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.

[Karlboss]

Please don't. I just want a fast, stable browser that respects my privacy. Could you please focus on that instead of chasing this environment-destroying fad that it's clear your users don't want? 

[hex]

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

This is not only incredibly patronizing but also an argument at the level you'd expect to hear in a high school debating club.

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.

The only choice that you're promoting is the choice that vast swathes of your formerly devoted user base will make to abandon Firefox if you proceed with this.

[hx]

Being at the point in history where the constant environment destruction and resources waste is already leading to unprecedented and (for now I hope) irreversible climate change and catastrophes, I don't understand at what point did anyone in your damned foundation thought it would be a good idea to throw yourselves toward the trashiest and quickest way of burning even faster through the planet resources.

This AI slop as already gulped far more energy, hardware and water than we could have used to better the world in so many other meaningful ways, but you're here reveling yourselves in the oh mighty waste thrash chute speedrunning route that everyone else but CEOs have identified as what it truly is.

No one but them wants AI in any of their software, or anywhere else, but you're here asking how we want it even so no one will benefit from it in the end, even when it's clear now that it's going to go as well as nfts and crypto did in the last years, which mean being a laughing stock in 5 years top. And after those 5 years, all of the work and energy you put in that putrid bio-hazard will be gone with the wind, instead of having been invested in actually bettering firefox or any of your other projects.

So, Mozilla, Mozi-moza, Moz-moz, please stop what you're doing right this instant. I'm not even gonna entertain how I want to "control how AI is used (or not) in Firefox.", because it would mean I have at least a glimmer of **bleep** to give about any of that thrash, which I don't. Remove all of this junk, bonk your stupid CEOs for being even stupider than before (which was a really hard bar but I guess they passed that challenge with flying colors anyways), and shut the hell up about AI.

[alex90a]

I'm currently wasting my time trying to find a way to disable "ask an ai chatbot" from context menu... after I disabled a bunch of other ai stuff in the past few months. This is getting ridiculous. Might be time to switch away from Firefox after oh, maybe 15 years if not more.

Sad times.

...it was under the "Ask an AI chatbot" submenu... which I didn't even bother clicking. why wasn't it in settings, where... all settings should be? bit weird that you've put it there.

[rlonstein]

Please reconsider. I don't understand the desire to embed this in the browser. Standards compliance, attention to speed and memory consumption, and support for extensions are all goals for a browser but shoveling whatever is the latest fad isn't one of them. If you must work on AI produce an extension that people can choose to use.

[mijenix]

I know users will be ignored anyway but please stop that AI nonsense. I fear ladybird.org will be our last hope. 

[haingdc]

One of the problems with AI Chat is that It's missing hidden feature. Toggle it on/off make the panel reload. So If we're in a chat session, basically we lose that session. Then we take time to reopen that session again. It's an effort, annoying. I wish to have some way just hide the AI Chat by default, It's good with a configurable checkbox. Then It will come with reload button for AI Chat I guess

[Dick_Nation]

Get this hot garbage out of my browser. Stop wasting dev time and effort on a useless bubble, and stop trying to push these things into my experience. You want opt-in? Here's my opt-out. I've never posted on these forums before, but the moment I saw that you people thought I needed to have an AI search engine jammed into my browser without my consent, it needed to be said. AI is causing damage to our world and society in more ways than could even be listed by one single person, all so it can continue to be wrong and bad at everything. Don't be on a sinking ship.

[supo]

Firefox is already unoptimized, but it's the only real option for addon support. Stop making the only usable browser worse! We're all sick of AI taking up space everywhere. The AI users already have their prefered platforms and workflows, they don't want this either! Please, I'm tired, can we just have a browser?

[IlIlIlIlIl]

Nobody wants this. Keep driving your company into the abyss, hopefully you'll lose Googles money and someone competent can take over.

[Heath]

Please seriously consider NOT following the AI bandwagon dumpster fire. Please do not add this "feature". Nobody wants this. People use this browser to get away from Google, AI and annoyances. 

[chylex]

I deleted 320 thousand lines of AI crap from Firefox's source code, and compiled an AI-free version for myself. If you're not going to delete the AI crap yourselves, I at least hope that you won't spread it outside the easily identifiable folders it's in right now, like "browser/components/genai" or "toolkit/components/ml", so I don't have to waste time deleting it from all over the source code every time I update my fork. Thanks.

