

I think it's important that AI features remain possible to disable for people who don't want them, but I also wish people didn't speak for others in discussions like this. I want AI features, and I use Firefox. If you're not going to use them and they can be removed, they shouldn't bother you. There's a ton of Firefox features I don't use (full screen for example) but I don't get in a tizzy about devs not having the exact same priorities I do.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Rachel_norfolk — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:49:35 GMT

What I and, it seems, the vast majority of people want is a good quality, lean, browser that respects privacy. Nothing more.
How difficult is it to “read the room”? Just build what people are asking for. If you really believe that the GenAI features you are planning are wanted, then make them as an extension people can add. If they really want it, they will add it.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Szkodnix — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:50:09 GMT

I already switched to some other forks of Firefox. I'm not going to deal with your ridiculous ideas.

Did LLM also decide on this direction of Firefox development? Why not to fire your CEO and hire LLM instead, if you are so into implementing AI?

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

limako — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:51:21 GMT

I would much prefer Firefox spent its limited resources building something useful.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

bramble1 — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:53:08 GMT

Please take a break and reflect on the bizarre marketing speak in the original post. Someone is ticking the corporate checkboxes but forgot how to be a real, empathetic human.

One thing Mozilla can do in their position as technical experts (besides avoiding all of this LLM nonsense) is to stop calling it "AI" and help the general public understand that there is no "intelligence" involved. Call it LLM or whatever and provide resources that explain to the layperson that no, you can't trust it to be factually correct, no, you can't actually have a relationship with it, no, it's not capable of looking out for your best interests. Maybe provide some studies that explore the enormous energy consumption and environmental impacts, and some research into the cognitive effects and long-term societal effects of a population that cedes their ability to think and research to a corporation's stochastic parrot machine.

The open web is almost dead and hanging on by a thread: adtech controls everything, major search engines return LLM slop as a "feature" AND the actual results are all LLM slop, hostile platforms like Meta and Google are doing their best to squeeze the life out of it. Would be ironic if Mozilla holds the hammer that puts the final nail in the coffin. Please wake up before it's too late, Mozilla. Does anyone working there remember what we had in the 90s and 2000s?

Who am I kidding, they'll probably just delete this thread.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

trash_robot — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:04:33 GMT

Why?

Why en**bleep**tify?

Why choose evil?

Everyone hates you now! Stop!

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

palace261 — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:13:47 GMT

You may appreciate the LibreWolf fork of Firefox.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

palace261 — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:21:56 GMT

You can install LibreWolf and get a completely AI-free Firefox experience. I totally recommend it.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Dupont2010 — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:23:28 GMT

Hello, (very) long time Mozilla user here. What a relief it was to quit IE6 for Firefox. What a shame it is to see what all this has become. Last thing I wanted to witness is my favourite browser following the stupidest and deadliest tech trend of the last 10 years. Please. I beg you. Stop this nonsense.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

MxAmber — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:43:17 GMT

Yeah nah. I've been using Firefox since 2009, give or take, and stuck with y'all through several terrible decisions (like axing the old extensions – still haven't forgiven you for that, by the way!) but this is a bridge too effing far.

Do you have any idea how "AI" actually works? Have you spent any time at all learning what's under the hood?

These models are neither intelligent nor remotely useful. They act on statistics, nothing else; they generate output that resembles sentences that are probable. That's all. They can't think, they can't understand, they can't reason. Their summaries are wrong, their explanations are wrong, when you prompt one to explain its decision, it is literally impossible for it to do so, all it can do is generate an explanation that looks like a real sentence.

And all that at absurd environmental cost, ethical cost, and involving industrial-scale copyright violations.

It's nuts, and you're nuts for wanting to bloat Firefox with this.

Remember every hype train you've jumped onto? The next best biggest newest hottest thing? Where's Pocket? Where's Positron? Persona? Firefox OS? Ubiquity? Firefox Hello? Let's face it, you have a loooong history of trying to make Firefox "more than a browser", and every time, you've failed. Focus on what you do best, other than screwing users over, and just make. a. good. browser.

