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.

[nuh]

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

[nativeit]

Sounds like what you want is a browser that supports extensions, not an AI browser. 

[Janeishly]

"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.

[AmigaPete]

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.

[KittyDorkling]

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.

[nativeit]

Fully this. Their audience is by default people who are fully capable of casting off, as you say “AGAIN”, browsers that refuse to respect them. I’ve already downloaded Brave and Mullvad and started exploring my options. That was before this latest insult. Firefox is on vanishingly thin ice with a huge cohort of its users. They just need to wake up. 

[Who_Me]

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. 

[mort2]

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

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✅ 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.

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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.

[assimilateborg]

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.

[Azuaron]

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.

[pangolin]

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. 

[iDLe]

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. 

[palace261]

You may appreciate the LibreWolf fork of Firefox.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

A similar question https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1547944

About https://www.waterfox.net/support/ai-chatbot

About Waterfox

[iDLe]

Well that's just excellent! I wasn't aware of that, thank you. 😄

[palace261]

You're welcome @iDLe 🙂

[Anonymous]

I am considering LIbreWolf as well. It seems to be Firefox without all the proprietary garbage and anti-features which is exactly what all Firefox users want. Mozilla need to find back to their core values if they want people to use Firefox. The people using Chrome, Safari and Edge will never come to Firefox, but those of us who use Firefox and would promote it if it actually live up to the values Mozilla still pretends to uphold would use it if it actually upheld those values. LibreWolf seems like what Firefox should have been.

[Annika]

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

[Jolie]

Coming soon! 😉 

[Sera]

Or how about just not adding it at all in the first place? What is the logic behind "here is something literally none of you want, but don't worry, we added a way for you to not have to use it, ever"? Just to burn money and the environment for fun?

[sal-z]

And this button to turn off all that AI/LLM stuff is what you need donations for, right? Didn't you already spend too much money on LLM features (it is not artificial intelligence) that no one of your past, current or future users want?

What do you think we (the users) need to really "love the internet again"?

Although I'm not young, I'm one to welcome tech progress, if I see real benefit for the people and the environment they live in. AI/LLMs may be a fine idea for some tasks, like finding patterns in pictures or sensor data (medicine or climate data) or in creating rough text translations. But LLMs should not be imposed on peoples everyday lives. Content creators get their content not only stolen, but twisted by hallucinating LLMs. Users of web browsers and search engines are constantly forced to scrutinise every single bit of advice or "fact" their browser produces. This already has proven to be dangerous for those who don't double-check, and tedious for those who do. I'm not even talking about the huge energy consumption.

Can you figure out how framing this as "Be part of the 'AI for the people' movement" combined with a statement like "We believe standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or humanity" makes us feeling uneasy and being gaslighted?

TL;DR: Please, please, please stop these AI/LLM projects, stop wasting money on them, stop doing more harm than good. You could still put them in some optional add-on, if you must.

[Holdenweb]

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.

[DiogoConstantin]

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?

[pulled-tea]

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@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.

[ltlnx]

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

[Turaiel]

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.

[vivicat]

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.

[Kad]

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.

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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.

[0xHazel]

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

[Chookity]

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

[NicknamesOfGod]

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.) 

[PHUCKOFF_AI]

Phuck off with AI. 

[amoroso]

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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.

[ShrikeBishop]

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.

[po3mah]

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.

[Zergy]

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.

[antiphasis]

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. 

[Anonymous]

Parrots are actually intelligent. I have never met any living being as unintelligent as a LLMs. 

[valpackett]

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!

[kensanata]

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.