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

[Jolie]

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.

[KingHotDog]

Mozilla, stop trying to make AI happen! it's not going to happen! No one wants useless, extra bloat.

Please don't ruin your browser chasing dumb tech trends. AI doesn't need to be integrated into everything. I would ditch Firefox just as quickly as I did Chrome for another browser that doesn't force this garbage on me.

[noxypaws]

Please stop. Just, please, I'm begging you, drop all (yes, ALL) of the AI stuff and focus on the core functionality of the browser.

Nothing of value will be left behind. Your users will sing your praises for correcting course. You may even win some folks over from Chrome and Chrome-based browsers.

Just please stop the AI stuff. Completely.

[Simikiel]

I don't want AI in Firefox. I want Firefox to be Firefox. Don't make the mistake of trying to shift to an AI first stance. All I need is a fast browser that doesn't crash. All AI does is add bloat, and takes focus away from where it should be. On building the best browser.

[mcc]

I've commented on Mozilla threads about this before but:

• I don't want AI in my browser.
• I don't want a browser that has the option of enabling AI.
• I don't want the code that connects to or locally executes the AI to even be present on my computer¹.
• I don't want to use a browser created by an organization which also sells or uses AI products. If you are an AI company I don't want to support you, I don't want to give you the benefit of additional market share.
• If someone else is using a browser with AI features, I'd prefer to block them from being able to access websites I control. If it is possible a "summarizer", "AI preview", or chatbot might be processing the text from my web page, I'd prefer that user not be able to access my web page at all.

I'm currently using Firefox. I'm using the Debian version which tosses out your worst features, and I'm using ESR so I at least get to delay your new harmful features as long as possible. Someday, Servo will become usable for general web use, and then I switch to that and I never come back. #NoAI or nothing

¹ I actually did switch from Windows to Linux just to achieve this. And I do not like Linux.

[shahzmaalif]

No thank u, all I want is a fast browser, that doesn’t crash, supports uBlock Origin and that’s it. I have no use for ai here

[ccombs]

Please remove all AI features from Firefox

[blemoine]

No one wants this.

[kailey]

Welp, looks like I'm done using Firefox. I don't want to touch your AI slop with a fifty foot pole.

[Jragghen]

Please no. Just .... No.

[kkslidermight]

for-profit corporations literally cannot resist AI. it's simply not possible for them to do so. they're like the sharks in finding nemo when they smell blood. 

[No_AI_InFirefox]

Why on **bleep**ing earth would I need my internet browser to include an AI chatbot? Every website already has one and they're all useless; we don't need you wasting space on our hard drives with software none of your users want. And ChatGPT has already won the AI race by a mile; nobody who does want to use AI is going to choose the Firefox AI Window to do it.

There are dozens of other browsers out there that offer nearly everything Firefox does and don't feel the need to cram an unwanted digital sycophant into their program. Get rid of it or we will get rid of you. 

[Lynchzor]

What a waste of development time, not looking for these features. If this is the roadmap I'm moving to Librewolf. Today it's opt-in, tomorrow it's integrated into basic features and impossible to remove, this is evident in the statement: "We will soon provide additional settings for you to control how AI is used (or not) in Firefox." Not soon enough, is opt-in meaning 'you dont have to use it but it's there?' no need to answer if I see it, I'm out.

[Bibliofowl]

How about just make it so these features have to be turned on by the user and, beyond a single pop up when it is first available, never bother the user with suggestions to turn it on again? It's really **bleep**ty when things are turned on automatically and the user has to turn them off when they likely didn't want it in the first place. 

[lilly_bat]

We don't need AI in our browser. If I need some sort of AI chatbot I will log to their website and then close it once i'm done. That's all the required functionality for the browser 

[ButtSack]

No one who uses Firefox wants any AI bull**bleep** included with it. I use Firefox because its fast, secure, and supports Ublock Origin. AI has become a tacked on buzzword that is overused and underdeveloped. Let Google have their dog**bleep** AI response thats wrong for most things you search. Mozilla should not jump on this bandwagon.

[spxlabs]

I literally created an account to beg and plea that AI is not included in the browser.

every website already has “AI” and now there will be competing agents on the same website and god knows what else.

please no.  Please don’t do this.  This will be the first time in over 10 years that i have actually disagree with Mozilla.

[wowzer123]

Keep. Mozzilla. Simple.

[CupaCoolWatah]

I feel the need to join the many voices stating dissatisfaction.

We do not want this.
We do not want more AI shoved into things.
We do not want more bloat in our software.
We do not want more disruptive features added in that require disabling.

Please, stop adding AI into FireFox.
Please, remove what's already been implemented.

It's a poison.

[burtnay]

I feel your time would be better spent digging a hole, filling it with money, and lighting it on fire. 

[widders]

stop wasting time making this stuff. this is bad, this really sucks, i do not want to see this. i would strongly prefer this was removed entirely.

[DFNPLP]

AI features in a browser respresent a significantly increased attack surface. Even if it's disabled, the features being present when a user has chosen not to opt in is problematic. Because AI features would likely have some control over the browser, if an attacker can find a vulnerability there, even if the user has disabled the features, then an attacker could gain control over the browser, and the user's credentials, accounts, etc. Not that any application is free of security risk, but adding these features to the base browser rather than having them as an extension that users can opt to download (and therefore choose to assume the additional risk themselves) is a mistake. It's akin to leaving a default administrator account enabled when you don't need it. Should somone be able to access it? No. Will someone? Give it time.

