Add native search by voice to Firefox

[Nart]

Common Voice is a Mozilla project that builds datasets for speech recognition systems, in it's collection it has low resource, vulnerable and endangered languages, that have little representation in the digital world.

Adding a search by voice to Firefox, would provide a simple voice service for these languages.

Beside the good cause, with this blue ocean strategy, Firefox might have a comeback. The browser's red market already has tons of players, where as the voice search for disadvantaged languages is a blue market that ideally Mozilla would be the only player or there would be few players with no giant players. This is a new market waiting to be captured that giants would not bother to enter.

Please,
Let me know what you think?
What are the possible benefits if any?
Do you use search by voice more often on your smart phone, tablet, notebook, PC?

Best Regards,
Nart

Here is a screenshot of this feature in Chrome:

[Jon]

Hey @Nart, 

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (kudos) and comments.

[SamratPaul]

I use search by voice all the time always , not just on the phone but also on my windows laptop.            I hate typing.

I was a regular user of Mozilla Firefox , but I had to shift to Google Chrome because Firefox decommissioned their microphone.

It was never that accurate anyways.          So no regrets.

[BruSkald]

Why in heaven's name was Voice Fill not continued? A bribe from Google?! I am eternally stuck without privacy because I use voice search very often. Not even Brave has a usable Voice Search option...the Google monopoly has to end!!! I use Firefox so infrequently now because of this.

[Nart]

@SamratPaul @BruSkald I hear ya, in addition it's closed source, so community efforts are marginal, if we want to add as many languages as possible to voice service, then it has to be democratized.

[RegisteredAlrea]

What people wanted: search without typing. We wanted to type with voice and send the search request to Google.
What Firefox pushed: our AI will open any site it wants.
P.S. I am a voice contributor. I have spent hundreds of hours on proof-listening those recordings. Come on, just give us an extension for voice search on Google, and not a drunk bot.

[RegisteredAlrea]

What the users wanted: Search Google without typing.
Firefox: makes an AI which opens any site it decides. Google search is not involved. The users cannot google or use search engines... 🤐 You say: ''find pictures of cats'' and Firefox is supposed to show you an Image tab on Google with pictures of cats to help us choose any site or photo. What the AI does? Opens Pixabay (not Google) with some cat pictures. Facepalm.
No wonder the users did not get what we wanted and did not use the addon.
P.S. I am a voice contributor who spent hundreds of hours proof-listening those recordings. I hate typing with my fingers. I was to fill the Google search field with my request using my voice. Why did you have to spend so much effort on that AI??? Who asked you?

[bicolino34]

I support this idea. I would like to have open-source voice search. For some odd reason Google's STT for English is really inaccurate. It writes words that I even remotely hadn't said. For Ukrainian in contrast, it works quite good

[Nart]

@RegisteredAlrea 

I think the voice service should transcribe voice to text independent of the search engine, and the user should be able to pick their favorite search engine such as Google, Duck Duck Go...etc If you were getting an odd behavior, that is probably a bug, you could've reported that.

@bicolino34 let's hope this idea gets momentum, if you have friends who might be interested, you could share this page with them 👋

[Luis]

Great idea! 😀

[Anonymous]

great idea!

[Anonymous]

Hi all! There is this extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/pt-BR/firefox/addon/read-aloud/, https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en/speak, https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/retiring-the-voice-fill-and-firefox-voice-beta-extensions/74581/46

[Eric111]

When I use Chrome It has a microphone  - I would prefer to use Firefox but the microphone avoids lots of typing.

regards ERIC

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[jscher2000]

Hi Eric, I don't know why Google doesn't display the microphone for Firefox users. ?!

If you are a Windows user, one possible workaround is the Dictate feature: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dictate-text-using-speech-recognition-854ef1de-7041-9482...

You would click in the field, then press a hotkey to start and stop dictation (it wouldn't show a button in the box).

[Anonymous]

Why Firefox still doesn’t support speech recognition on sites like: Google, Google Translate, and other sites such as those previously mentioned.