Do yourselves, and us, a favour and actually try to understand how GPTs/LLMs work. Because right now, it sounds like you're just eating up OpenAI and Facebook marketing materials (and to be blunt, your post itself reeks of ChatGPT).

And then scrap the whole "AI" nonsense and apologise.

(P.S: I hate having to make accounts for anything, and yet I made an account to tell you off – I didn't do that when you killed good extensions or launched awful redesigns, so this should tell you how much I don't want any genAI **bleep**e in my FF!)

(P.P.S: Holy mackarel you auto-censor expletives in your forums? What is this sanitised garbage, Facebook? LMFAO)

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

fearnothing — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:45:54 GMT

I stopped using Firefox altogether over the insistence on ramming AI in to it. I might consider coming back if you took it out, though it would take a while to trust you again.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

CodeNamePancake — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:46:31 GMT

I just want a simple browser which renders the HTML/CSS/JS returned from the server address I requested it from. Grafting all kinds of garbage on to the basic core of the tool is what killed the original Mozilla browser (yes, I'm old enough to remember that) and required Firefox to be built in the first place. As an organization you have learned nothing. Stick to where you provide value (i.e. making a browser) and allow your users to make their own decisions about "AI". (From the contents of this thread, they seem well capable of doing so.)

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

forestine — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:48:56 GMT

People like(d) Firefox because it was the alternative to these other corporate browsers shoving stuff down our throats that we didn't ask for. Instead of listening to feedback, you're adding more and more unwanted features to the browser which require advanced knowledge to disable. And it's like playing whack-a-mole with every update when there is YET ANOTHER AI "feature". Please stop wasting resources on a race to the bottom and add an easy way for anyone to turn off every AI feature in perpetuity. People don't want this.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

eheil — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:52:34 GMT

You could improve AI in Firefox by shoving it where the sun don't shine. We do not want it. We do not trust it. We do not like it. I hate the fact that every time I install Firefox I have to dig through about:config to root out a dozen settings to truly banish this garbage from my browser. I've been using Firefox for literal decades and adding ML to the browser is the only thing that has made me consider ditching it permanently. It is the biggest breach of trust in a long series of breaches of trust.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

mudo — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:10:05 GMT

"We can't stand still" said the lemmings heading to the cliff. You're not being asked to "stand still", but to stop running in the wrong direction and head somewhere more productive.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

jepyang — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:16:05 GMT

no. none of this.

don’t want ai, at all. don’t want it toggleable, don’t want it opt-in, don’t want it sandboxed. i want it completely absent. period.

be a tech leader by leading the way to an AI-free future.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

shgw — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:19:09 GMT

This sounds as thrillingly exciting as the time that Firefox joined the blockchain and, though I've no clear idea what an "intelligent space" is, I've heard them mentioned often before, usually in 8am marketing meetings, since around 1998, so it would be nice if one ever existed.

All the same, I've lived long enough to recognise urgent pointlessness when I have to read about it, and this smells of something similar. Especially when, as you admit, you're pouring time and resources into your "intelligent space" (what was wrong with "smart hole"?) before you've put in proper controls for the regurgitatory tools you've shoe-horned in already. Much as I enjoy playing whack-a-mole in config, I regretfully doubt that everyone else will be as bored or indulgent as I am.