[Oraistesu]

How about official support to disable all AI-integration from Google and other visited sites? That's what people actually want. Please don't latch on to this ridiculous trend. People hate it, and it just comes across as pathetic and desperate.

[DecoyDante]

It is infuriating to have switched to Firefox after Chrome's endless nonsensical debacles, only to encounter Mozilla blindly following the same trends for inexplicable reasons.

The only reason I could imagine you're going down this route is to secure investment from AI tech bros which are the exact sort of people shredding the internet to pieces.

I know full well that you sat in a room/on a call and discussed how much backlash you'd be willing to take for this decision. I have no doubts that you're fully aware you would alienate your users who exist entirely to avoid the idiocy across the rest of the net...but the thing I'm truly confused by is that none of you stopped to say "Wait, why are we choosing to abandon ethics and make our users irate?"

I'd love to know the answer, but I suspect we'll be treated to nothing more than evasive marketing speak.

[deadlysodium]

This is an absolute garbage idea.  Nobody wants or likes AI except corporations that want to skimp on pay.  What a terrible business decision from a company that was the ONLY option outside of Google for better privacy.  I really hope someone makes a new non-chromium based browser to compete with this bull**bleep**.

[chronohart]

STOP. THIS.

We do not want AI in our browser! How much more clear can we get??? If you *must* put AI in, *at least* make it default to *fully disabled* and with no exposure in the UI without enabling access in settings first. "We will soon provide additional settings for you to control how AI is used". This should have been step ONE! Add the settings so users can enable it (because it must be disabled by default), *then* add the features.

Or, again, JUST STOP!

[Swift]

Please stop (ideally reverse course). As a broadly happy FF user of over a decade, your pursuit of AI caused me to investigate alternatives, and more recently make the move to AI-free forks.

I'm pleading with you to understand that your specific demographic is people who do not want spyware or inefficient and unreliable tech built into software they use all day every day. You're actively driving away your primary userbase. As the only even vaguely realistic alternative to Chrome, this is miserable to watch unfold. 

[gcentenocastro]

As someone who has been using the browser and Thunderbird for more than 20 years across multiple devices, this will be enough to go to another alternative. I understand the position and why, but the majority of people who do not want any AI features. The recent update to iOS have actually impacted the performance of the browser to levels I have never seen in the app. PLEASE! PLEASE! Do not implement this

[Yomatius]

Please don't. Nobody wants this.

[KelsonV]

In case you haven't noticed by now, the people who want to use something like Firefox are, generally speaking, not the people who want to have AI built into their browser in its current slop-generating, plagiarism/spam engine form. (As compared to, say, local language translation.)

And the people who do want this kind of AI built into their browsers are not going to check out Firefox because of it.

Have you ever watched a late season of a TV series whose producers decided to "retool" it to get new viewers in? Have you ever seen it work? Because what usually happens is it's different enough that the existing audience leaves, but it still doesn't bring in a new audience.

[Rootsyl]

I dont want this, i dont want 90% of whats there in firefox. All i want is a working browser that can use any extension made properly.  

[lucidglitch]

I simply don’t want any AI in my internet browser, period. I don’t care if it’s just a trend or where tech is going, I don’t care if it’s good or bad for humanity. I do not want it. As somebody who uses your browser (and proudly tells friends to switch from chrome or edge for a variety of reasons), I think what I want should be a priority for the direction of your product. I have to wonder what the top-down decision-making is here; are there executives or board members with a vested interest in AI proliferating through the industry, or is there an anxiety about being left in the dust after so many other companies adopt the tech? 

again, I basically don’t care about those last questions, I just don’t want even the option to use it in Firefox. Please listen to your users and completely remove it.

[Jobra]

We don't need AI. We didn't ask for AI. Yet these companies keep on thinking they know what we want. We. Do. Not. Want. AI. 

[elzar]

Well, it was a good run. Shame to see Firefox die out and the entire web being under the control of Google.

[watersofmarch]

Hello, I find the AI features superfluous. What makes Firefox stand out from the chromium options is it's speed and functionality.

[JJ17]

If you stick AI into Firefox, I will switch to another browser without a second thought.

[aeiron]

Ai is not even on the list of features I (and probably most others) want in a browser. Please don't chase trends. Let this one die out and continue increasing performance and compatiblity while improving UI/UX.

[ImTheShadowMan]

We do NOT want anymore AI integrated into our software. The few people remaining that still use this browser choose to do so due to privacy, supporting competition and AVOIDING AI. You're going to push your base onto another web browser if you keep this up. 

And to make matters worse, you used AI to write this article.

[strb]

Read the room. Nobody wants this crap.

[fournm]

Add a top level opt out to all of this garbage. To a prominent settings page. That gets respected everywhere, across every bit of this garbage that you add. I would respect Mozilla's position so much more if you actually presented and respected user choice in regards to your "opt-in" crap here, instead of every new version adding more, enabled by default, regularly re-enabling things that have been previously disabled!

I do not want this, I do not think Mozilla is furthering its own goals meaningfully in any way, and I do think it is actively going against its stated values.

[ARWRQWRQWRQWR]

create a new app or site.. dont bloat the browser. there's enough ai in this world.