No AI in the browser

[fl0id]

Please do not add AI in the browser as a core feature. If you want to experiment with various ways to use AI, please do it as an optional feature in the form of an addon or similar. Many people use FFX because it is not Edge or Chrome, and that necessitates sth like AI being optional.

[RlyAsta]

Even in the most idealistic situation, AI is still currently a tool that very few users will actually take advantage of on a daily basis. Most users just want a browser that is unobtrusive. The reality of the situation is that AI is extremely expensive, obtrusive, and a privacy nightmare. For such a user-oriented company like Mozilla, AI shouldn't even be crossing their minds right now, or at any point in the next 20 years.

Where would we go if Firefox adds AI features? What mainstream browsers are left that actually respect user's privacy?

[Mizar]

Compiling my own version of Firefox is becoming an alluring idea.

[OneOfMany07]

Optional can make sense, but it depends how it's implemented in my mind... as to if it needs to be optional or is scary.  I wish we'd stop plastering "AI" all over stuff and come up with accurate terms for what's happening.

Is something recording everything I do?  Or is it just using some new method to come up with a better answer?

What basis material did it use to create that better answer, and was it stolen or licensed (or licensed material users created which kind of feels stolen if the users didn't expect AI to be trained on it)?

Shouldn't be that hard to make or find obvious names for the various flavors of stuff people have issues with.  Stop using the business/marketing buzz words that aren't accurate in the first place.  And no, making 'everything anyone has an issue with optional' is not a perfect solution everywhere.

Reminds me of a demotivational poster a coworker used as prints (we needed to print something, so they got creative)...  "Linux, because not everybody wants to build their car from scratch either."  Options/choices can lead to complexity and confusion.

Part of the power of 'software' is one person solving a problem and many other's benefiting.  Each choice/option adds complexity to the project (for future additions, testing, etc), and sometimes users just need what works for most people (which isn't always offered, or obvious).

[RogueArchivist]

I 100% agree, I only made this account specifically to comment on this myself. The widespread use of so-called "AI" has been a disaster in every conceivable way, from the privacy violations of the data collection, to the massive environmental impact it has had to our already struggling-to-survive ecosystem, I see it as an utter, total negative to both users and to society as a whole.

I use Firefox to stay away from the rest of the BS that's omnipresent in every other major browser around, and I'm utterly disappointed to see them partaking in this as well. For the first time, I'm dedicated to finding a replacement to at least mainline Firefox that doesn't contain this affront to the world at large. This free, open-source web-browser shouldn't be a "marketable product" that has all the fun buzzwords that tech bros love to hear, it should simply just do its job of letting me browse websites in a less intrusive way than the rest of the closed-source, totally for-profit browsers.

If this is being done to draw in people to the browser with "fun features", then I can confidently say it's driving out much of its current user-base. And as the competition to add as many new "features" as possible, at the cost of privacy, security, user experience, and the environment itself, is quite fierce, Firefox is choosing to abandon its core audience and leaving them with no clear alternative, in order to compete with all the major browsers that already do what it's trying to do, but "better". If it doesn't alienate users like me, then it stands alone in being a good, competent web-browser that people can feel safe and comfortable using. If it stoops to the depths of idiocy like the rest of them, then we're left with nothing good and are forced to make a good alternative browser to what was *supposed* to be the good alternative browser, leaving Firefox as one of many other browsers that feel like different coats of paint over the exact same crap.

If AI "is the future", then we simply have no future left for us. And if AI "is the future" for Firefox, then Firefox has no future left for me.

[EBNOW]

YOU SAID IT AND I COMPLETELY AGREE! 

[techfox]

Kudos to OP and a lot of replies on this conversation. Firefox user activity is dropping dramatically and they continue to focus on things that shouldn't be Firefox's target.

Congrats.

[indra]

I use a fork of Firefox that specifically removes a number of misfeatures, and the industrial lying machine is just the latest in the list.

I don't need to have the internet mansplained to me in sentence-shaped word salad. I have a husband for that.

It seems I won't be switching back to mainline Firefox any time soon.

[RogueArchivist]

Hello! That sounds exactly like what I've been looking for, what's the name of the fork you're using?

[Mephisto]

You poor bugger, it must be a really toxic relationship if you use such sexist terms to describe your husband.

