Share your feedback on the AI services experiment in Nightly

[asafko]

Hi folks, 

In the next few days, we will start the Nightly experiment which provides easy access to AI services from the sidebar. This functionality is entirely optional, and it’s there to see if it’s a helpful addition to Firefox. It is not built into any core functionality and needs to be turned on by you to see it. 

If you want to try the experiment, activate it via Nightly Settings > Firefox Labs (please see full instructions here). 

We’d love to hear your feedback once you try out the feature, and we’re open to all your ideas and thoughts, whether it’s small tweaks to the current experience or big, creative suggestions that could boost your productivity and make accessing your favorite tools and services in Firefox even easier.

Thanks so much for helping us improve Firefox!

[El_Gato]

ABSOLUTELY NOT INTERESTED

[umarmalik]

Exciting news about the Nightly experiment! The addition of AI services in the sidebar sounds like a great way to enhance productivity in Firefox. I appreciate that it's optional and can be activated through Nightly Settings. I'm looking forward to testing it out and providing feedback. It’s always great to see Firefox exploring new features—can’t wait to see how this evolves!

[lackey]

I ran several of your posts through an AI detector and they came up positive - including this one. 

I don't mean to gatekeep Firefox fans, but since you are so excited about this feature in particular, wouldn't you have known it was already available in Release Firefox?

[Nobody_of_note]

That one 100% read as AI generated to me, glad to hear the confirmation.

[Werewolfin]

please god no more

in all seriousness i do not want yet another AI service i have to opt out of when frankly opting in should be the default. if someone wants AI to infect anything they use, they can install it like any other extension or however that garbage works, but pushing it onto every single user is messed up.

[SabreWulf1986]

Disturbing the amount of people that don't understand the concept of a slippery slope

Give them an inch and they will take a mile

[jaydenNotjustyn]

jeez... i thought this company knew what their customers wanted

[SabreWulf1986]

Todd Howard must be their new CEO

[alfaiajanon]

where is the keyboard shortcut for this?

[majesticmini471]

My UNIX team will always Veto Artificial_Intelligence (AI) and its Zero Intelligence Quantity (0 IQ). For instance, the entire Internet, Oracle Java6<, MS .Net3<, Python3<, and Apple Swift3< are the worst programming ever made! It is why we love servers younger than 2007, just as BlackBerry-OS2, WinXP3, DOS3.1, MacOS9, OSX.4, and Nintendo64. Right, AMD? Graham Bell? Asus? HP? LinkSys? IBM?  Realtek? INTRAnet?

[sunn]

Please do not put AI into Firefox. I came to Firefox to escape all the AI, not run right back into it. If you implement this I may just stop using your services altogether.

[Hydraheadhunter]

I backgraded to an older version of firefox to remove this crap from my computer. Unfortunately, I value my security marginally more than I despise AI, so now this bull**bleep** is back on my computer wit 131.0.2 cause I ain't wanna deal with zero-day vulnerabilities. Thanks, I **bleep**ing hate it.

[realisticsloth]

Please add the ability to add options to the Right Click context menu -> Ask GPT -> [options]

I would like to be able to add custom options with custom prompts.

[Zuholev]

Unfortunately, the AI ​​chatbot in the sidebar is not compatible with GPT4all's Local API Server.

[lunaontherun]

Absolutely the f*ck NOT.  I will switch to a different browser if you try this sh*t.

[moziluserorsmth]

This is an incredibly stupid move. Firefox's number one appeal is privacy and reliability and you're implementing bells and whistles that nobody likes or wants. AI is just the shiniest new tech bubble doing irreparable damage to the digital landscape until it bursts. Waste of time, money, and resources on part of the company. And clearly, not a popular one reading the other replies. Firefox doesn't need to keep up with AI but remain a browser that stands AWAY from that bull**bleep** poisoning our information wells. Frankly, given your primary consumer base of people who DON'T like being tracked and stolen from and advertised to- people who take the time from their day to use nonstandard browsers and search engines- I cannot IMAGINE what could've prompted this decision aside from an incredible and alarming naivety from the company tech departments or meddling from distant corporate directors with no real idea of what they're actually doing beyond hopping the bandwagon set to plummet off a cliff.

[read-write-exec]

I like this idea, maybe integrate it well with multi-account containers.

Also, I know some users don't like this feature. Maybe make an extension out of it!

[Feedfox]

Please provide a keyboard shortcut for accessing the side bar so that accessing the AI chatbot is easier

[Probus]

Throwing ethics regarding specific AI services, this is a very useful feature and one that I often use in Edge all the time. Thanks for adding it! I'm sure I'm not the only one who refers to AI services at random times to ask random questions.

[emab]

Configurable shortcut ASAP please

[metalbyte]

You guys are fools of the first magnitude if you are seriously devoting resources to AI services.

I’m writing as a long-time supporter and user of Firefox, I find it deeply concerning that Mozilla is investing in AI projects at a time when Firefox itself is still in need of critical improvement.

The mobile version of Firefox, in particular, remains frustratingly buggy, slow, and unpolished, with mobile extensions lacking the consistency needed for a seamless user experience. Given the recent wave of users abandoning Google Chrome, Mozilla has a golden opportunity to capitalize on this by refining Firefox's core features and delivering the best browser experience possible.

Focus your resources on making Firefox an excellent browser across all platforms. Chasing a fad, especially in a time when end users are growing increasingly tired of tech companies cramming in AI at every turn, is profoundly foolish.

[SabreWulf1986]

If Google gets broken up then bye bye Firefox. You know most of Mozilla's money comes from Google right?

[neutronstar87]

I don't know what's the problem with people here, they're unnecessarily skittish. It's an entirely optional feature, and it's in Nightly - it might never land. Anyways, I did try it out, and here's my review of it.