[EAA]

Been a loyal Firefox user for over a decade (since my teens, and I'm in my thirties now), and for years I've been a huge advocate of what the Mozilla Foundation was doing. I've also tried to push for my workplace to adopt it, got friends and other people to try it out, and so on. This post, its flagrant ignoring of user's wishes, and the constant push for features people haven't asked for and have expressed they do not want, while mobile browers bugs first raised FIVE YEARS AGO still remain unfixed as of today is pretty much the breaking point for me. Literally created an account to let you know that I'll be switching both mobile and desktop browsers from now on. Will I miss a little of the functionality Firefox provides? Sure, but I won't miss dreading a browser update instead of actually looking forwards to them. It's been fun, bye. 

[Keijack]

If you want to impose that AI functions, please at lease leave a button to disable it, but not make us go into "about:config" to turn off that!

[wariat]

Hey @Jolie 

I have a new idea for a compromise on the AI ​​mess.

1. Move it all to an extension! Official extension, but not installed by default!

This way you can still have this mess in your browser, and your users can have privacy, and keep AI stuff away if they want.

In the past you told us that extension is great place to have optional stuff, and moved there many useful features. Why not move this useless one there too? 

2. Than you can make next step.

Right now it is possible to have extension running in normal mode only, and just optional to run it also in p0rn mode.

Make it possible to set other way. To set an extension to run in p0rn mode only. This is the way I can install this (future) extension and run there (in p0rn mode), as right now if I like to chat with AI stuff, I'm logging into in p0rn mode only. It is the sandbox I can do many stupid things, and still be not very afraid about my privacy.

3. And when AI bubble pops, you are on the win position. Just make this (future) extension not official, or just delete it… who cares. 🙂

Isn't it a kind of Mozilla way? You'll gain gratitude from your nerdy users, and perhaps even attract new ones. Same time if someone doesn't care and still wants these things on their computer? Here you go. An official AI extension!

[Kejzerek]

I think that nowadays this train is moving too fast to stop it. In the next few years ai-like models/assistants/... will be everywhere whether we like it or not. Considering this, the possibility to use one in Firefox is a good idea. If someone doesn't want to use it, one just doesn't need to enable it. However I would say even the better solution for this would be a separate browser. FirefoxAI could be exactly the same browser as Firefox but with WindowAI built in. It could be a good middle point.

[teaneedz]

I just joined this community as one of those many other longtime users of Firefox. I wasn't going to waste time posting here, because I've moved on. However, here I am because I feel the frustration of so many of my comrades. Mozilla stopped caring and this pattern of continued antithetical UX thinking exposes the flawed nature of current Mozilla leadership. Your AI decisions made me remove Firefox from my doc. Next will be complete app removal. I've found Vivaldi's stance against AI in the browser refreshing and their team's ethos one I can get behind and support. I hope others will discover and enjoy the many cool features of Vivaldi as I have or at least send Mozilla the appropriate message by taking their eyes elsewhere. Mozilla no longer deserves our support. Even if they reverse their decision, I will not return. The Mozilla leadership needs to frankly go at this point.

[Kiesa]

Hi, my Firefox browser just prompted me to fill out a survey but one question that I would have liked to be asked is what would cause me to stop using Firefox. I am really tired of inaccurate and sloppy "AI" being pushed on me from every corner. I've already switched to using Vivaldi on my personal computer and if I have to keep figuring out how to turn off AI features on Firefox, I'll jump through the hoops to switch to Vivaldi on my work computer also.

If you insist on putting more AI into Firefox, it would be good if there was one top-level configuration option to turn off all AI at once and prevent any new AI from auto turning on.

[sedric]

Please rollback and stop any AI stuff. It violate your manifesto :

Mozilla is about open and accessible web (principle 2). AI kills it.
Mozilla is about security and privacy (principle 4). AI kills it.
Mozilla is about interoprability (principle 6). There is none with AI.

The Internet will not be healthier with IA.

You are killing yourself, stop it. You are too important for all of us.