[singhh9596]

As much as I agree with this post, I think every company wants a fair share of user data to grow and doesn't want to be left behind just because they started late and remain outdated. Even DuckDuckGo has introduced their AI chatbot and claims it to be secure. Let's hope ff's AI is secure as well and we shall keep checking their terms and conditions for any change in future.

If it still concerns you, I guess ignoring is the only option we have.

[user_68]

In addition to huge privacy issues, there are plenty of copyright problems at issue, also i.e. theft of original content, literally.  YouTube channels and videos are a cautionary tale attesting to that.  Those are both problems due to unregulated AI which has not ever been able to differentiate between fact and fiction when it uses what it has data-mined.
We need a choice of whether or not to activate AI in  browers and search engines instead of having it having it dumped on us to replace what works.  As it is, how can there not be profit involved,  otherwise it would not be used without us having a choice of when and if we make use of the feature. 

[tdietterich]

I am an AI researcher, and I would love to have an OPTIONAL AI addin. But I have many questions. What data is being sent to the LLM system? Is that data retained? For how long? Can I control the data flow, delete the data, etc? It should be 100% crystal clear when my data is being sent to an AI system and when it is not.

[d3xbot]

THIS! 100%

I work in higher education and everything is moving to the browser. Student records database? Browser app. Financial platform? Been in the browser for ages. Homework and test submission? Browser-based.

And as a consumer, my doctor's office uses a web portal to schedule patient visits, provide us access to our data, and to provide post-visit and post-procedure instructions. My bank requires the use of a web app. My mortgage company and HOA do everything through web portals.

I need to know 100% that no FERPA- or HIPAA-protected information will go NEAR any AI systems - be it for processing/context or training.

Having it be an addon and being able to control which domains it would be able to work on would be, in my opinion, a far better way to do things. Just like Multi-Account Containers!

[raster]

Agreed. I do not want to see any AI in Mozilla products. If it does get added I want a way to completely disable it.

[tdietterich]

The promise of AI-based assistants for the web is that they can understand enough of your individual context to make decisions on your behalf. But this is a huge privacy challenge. Stated another way, the AI system must surveil you long enough to understand your preferences and your current state (e.g., what you already own vs. what you are shopping for; what you already know vs. what you are trying to discover). I don't want that personal information in the cloud; I will only use it if it runs in a secure environment on my personal machine. This is why any AI capabilities must be optional and run fully locally.

[user_68]

I laughed when I read: "The promise of AI-based assistants for the web is that they can understand enough of your individual context to make decisions on your behalf." 
Why would I want AI to make decisions on my behalf?  Truly.  It is worse than a three year old doing so.  I suggest it was a "threat" not a "promise"! <smile> I totally agree with the remainder of your comment.

An example from today?  I looked up "Oman typhoon" to see what damage the typhoon  had done there.  It gave me some military aircraft information.  Really?  No more fuzzy database searches, but assumptions, only - approximately eight on the page all about aircraft? 

Fact is, gramatically, "typhoon" would have been capitalized as a name of an aircraft had I known it existed and wanted to search it.  That result of AI  making a search decision on my behalf suggests a programming problem.  Fuzzy database searches are still the best, without being limiting, and are more likely to return useful results.

[RattyTatTat]

If someone wants to use "Ai" then they should just switch to Chrome, Brave, Edge, or almost every other browser on earth.

[uneventfullogs]

Agreed. Mozilla needs to understand people go to Firefox because it ISN'T chrome.

[JRV]

I joined just so I could add my voice to the group saying no to default AI tools!

And in case this is useful to anyone who sometimes uses google, if you prepend -u to your search terms, you can bypass the automatic gen-AI response.

For example:  -u how to fold a fitted sheet

[user_68]

Thanks for the search suggestion!  I will wee what it does, although as soon as we figure out how to bypass what google wants, it figures out a way to make it dysfunctional, so perhaps it no longer works.

[Anonymous]

AI integration as an addon sounds like a good compromise for people who want it and those who dont.

[BelFox]

+1 for separating AI from the Firefox core by offering AI-related products as FF add-ons. Then it is a more deliberate choice to install AI utilities and non-lovers or non-users aren't bothered with the AI hyperbole.

I'm not against AI but I also think usage shouldn't be stimulated unnecessarily in Firefox (simple queries should be made in search engines, not in LLM-trained chatbots, to reduce environmental impact). Best of both worlds, no?

[d3xbot]

Yes! I regularly handle protected data in intranet-based webapps. I use Firefox because I value privacy and keeping my job. If Mozilla integrates AI into Firefox, I can't be sure that the AI won't leak this protected data, even accidentally.

