Mozilla is developing a built‑in AI assistant for Firefox that will be offered as a third browsing mode alongside Normal and Private tabs. They’re calling it “Window AI.” Details are still scarce.

“It’s safe to say that the people who volunteered to “shape” the initiative want it dead and buried. Of the 52 responses at the time of writing, all rejected the idea and asked Mozilla to stop shoving AI features into Firefox.”

  • railway692@piefed.zipEnglish
    451·
    17 hours ago

    Those unhappy have another option: use an AI‑free Firefox fork such as LibreWolf, Waterfox, or Zen Browser.

    And I have taken that other option.

    Also: Vanadium and/or Ironfox on Android.

      • railway692@piefed.zipEnglish
        4·
        5 hours ago

        It is.

        My understanding is that you go to Ironfox to optimize for privacy and Vanadium to optimize for security.

        It depends on your threat model.

        Either way, both are better on both fronts when compared to default Chrome or Firefox.

      • ashx64@lemmy.world
        37·
        12 hours ago

        The truth is that Chromium is really good. It has the best security and performance.

        Vanadium takes that and makes changes to make it more secure and private.

        • Leon@pawb.socialEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          I think the problem with Chromium isn’t so much that Blink or V8 is bad or anything, it’s that it’s entirely under the thumb of Google. We’re essentially being set up for another Internet Explorer scenario, only Google unlike Microsoft won’t just be sitting on their laurels. Google is an advertising company, their entire business model is the web. Google Search is the tool used to find things, and with Google Chrome being the go-to browser for a lot of people, Google essentially ends up in control of both how you access the web and what you access.

          That sort of power is scary, which is why I personally avoid anything Chromium based as much as I am able to. Chromium itself is fantastic, but I don’t like the baggage it comes with.

          • ashx64@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 hour ago

            That’s valid.

            That’s also part of the reason I like Webkit. It’s in a nice spot between Firefox and Chromium when it comes to security and performance. And importantly, is not from an ad company and often passes on browser specs that would be harmful to privacy and security.

            I forget what the site is called, but I saw one that nicely layed out different browser specs and gives the explanation why one of the engine developers decided against supporting or implementing it.

            I just wish there was a good Webkit browser on Linux. Unfortunately, Gnome Web just feels slow and unresponsive despite good benchmarks.

            • Leon@pawb.socialEnglish
              2·
              30 minutes ago

              Gods I wish Epiphany/Gnome Web was better. The Kagi people are working on bringing Orion to Linux, which I believe will be using WebKit there as well.

              It’s kind of funny that we don’t have a solid WebKit browser on Linux, since WebKit has its roots in the KDE Projects KHTML engine for Konqueror.

              I guess that kind of ties in to my anger at these massive tech companies profiting off of FOSS but doing almost fuck-all to contribute. Google opening LLM generated bug reports in FFMPEG when all of the streaming media giants are propped up by this one project is just one example. There should be some kind of tax for this, I feel. They’re benefitting greatly, and provide nothing in return.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
          11·
          12 hours ago

          Wrong. You are both popularizing Google tech and decreasing web browser diversity when you use any chromium variety

          • TheOneCurly@feddit.onlineEnglish
            3·
            6 hours ago

            Vandium is all about not standing out from the crowd. You use it to not make a statement and hide your activity within the majority of useragents. If you want to make a statement that’s great, but you should only do it when you’re ok being fingerprinted.

              • TheOneCurly@feddit.onlineEnglish
                3·
                6 hours ago

                I didn’t mean that in a negative way. All I meant was that using a non-chromium browser to help move the needle is a privacy tradeoff. I keep both vandium and ironfox installed and use them at different times for different things.

            • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
              11·
              12 hours ago

              Are you serious? Chromium is very much mostly written by Google and the direction it takes in every way that matters is entirely controlled by Google.

              • onehundredsixtynine@sh.itjust.works
                15·
                12 hours ago

                This still doesn’t mean Google has some kind of ownership for it. Nobody stops you from forking it and taking it into a different direction.

                • russjr08@piefed.zipEnglish
                  2·
                  7 hours ago

                  I mean technically, yes. However the sheer amount of LoC chromium has and the costs of actually hard forking (and properly maintaining it) makes it quite difficult. That’s why right now we only have the choice of Firefox based browsers and Chromium, then hopefully a good third contender being the Ladybird browser in the future.

                  You could also go build a house (or even a cabin) with your own two hands, but most people typically go and buy one or pay for one to be built for them instead.

                • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
                  7·
                  12 hours ago

                  It actually does. You’re still supporting a browser monoculture unless you change it so radically that it makes no sense to call it a fork anymore

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
      203·
      16 hours ago

      A fork is great, but the more a fork deviates, the more issues there are likely to be. Firefox is already at low enough numbers that it’s not really sustainable.

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
        4·
        10 hours ago

        My two biggest issues with a fork are: a) timely updates, they take a bit longer than the main version, and b) trust issues, I don’t trust most forks.

      • DrDystopia@lemy.lol
        231·
        15 hours ago

        Then Mozilla should start listening to their users instead of driving them away. I know I stopped using Firefox after being a regular user since launch because the AI nonsense became the last sta straw.

        • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
          2·
          10 hours ago

          Then Mozilla should start listening to their users instead of driving them away.

          I think the hope is to get more people in than losing them. But with Ai nobody will stay forever, because the time someone else makes a better Ai tool, they switch. Because Mozilla loses personality and uniqueness and start getting replaceable. … just like employees who are forced to use Ai instead their own work and knowledge.