The pointlessness is, I hope, obvious. There are plenty of AI portals already discoverable through the browser, which is largely the point of a browser, and if we wanted to "stay focused on what matters" we wouldn't be using one anyhow. The urgency is less clear. If you were a profit-making corporation, devoted to enriching your shareholders, then you'd have to keep up with the competition, and if they added another button to their remote-control, or put another lamp in their fridge, you'd be well advised to add two. But you're not, and a web-browser isn't a fridge, it's a gateway to a universe of nonsense. And that, in itself, is the point I'm trying to make. You make the gateway, not the nonsense and, though you're not wholly inexperienced in the latter as your post nicely shows, it's not really your strong point. Some of you, even now, are still doing some good and useful work, and it would be charming, if admittedly quaint, if you simply continued to do it.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

TheVHSWizard — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:20:11 GMT

Quick unrelated story... I used to love getting food from Subway (the sandwich place). Their subs were great, exactly what I wanted. But then Quiznos came around with their *toasted* subs, which introduced a choice into the market... I could choose toasted (but kind of terrible) subs and go to Quiznos, or I could choose non-toasted (but overall much better) subs and go to Subway.

And that's where it should have ended, right? I am making my choice, I am going to Subway, Subway has the sandwich type and quality I want, so that's my choice. But no, it was not enough for Subway that a majority of people were still choosing them, they couldn't stand the thought that there was a new market space that they were not also a part of, and rather than just existing parallel to the "toasted" sub market, Subway tried to turn into a *toasted* sub place too? And in order to do this, they started cutting a lot more corners on all the rest of their stuff... toppings disappeared, choices were limited, bread types were discontinued - in order to streamline making their subs toasted. And then, they started aggressively pushing the TOASTED subs on everybody. On multiple occasions, I had to shout at the subway employees asking them to please NOT put my sub in the toaster, I did not ask for it to be toasted, they just sort of assumed everybody wanted toasted subs and you had to scream at full volume to snap them out of their toasted sub trance.

Well, this entire process alienated me to Subway. I didn't like Toasted subs, I felt like I had already VERY CLEARLY MADE MY CHOICE when I went to Subway instead of Quiznos, and their insistence on aping all the worst parts of their competitors in order to "complete" with them felt like a betrayal of my trust, and I got to a point where I stopped going to Subway entirely. And I'm not saying it's wrong to like Toasted Subs, though I personally think they're kind of vile, I'm just saying if I have already chosen the not-toasted-subs guys, them trying to force me to like toasted subs is a very quick way to completely piss me, the sub buyer, off.

No reason to tell this story, definitely nothing applicable to the article here, just... and old man yelling at clouds, really.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Owlbear — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:25:01 GMT

Another "no AI, please" opinion from me.
This is not something people need in a browser.
And the potential for environmental harm inherent in the casual use of data centre resident models is startling.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

loiclac — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:36:46 GMT

While I use LLM on a daily basis, I use it voluntarily. I like that I can choose any LLM, AI service, by just going on their website. I do not want a pre-selection of badly integrated tools in Firefox. Using a web browser to actually browse the web and access AI tools is fine. Keep on doing a good browser and cut away the AI crap.
Sorry mates, but other than being deeply annoying, I do not see any point in adding AI tooling integration into Firefox.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Gilgwath — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:44:30 GMT

You were supposed to bring balance to the web! Not join them! Just focus on making a good and privacy focused browser, like you used to. The fact that other browser makers even advertise with "we are the privacy browser" shows how much you lost your way. We've been yelling at you for years and yet you've been reliably putting your foot in every muddy puddle you could find. My patients is wearing thin. I've been using Firefox and Thunderbird for 20 years, my whole family and many friends use these, because it's my pick. Every techy you lose, takes his whole social circle whith them.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

rpetti — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:55:40 GMT

If you are going to waste resources on this, at least make it a completely separate extension that must be manually installed by users. People do not want this built into a browser and enabled by default with 12+ hidden config flags just to turn it all off.

I value a browser that does what it needs to do and nothing more. If I wanted more features, I can install extensions to opt-in to the additional bloat.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

leonixyz — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:12:15 GMT

An integrated AI assistant? for what? I don't think I will ever need it

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

ariasuni — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:14:26 GMT

What the **bleep**. What an insult to answer with this slop. You should be deeply ashamed.