[nclm]

It’s getting so tiring to get these kinds of AI features announcements over and over for Firefox: it seems that Mozilla has lost their principles and keep making new reasons to drop Firefox, a once excellent browser which is day after day turning into bloatware. I’ve been a faithful user for 20+ years, but the last year or two, I’m starting considering switching browser, and I stopped doing any advocacy recommending Firefox to Chrome users, waiting for a better alternative. I don’t understand why Mozilla is just running with the latest capitalist big-tech trend, such a silly and problematic one on top of that. Everyone expects Mozilla to stand up against that, and you’re jumping straight into it. It’s getting really hard to continue supporting the organisation.

[AiToad]

Clearly, over the past ten years Mozilla has been infected with new employees that don't know what Firefox is, or was.

[lele1]

Please, for the love of god, burn it with fire. Stop adding AI crap everywhere.

[Shibotto]

---

standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people

Technology moving forward

I've been a Mozilla user before and a Firefox user to this day, and I have no intention of moving away from Firefox, mark my words. I will try to enjoy the last years you have left to their best, because sadly this is where you are headed if you keep wasting money and development time on bs like that.

[vaii]

The best way i would see AI integration in firefox is as follows: Don't follow the excrementy "ai" hype. Dont have a default integration. Make it an addon. 

"AI" (which should never be typed out withouth quotation marks, because its not artificial intelligence) is a forced marketing scheme for artificially inflating value based on nothing. 

If this is another option forced in, that you have to manually turn off in "about:config" like the stupid translation popups (what a hole in the dev team came up with that absolute misfire?).

Its just another reason to find a new browser. 

Resist the whole AI hype. And i honestly cant believe firefox is aiming so far off the mark that i probably have to find another browser, or be pissed off enough to feel like i have to type on this forum. 

[vaii]

Honestly, forcing in this. You all should be ashamed of yourself. 

[vaii]

Firefox being the next company crossing out the "dont be evil" *We didn't need this one right?* 

[vaii]

So, maybe remove the AI. And while your at it. Give me an option to never translate anything ever unless i specifically ask for it instead of that stupid popup every time I have a reinstall, and then having to look up how to turn it off, because its not in the default settings. 

[SoftwareType]

Hey I saw my first reply got rejected, but I basically mean that I'm against the AI integration as we can already access everything we need in a search bar, as we could always do

I think it's more about what to focus than what to follow, hence all the negative comments on this thread

[CoffeePls]

Thank you for making Firefox. But please, for the love of God, STOP adding AI to Firefox.

I did not ask for it. I do NOT want it.

I have proudly used Firefox as my main browser since Firefox 2. I still have my Firefox 3 Download Day certificate. I donate to the Mozilla foundation. When everyone jumped ship to Chrome, I stayed because I love this browser.

So when I say this AI garbage is a deal-breaker for me, please understand how truly significant that is.

[Anonymous]

LLMs are wasting enormous amounts of energy, contributing towards climate change, producing nuclear waste, making children believe there is no point in learning (I teach these children and LLM, even if a lot of normies use LLMs and a lot of people that know better are forced to use it by management that think they are visionary for following blindly the marketing from Microsoft and other tech villains. s are ruining education) and providing no benefit for society. They are all proprietary software which used to be something Mozilla did not use or include in their browser. (The OSI pretending there is such a thing as open source "AI" is a symptom of the OSI no longer being committed to their core values. They have a Microsoft lawyer on the board of directors now, so guess who is pushing for "Open Source" "AI".) 

Since Mozilla voted FOR inclusion of DRM as a web standard and included it in Firefox, you have not really upheld your core values. Most features included in the last 15 years have been antifeatures antithetical to the open web like proprietary software Pocket or diversions like FirefoxOS that has nothing to do with the open web.

I continued using Firefox nonetheless since it was the least bad of the mainstream browsers. With the inclusion of LLMs, it no longer is. You should rip this oxen feces out of the browser if you want to keep your users. Your core userbase does not want to take part in the collective psychosis around LLMs since we are FOSS people with the ability for critical thinking and a moral backbone. Mozilla used to be part of the solution, now you are part of the problem.

[ShifterCat]

Hi! Please don't add any so-called "AI" features to Firefox. Not only do the vast majority of users NOT WANT IT, but it's a dangerous, wasteful, plagiaristic plague that's being tested on billions of human guinea pigs, despite the harm that's already evident.

The idea that LLMs are somehow "inevitable" is nonsense -- clear-eyed people have noted many times that this is not actually useful or profitable.

So-called "AI" is a bubble. You have the chance to look like the smart ones for staying away from it, rather than being yet another tech company who loses money and has to spend a great deal of time and effort ripping LLM crap back out of your systems.

