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.

[sh526g]

It's pretty much a given, at this point, Mozilla is going to stuff AI into Firefox, unfortunately. But could you, Mozilla, at least give those of us who don't want AI intermingled into our browser an AI free version of Firefox? Not a product where AI can simply be disabled, but one where AI is simply not incorporated into the product at all. Otherwise, honestly, what would be the difference between Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, then? 

[beryllium]

Since the company seems to be set on charging ahead with this, let me point folks to a project that might help:

https://justthebrowser.com/

This project will apply group policies to your browser that instruct it to not use features like generative AI.

The default policy it comes with for Firefox also disables telemetry, though, which means that Mozilla's executive team will continue to make "data-driven" decisions that are completely divorced from logic and long-term health of the browser & all internet users. Assuming they look at numbers and feedback at all, which I'm not convinced they do.

[Cocaine_Owlbear]

I like JustTheBrowser, but moving to a browser whose devs have taken an explicit stance against AI and then specifically telling Mozilla why is better IMHO. Until they lose a significant number of users for this specific reason, they're going to keep at it because they think we'll forget.

Waterfox, Librewolf, Helium, and Vivaldi have all taken a strong anti-AI stance. I recommend moving to one of them.

[Meem55]

Thought for Mozilla: by now I understand the AI part will be an Opt-In feature and that the AI part will be completely not there when choosing not to Opt-In.
You realise that there will be a very strong scrutiny by your userbase and others? And when they find AI-connected parts (even dormant parts) while not choosing the Opt-In, Firefox will loose all credibility?
Trust is completely gone then.

I still don't understand this decision by Mozilla. Just look at the numbers. A recent big study (source ) shows that, in countries all over the world, only 16% is exited about AI, 42% is so-so about it, and 34% is concerned.
And this trend is visible everywhere, especially in the EU.

[JustStopAISucks]

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@Jolie wrote:

We’ve heard from many of you who’d prefer not to have AI in your browser at all, and we get it

No, you don't get it.  But you will, when we all stop using Fx.  You're hearing us, but you're not listening to us.  WE are in charge, not you.  We don't want AI.  If you want to build a separate AI version of Fx, that's fine. But the core Fx should remain AI-free.

Ignore us at your own peril.

[serotonin139]

I am so disappointed that Firefox is now going the same route as others in including features nobody wants. Don't be like Netflix with their stupid games, or Spotify with the podcasts. You want to offer AI features? Fine, make an add-on or plugin. I think you are underestimating how many users you are going to alienate (and lose) by incorporating this. Trust is very difficult to rebuild once it's lost. Don't do it. Please. 

[sb1326]

So many people are already adopting AI and all we want is ONE browser without it. At all. No AI. It simply is not necessary.

[Cocaine_Owlbear]

Waterfox, Librewolf, Helium, and Vivaldi have all taken a strong anti-AI stance. I recommend moving to one of them and then telling Mozilla exactly why you left them.

[RonL]

I already have it installed and have been using it. Mozilla has lost the long-time support of this retired computer and electrical engineer. 👎

[bugAndy]

ilysm   just made the switch to waterfox yayyy ^_^

[williamt]

One concern I have, even if there's the ability to turn AI features off, is how much "bloat" they potentially add to the size of the application etc - and therefore potential lag, sluggishness etc.

It would be useful to have reassurance that if you "turn AI off", then nothing is actually loaded into memory, to the extent that if you decide you want to use it in future, enabling it also requires a full restart.

[uxfail]

<<standing still while technology moves forward>>  AI is not moving forward, it is moving backward.  Standing still is better than moving backward.  This sort of corporate doubespeak only erodes trust and confidence.  
<<we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web, in ways that promote openness, transparency, and choice>>  Oh really?  Firefox has been feeding my personal information from my browser into some AI engine without asking my permission, and I'm supposed to trust anything you say now?

[Thenuinn]

Maybe you shouldn't give us a button to turn off AI features but a button to turn them on. Asking before you do something is basic manners. 

[Bane]

Just joining everyone in saying :

Please stop. We don't want AI. AI does NOT serve the users, it only serves the wealthy billionaire class and their drones.

Focus on keeping Firefox special for what makes it special. Stop chasing trends.

[noviceinanunery]

Why was Perplexity put in the default search engines without the user's consent? By pure chance i saw that there was a checkmark at Perplexity at the Search Shortcuts in the settings. Apperently everything i typed into the adress bar over the last weeks has been sent to an AI that i never heard of, doing god knows what with my data since this feature was added.

Shouldn't users have to opt-in first, before you give them the option to opt-out of AI?

[deadlysodium]

I have been a supporter of Firefox Browser since I found it as a great alternative to Netscape Navigator.  I hopped on the Chrome train when it first came out but after a couple years I went back to Firefox due to privacy/security concerns.  This absurdly stupid idea to add AI which spits in the face of privacy and security and is actively damaging consumer markets and communities globally.  Because of this bafflingly stupid idea to chase the rabbit I am fully stepping away from Firefox.  Enjoy losing your dedicated fans for something so stupid, so incomplete, and such an obvious failure as AI.  Way to betray your support.  Shoutout to the user who is offering alternatives in this thread.  I just switched today

[aaronchantrill]

I'd like it to be easier to set up to chat with a local OpenAI compatible server. Currently, this requires going into about:config and tweaking settings. It would be nice if instead of hiding the "localhost" provider, you would provide a link to setting up your own llama.cpp or ollama server and an easy way to change the provider string from http://localhost:8080 to whatever I'd like it to be. Right now, I have a chatbot on my server, so when I'm at home I can use it (http://server.local:8080) but when I'm traveling, my laptop runs its own server, so I switch back to localhost from the menu, which resets the value in "browser.ml.chat.provider".

Also, every time I click the "summarize page" button, it begins a new chat. But first it brings up a list of chats on top of the chat window so I can't see the response. I would prefer if I could have a single conversation where I am able to move from page to page and have the AI be able to follow and use the context. Say I am reading an article about a bill in congress and ask the AI about that. If I then change to a PDF containing the full text of the bill, I have to copy and paste the text into the chat sidebar to be able to ask questions about it.

I also just got the following error message after asking several questions about a topic :

Server Error

The server responded with an error message. Review the details below.
the request exceeds the available context size, try increasing it
Prompt tokens: 4,226
Context size: 4,096

So, apparently Firefox is just ignoring context sizes and leaving it up to the server to deal with them. So far I don't see any advantage over just opening http://localhost:8080 in another window and just pasting text into it.

[RBlue118]

Love how you put this out like it was a community decision, asked us our opinions, ignored our opinions, and did the thing we all told you we desperately wanted none of. I've moved off to waterfox for their demonstration of a spine for privacy and against ai, and I've heard librewolf is good too, for anyone else who wants a privacy-focused browser that actually focuses on privacy and user opinions. As for firefox, I'm sorry, but "no I/we don't want that" means "no I/we don't want that" not "that's great I love that", and if you can't hold your ground against even basic hype and fomo, then I will move to somewhere that can.

[kzdfohahidlksa]

I DON'T WANT AI. NO ONE WANTS AI. STOP SHOVING IT DOWN OUR THROATS.