Meanwhile Mozilla obsession with IA made the SUMO Japanese translators quit. https://techspark.world/en/2025/11/mozilla-firefox-disbands-japanese-translation-community/

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

advpod — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:14:42 GMT

I do not understand why Mozilla's limited resources are being wasted on AI features the community is so clearly against.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

stevelosh — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:21:34 GMT

Please do not do this, just be a web browser.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Agentvirtuel — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:30:54 GMT

Hello

Where, you see an insult? in my answer with links.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

agluszak — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:31:02 GMT

I don't want AI in my browser. I want my browser to be fast.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

roseng — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:31:09 GMT

Start actually implementing features that make your browser more usable. If I wanted some AI window thing I might like, idk, a floorp-esque sidebar where I can set what websites open in it and thus have it at easy access, or an extension that does that. Instead you integrate it into the browser? The "toggle it on or off anytime" sure sounds a lot like "it will stay installed under the hood whether you want it or not", and equating the ability to simply not open the window with the feature being 'opt-in' is so ridiculously disingenuous that it would be hilarious if I didn't actually use your browser. This is actively the main reason I am not supporting mozilla at this time.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

reese-ovine — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 15:53:37 GMT

As a deaf person, the only reason I'd want LLMs in my web browser is for automatic captioning of videos and sounds. I think the technology can be beneficial for accessibility uses (when a human can't/won't do the work), but anything else just gets in the way.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

scrottie — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:42:04 GMT

Hey for years, logging in to the credit union has crashed the browser. Memory usage is obscene. I control-C the thing over and over all day. When it starts garbage collecting, the computer becomes unusable for a long time. I've got a running gag of posting words that everyone knows, except Mozilla's UK dictionary. I hit words it thinks are misspelled but are correct, on a daily basis. I'm constantly forgetting that I need to shift-control-P to paste text without it wrecking my document. I'm writing slightly more than one paper a day and really don't have time for that. If that were somehow smart enough to use the local styles instead of injecting foreign styles in to the document, maybe it would be useful, but as it is, it's a disaster. I started using pandoc and a plain text editor for writing and it's vastly better than word processors, but the best feature is it ignoring these foreign styles when I go to paste text. The URL bar on a new install is a disaster. You've successfully re-created AOL keywords.

"want your feedback" -- fire every manager there, especially the CEO. Let programmers fix all of this broken stuff and stop forcing bad management decisions on them. I've been in tech a long time. I've been using this browser since it was Mosaic. I've seen a lot of tech companies hire management that captains their Titanic directly in to the nearest iceberg and right now, that is you. What we did to Brandon needs to happen to the current CEO.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

mathilda — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:52:09 GMT

EDIT: duplicate

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

theothertom — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:46:39 GMT

✅Completely opt-in: You decide if and when to use it.
🔄 Model flexibility: Pick the AI model that best fits your needs.
⚙️Full control: Easily toggle it on or off anytime.

This seems totally different from the current approach of "fill the browser with AI rubbish, and re-enable it on every update regardless of user preference". Regardless of the feedback here, I assume Mozilla intend to double-down on their current path of alienating the few users they have left.

I do not want "model flexibility", I want any AI stuff to be a separate addon that people can install if they want (if it must be there at all).

I'm now supporting Servo in the hope that the project can eventually create a browser that respects its users.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Steeltent — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:48:47 GMT

Sounds good. Not sure I'm going to use this but I'm happy it's there.

I'm AI sceptic but I'm also sure that nobody is rolling back the clock on this.

Out in the real world every person I talk to is using AI, so please don't be discouraged by a, admittedly very loud, minority of users.

We are not forced to use this, so I really don't see the issue.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

johnkizer — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:50:30 GMT

Makes the decision to support Ladybird (for alternative engines) and Vivaldi (for an ethical, user-focused browser) easier.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Spookytoes — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:54:45 GMT

Adding to the pile: No one wants this.

Okay, you have to have "AI" to point to when clueless C-Suite types look at Firefox as an alternative. Or to appease donors. We get it.

