Put the AI stuff into an optional add-on

[MuteDog]

Instead of forcing AI stuff down your users throats, just put it into an add-on that users can install on the browser if they want it. If it's as great as you seem to believe, then what's the problem with making it opt-in by default instead of having to opt-out?

[noname12e]

I don't want AI at all. None. I mean none. It ought to be something optional for people who do want it, not forced. And this is FORCED.

[tmiland]

Why not make a separated browser version with AI and keep firefox without any of it?

Like firefox-esr, firefox-beta, firefox-nightly and firefox-devedition.

Simply: firefox-ai.

That way, people who intend to use AI can choose that version, and those who don't, won't.

Regards.

[pepeyc7526]

I want to add qwen chat AI 😊

[drewbabe]

Just my 2 cents: I like having the feature that lets me translate text locally on my machine, since that's a privacy enhancement. It's categorized as AI, which I guess is technically true from the perspective of computer science, but it's a far cry from the LLM scams that big companies are running. I was unpleasantly surprised to see that opting out of AI features disabled the translation feature, so now I can't blanket opt-out of AI, I have to check periodically to see if there's some new nonsense that I don't want and then opt out of it. Translation is a feature that I think should ship with Firefox by default, while the rest should be an opt-in, download-it-when-you-want-it experience.

Also, if you really want users to make use of the AI features, you can use the welcome page when first opening Firefox as an opportunity to introduce them to the features you like, and they can click checkboxes or whatever you like to have their browser quickly and easily install these features, while keeping the default browser experience lightweight. That's kind of already how the translation feature works anyway (you have to download support for each language you want to translate first.) You can advertise this as providing a modern web browser without the bloat that respects the user's choices, and provides the "power" of AI (to those who want it) with a single click. Win-win IMO.

[why_username]

You can now disable all AI functionality with a single toggle in settings. If you only want to disable LLM-related functionality, simply disable the chatbot sidebar. But you don't even need to disable it, as the chatbot sidebar does not do anything until you use it to log into a chatbot provider website. (And why would you have a chatbot account if you hate LLMs?) Basically Firefox only enables private, ethical, on-device "AI" by default, like translations. Controversial stuff like LLMs from Big Tech are not used by default and you need to take very explicit steps to enable it.

Moving all neural network functionality to an add-on would impact performance (AFAIK addons can't ship executables like ONNX) and would be a barrier for non-technical users. Non-technical users almost never install add-ons but they do expect functionality like translations out of the box.

[Horus_Sirius]

I think this idea is better than simply disabling all AI functions. I had exactly this idea for an extension in another thread.

With Firefox built-in, this Firefox AI extension could be installed or not, depending on the user's preferences.

I would really appreciate support for small, local LLMs like ollama, vllm, and LM Studio.

[KG1962]

1000% agreed with undeadcatdad

This should be an option to remove AI from my iPhone . I don’t want to use AI copilot or any other AI in my general search knowing it is sucking life out of our planet consuming huge amounts of power and water. AI is killing 100.000.000 job across our planet. AI can be good but we need to stop it from taking over as Terminator the move may just come true!!