[SenilTheSynth]

If I want genAI in my browser or my computer at all, I'll install it myself. Mozilla spending resources on things like this that few users want from Firefox specifically, instead of improving the browser itself and adding quality of life features that are sorely needed, is why I moved away from Firefox many months ago. I don't want to use a Chromium fork that opts out of this AI junk you're insisting is necessary, but so long that Mozilla is doing this, I'll stay away from Firefox and not recommend others to use it. Yes, there are forks that strip this stuff out, but that shouldn't be necessary, especially since Mozilla keeps making this stuff opt-out in the hardest way possible.

Even if Mozilla makes this all opt-in, the way this is integrated before any easily accessible on/off button exists makes me distrust that you won't change your mind about what is implemented and whether it's on or off - or if you'll add some other feature that the switch doesn't cover and that is opt-out by default, hidden in a cryptic about:config setting. Ditch the baked-in genAI stuff, leave it to extensions folks have to add themselves, and focus on the browser itself. Otherwise I can't trust Firefox to respect anyone's wishes to keep genAI junk away from us.

[wheelsbot7]

Input? There's nothing here I want as a Firefox user. AI is already being shoved down my throat in every other app, it's the last thing I want in Firefox. My recommendation would be to immediately reverse course and re-evaluate what your users are looking for.

[Quentin_lc]

Hi,

I don't want features that are unrelated to web browsing in my web browser. I wasn't happy when Signal pushed some crypto features into their app, this would be the same. You want to jump on the bandwagon because you are scared of missing something, but there is nothing for Firefox here. 

Please stop pushing crap into Firefox. Focus on doing less things, but better.

Quentin

[raster]

No AI in Firefox or any other Mozilla products. Since you won't listen to users and will force it upon us at least give us a way to easily disable it.

[Cocaine_Owlbear]

I already said something about this, but ya'll don't seem to care that literally no one actually using Firefox wants this, so... make it an extension if you absolutely insist on making this nonsense. If a buttload of people install the extension, then obviously the feature is wanted. That won't happen because NOBODY WANTS THIS IN FIREFOX, but this could be a way for you to proof-of-concept without angering the vast majority of your user base. Not that angering your userbase has ever stopped you.

[ablindtiger]

I only made this account so I can join the masses in saying: don't! I don't want AI shoved into everything I use! This goes beyond "just disabling it" because using AI is an environmental nightmare. The small towns these techbros force their data centers into never wanted them, they get massively polluted, and have their water sources drained. I can't abide by any of this. Please, focus your time and money on features that your users genuinely want. Thank you. 

[vaii]

TAKE THE AI OUT OF FIREFOX!

[kingdomfantasy6]

Hi, so, "user choice and openness" are not at play if the only way to turn off genAI as it's added to browser is via about:config. In fact it's not at all at play if you know many users do not want this, yet add it to their browser regardless. While I understand the average user who even bothers to use these forums can probably utilize about:config, the average user in general would be confused as to why these settings are not part of a normal settings gui.

Also that they're under settings that come with a warning you could cause harm to the browser is...troubling as that feels like a way of disincentivizing people from changing these genAI settings.

And why bother adding genAI? There's plenty of evidence it's less efficient, that all it does is select statistically likely words NOT accurate ones, as well as the environmental costs and the costs of humans being exploited to make these things legible. There are SO many ethical concerns here, it's just not worth it. Then we get to the financial where reports show OpenAI and other companies are losing money on this venture. It's all a grift, based on stolen data, that has no business in a web browser. 

Oh, and it's been shown that those who use GenAI for various tasks begin to lose critical skills for said tasks, thereby worsening their performance. So that's another financial negative for your.

[sadduckie]

If continues pushing of AI tools continues I will simply stop using Firefox. I started using Firefox because it was an alternative to chrome, however if the program consistantly forces things into the browser that I do not want (in this case AI tools) which was my entire reason for switching from chrome (BEFORE AI tools) I will simply switch again. I've constantly been recommending Firefox to people as the best browser, but I'm at my limit with how much direct disrespect for what users want that I'm willing to take when I'm constantly forced to change my browser config to remove features I know LITERALLY NO ONE wants. I don't use Chrome, I don't use Google Search, and if this trend continues with Firefox, I will not use it either.