But as other have said, waste as little developer time on it as possible, and make it a choice that's easy to disable. We shouldn't have to dig through about:config for the settings. Opera also added AI agents to their sidebar... they can be turned off easily.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

Blubb55 — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:56:00 GMT

Let me just quote the official announcement:

"Regardless of your choice, with Firefox, you’re in control. "

That phrase was repeated countless times already, and wasn't always true. So this time, make it right, stand by it and listen to your community.

I've been using Firefox before it was called Firefox, and using Nightly since it was called "Minefield". So rest assured, I do like having new and also sometimes buggy features. I like to test, I like to tinker. I actually do use AI, but for certain, in its own capsulated tasks. But integrating AI into a browser gives (some, more or less, depending on the level of integration) control to AI, and not the users (otherwise it wouldn't be an assistant, right?). So with that statement alone, AI cannot be integrated into firefox.

Just read news articles, and be slightly informed in the tech industry - "AI" gets strapped on *everything* (be it AI keyboards or even AI computer cases), just to use that buzzword. Especially with the circular investment between Nvidia, openAI, google, intel, AMD and so on, everyone with a basic understanding of markets is seeing parallels to past bubbles.

tl,dr: while chromium is the new Internet Explorer, stay the one and only true alternative and don't become a mindless copy. Don't chase everything you see on the news blindly, and trust your community. You won't always make everyone happy, but just looking through the comments I couldn't see a single (!) comment saying "more AI in my firefox? yay, keep it comin!"

to make it even more clear: no AI, remove it completely, and if you really must invest some money into AI, make it optional addons. I mean, you're already quite familiar and experience to move core and built in features to external addons...

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

antonyh — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:02:22 GMT

I don't want or need AI in a browser. I want and need a fast, effective browser that I can trust not to leak information. It doesn't need any form of conversational or generative AI and it doesn't matter that it's opt-in - it shouldn't be present in the first place. At best this is a plugin/extension, optional to those who want it. I said much the same when you added Pocket and look how that ended, so please stop waiting time and resources on this and get back to the core business of making the best possible browser that is pure in both intent and implementation.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

roseng — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:04:41 GMT

I do agree that the technology has applications for accessibility, though on another level i think this idea of AI is lumping together a lot of disparate technologies; I'll gladly say image recognition and captioning is useful, but there's this distinct push all of a sudden to say no, this isn't just machine learning image recognition, it's (sparkle emoji) AI. Everything from basic algorithms that we've had since forever, to machine learning, and other things, get lumped under this idea of AI. And so it feels less like a technological distinction, to me, and more like a political idea. You say AI because you want investors to like you, not because you think it describes your software the best; et cetera.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

arxphire — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:26:13 GMT

I am positive but cautious about adding AI capabilities. I think the agentic approach is needed similar to how a search engine was before/still are. Being able to add your own local AI will be of upmost importance for the privacy crowd that probably is your biggest user base today. I do not think it will be possible to not use an AI in the future though.. so I think it is good to be on that train or the adoption of FF will drop to 0 eventually. It has to be done the right way though. The web is changing an FF need to change with it.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

MikeTaylor — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:24:32 GMT

Why are you doing this? No-one wants it. How about a bit of leadership, instead of mindlessly following that AI-shareholder shills are telling everyone to do? I used to expect better from Mozilla.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

colin_mcmillen — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:25:17 GMT

Yeah, no, please just stop. If you insist on working on AI, please go back to "some of your latest features", " 💬 AI Chatbot in the sidebar" and "📱 Shake to Summarize on iOS", disable them by default, make everything opt-in. But really please stop shoving this crap down our throats.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

bvibber — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:30:07 GMT

Please remove all "AI" integrations in Firefox. We don't want it, we didn't ask for it, we don't need it, and it hurts Mozilla by wasting development time on garbage instead of fixes and features users need and want.

Re: Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

darby3 — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:39:16 GMT

AI sucks, actually. Stop doing it.