[IlIllIlllllIllI]

Agreed, I dont **bleep**ING want this.

[IlIllIlllllIllI]

Screw this, I'm switching to Librewolf. I never asked for this **bleep**.

[Iam1]

Yes, please, save us all from Google, Elon Musk, and others of that ilk who wish to foist off their privacy and rights hobbling software upon us! AI isn’t even in its infancy yet, let alone a viable alternative to RI ( Real Intelligence). If you want to play around with it like it’s something real, kindly do so on your own time and leave users in their unawares out of your world domination phantasms! 🤔

[muttballs]

Spyware on my laptop and browser..no thanks
AI is the reason I decide to leave windows for good, and now that's why I'm stop using Firefox...
When I want to use AI, I open a browser tab and make my query, and proceed to close the tab.
Currently trying Vivaldi browser...Is good to have free memory. 

[fraggedy_andy]

I have ZERO interest in including AI chat models in my browser. I really prefer Gecko as a rendering engine. I find that fonts work better, the features on Android are better than Chromium, it's open source and it's another option that keeps the web more open and accessible. I remember the bad old days of Internet Explorer dominance.

However...

I would rather go onto Vivaldi, a browser that has promised no AI than to have to constantly find new flags to shut off in about:config. 

AT BEST, AI should be opt-in NOT opt-out. Make it easy to flip that switch, let user telemetry show how many people actually want this feature active and use it. Please don't force the rest of us to work around this "feature". 

[orz]

Amen! 

I've had weird performance issues in Firefox lately an just saw that there's been a recent issue with performance due to "AI enhanced tab groups". My problem might or might not have been caused by this issue but never the less, stuff like this hurts Firefox reputation.

Personally I feel like AI is a an overrated hype train and I don't want anything AI near my machines. I feel like Mozilla's leadership have made a great misjudgement of their user base if they consider to squeeze in AI wherever. If a browser would advertise with "open source + no AI" then I'm jumping ship.

[Rallo]

People asked months ago to NOT include AI anything into our web browser we all use, Mozilla.

You did it anyway because you wanted to chase a trend fuelled by NFTbro rejects jumping to the next big thing.

I've been exclusively a firefox user since 2017 and find it an important piece of tech in the world of web browsers simply for being the last to not bend the knee to Chromium's grasp on the ecosystem. I cannot keep using it if you shove in technology built on stolen data and mass pollution via datacenter atmosphere discharge.

I really did not want to have to switch to some firefox clone, but I may have to now simply out of disappointment of these "new" "features" that went in despite massive backlash. PLEASE remove these features. The whole vertical sidebar, honestly. Preferably, before the AI bubble pops and you're left looking embarrassed as you remove it, anyway.

[siffemcon]

To disable AI:

Type about:config in the address bar > press Enter

- click 'Accept the risk and continue'

- search for browser.ml.chat.enabled > change the value to false

To disable the sidebar:

Also in about:config - set sidebar.revamp to false

[siffemcon]

There are more settings to disable:

Change all to false:

browser.ml.enable

browser.ml.chat.enabled

extensions.ml.enabled

browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled

browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled

browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled

[akewid]

thanks all those configs were annoying

[nk1]

This worked for me, thank you. Should not be this hard. AI features are fine, and optimally should be opt-in, but if they must be opt-out, it should be a simple exposed user toggle.

As a Mosaic->Netscape->Firefox user I am bummed that I am likely to move to another browser family after more than 30 years. There is no world where I would recommend a browser that needs a bunch of about:config'ing to normal users.

[thanosagi]

It's baffling to me how it's easier to disable AI assistance in Visual Studio Code than Firefox, because I will always treat Microsoft as the worst offender for many customer-second product decisions.

This shouldn't be this hard for non-tech folks: Give a toggle, click the toggle, prompt for restart. That's it.

[cmcod]

Agreed and Mozilla, if there is some mortal reason you must include the Ai in the browser give us One Switch convenient to us (like in the " General" tab) to turn it all on or off.

[Deciare]

I support making AI features optional (which they already are), but strongly disagree with their removal. Removal of AI features would be actively detrimental to the way I use my browser.

[platformdecay]

Good, maybe YOU should use a different browser then.

[yrds96]

AI features on Firefox aren't optional, they were enabled automatically after the update.

[bzsawall]

opt-out ≠ optional