1. It makes double-clicking to select an entire sentence hard, as the "magic AI" hover button appears too close and gets clicked or somehow interferes in the process.
2. The options shouldn't expand upon merely hovering the "magic AI" button. You should need to click it.

For now, I've disabled the experiment again as it feels like it's cluttering the page. Other than that, I actually like the convenience. If people stop reacting impulsively and actually think critically, there's nothing inherently wrong with this feature. All it does is open your choice of LLM's homepage in a sidebar just as if it were a separate tab. There's no background worker or job spawning that periodically sends your webpage data or anything like that. It's functionally just a shortcut to opening a new tab and going to the page anyways.

[metalbyte]

That's true. It is completely optional. My concern primarily has to do with the resources Mozilla is investing into AI or LLM features. Firefox has real challenges and problems to overcome. Mozilla is not a wealthy organization. They have to be careful with how they invest their money and devote their money. Investing their time, money and energy into AI features.... I can't overstate how profoundly foolish that seems.

I manage a large enterprise that is abandoning Chrome, and I couldn't get our leaders or end user base to even consider Firefox because it is regarded as slow and buggy. So when I see they are investing money into AI as opposed to simply focusing on making Firefox an excellent browser, I have no kind words in me. Mozilla needs to wise up.

2024 is probably the first year in more than a decade where Google Chrome is poised to lose market share, and Firefox can't seem to attract new users because they'd rather chase fads than make a polished product.

[neutronstar87]

The feature as it stands absolutely would NOT require any significant amount of engineering resources. Unless they're planning to make some big AI moves - like having their own chatbot service or deeper integration with AI which indeed will be problematic, it wouldn't divert Mozilla's finances away from its main goals. And the mere presence of it shouldn't bother users. Everyone who's even a little bit concerned about privacy ends up hardening the Firefox browser anyways by going into about:config and disabling a bunch of stuff. You can just consider this another one of the Pocket-like features that you end up disabling.

[TJax]

It doesn't matter what this feature does people don't like it because it is built off of a tech fan that has a huge negative impact on our environment, that functions only by stealing whatever had been fed to it, that doesn't actually function the way most people want it to, and that many experts in the field are warning against using. On top of that it's just a waste of money and time that could be spent doing something that truly benefits users. Every company is scrambling right now to fit an AI feature somewhere it's a bad move for their consumers and their business.

[HoweeOPea]

I do not like this feature. I want to be able to find websites that have been researched by humans - scientists who are specialists in their fields. If I want a generic answer, I will go to a generic website. If I want an AI search, I can go to an AI website.

Suggestion - have a second box, under the general search box, for AI searches. Do not make it the default, primary search result. I have not seen one person who likes the feature.

[lackey]

If it's your search engine, DuckDuckGo lets you do this by prefixing your query with "!chat". It also protects your privacy from these companies by proxying your queries through their own servers, making it harder for AI companies to track you. 

Mozilla did none of this, despite rushing this feature out to release. 

[neutronstar87]

So.. you didn't even try out the feature. It is not even close to that. There's no AI search toolbar. It doesn't take over any of the existing features or UI elements. It's just a very small "✨" button that hovers over a selected text that you can click to open a sidebar equivalent in size to a history or a bookmark sidebar which has your choice of LLM's website open.

This is why I wrote that people are too skittish/volatile in this discussion. I bet most didn't even try the option like you and just assumed the worst and started downvoting.

[SabreWulf1986]

I don't want my mouse cursor icon changed into anything else on any piece of technology, ever.

[Nobody_of_note]

That's not even what concerns a lot of us that work in the industry.

Have you seen how many nuclear projects are being talking about to power more and more powerful models?  Can you maybe think what might be happening right now when we don't have that extra capacity online?  That's right, more fossil fuels to burn!!

Can you not see this toy is contributing in a very real way to the climate crisis we're already suffering from? 

And before some one thinks I'm anti nuclear, I'm not.  It would be amazing if we could produce our entire base load from nuclear and a renewable mix.  Once storage gets to a point that it's truly usable and not some idiotic render of a block stacking tower, we'll be ready for a fully renewable future.

Just because all you see is a button, or a poorly written block of text output doesn't mean there isn't a catastrophic waste of natural resources and extra pollution going on behind your toy.

Ask yourself why people on the inside, below the c-suite are trying to sound the alarm.

[danibanani]

If Firefox has AI then there's no reason not to just go back to Google Chrome. At least you're giving us the option to turn it off, for now. If that ever changes I'm finding a new browser.

[SabreWulf1986]

Mozilla is cooked. Bring on the Ladybird browser.

[Stellario]

I don't know if this will seen, but I'd like it if you could make the textbox enter-to-send instead of having it start a new line. I think this is how most chatbots work.

[blucheavy]

Oh my god i don't want this

[jlries61]

This feature appears to be the one that is interfering with my copying and pasting.  Make it stop, or at least let me turn it off.

[neutronstar87]

Ok now I'm confused. Are we all talking about the same feature? First, for me, it isn't opt-out but rather opt-in under Firefox Labs (that is if you have selected to be part of Nightly experimental features, otherwise even this option is not visible). Secondly it doesn't interfere with the act of copying or pasting.

[SabreWulf1986]

Yup, this crap is invasive asf

[hu6fy56rd]

Gen AI and Advertising is the wrong path for you, almost no one in your user base wants this, you will loose all trust you worked so hard to build, don't listen to what Business consulting firms tell you

[dantu-a]

A key benifit of this for me is
> Nightly can be configured by advanced testers to use custom prompts and any compatible chatbot, such as llamafile

How do we actually configure this to use a local LLM?
The detailed instructions say it can be done, but not how to do it. I did get nightly installed but the settings look the same.