It was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46858492
I remember when every other software prompted you to install Bonzi Buddy or some other intrusive search bar. This AI push is even worse.
Thunderbird is at the moment the pinnacle of user-centered, focused and down-to-earth development of open-source software.
But when they updated the UI, they
- Added options to use to make it very close to the old layout
- Set those options for you if you had it customized like that in the previous version
Which is IMHO much better than how Mozilla handled the redesign - you can get the old style in a GitHub repo thanklessly maintained by one person[0], enable userchrome support in about:config (until they decide to take it away one day!), and enable compact mode (also gated behind about:config and called "Compact (not supported)". Oh, and remember to update the userchrome every few updates because they keep breaking it.
That's the difference between user-centric and not user-centric.
The old UI was criticized by some for being outdated, a mix of old and new styles, didn't fit well with new OS/app styles, etc. It was crap. So they update the UI and it's still crap... for other users. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
The app has a phantom message even in empty folders that it keeps selected. Unread bubble and nothing else, an empty message. You can’t even delete it. Sometimes it persists between app restarts.
It shows unread count on a folder just because it feels like it.
It’s a long list.
I don’t buy the “oh well, kinda sort of for like 60% of mail features and possibly a read only calendar in Two Weeks”
I switched away from Thunderbird to Outlook TWO FULL DECADES AGO, and in that time they have never once given me a possibility to switch back.
Like it or not, business runs on Office/Outlook.
Give me the 1990s GUI back.
Are those the features this kill switch removes or was there a deeper issue here?
"- Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language.
- Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages.
- AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names.
- Link previews, which show key points before you open a link.
- AI chatbot in the sidebar, which lets you use your chosen chatbot as you browse, including options like Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Le Chat Mistral."
And calling translation "AI" seems like deceitful retroactive rebranding. Why is machine translation suddenly "AI" now? It was never branded as such before. Is "AI" here just used to mean machine learning?
When i saw this i expected something more... integrated, but when i tried it with a local LLM (using koboldcpp) after enabling the option to show localhost as an option (it is hidden by default for some reason) all it did was to local whatever webpage was running on the localhost URL (even though koboldcpp also provides an OpenAI compatible endpoint, which is what i expected Firefox to use to provide its own UI). It seems to have some sort of heuristic to find the input box where you type in queries and autofills that with the page text or parts of it (if you have it selected) and that's all.
I kinda expected it instead to use the API endpoint, have its own chat UI, provide MCP tools for accessing and manipulating the page's content, let you create reusable prompts, etc. The current solution feels like something you'd throw together in a weekend at most.
Do you have a preferred way of blocking domains from appearing in search results? I think there's a limit of only five for some reason.
Paying for Kagi which lets you promote/demote/block domains to your heart's content.
Also, their ai makes copilot look good.
It's not perfect, but it works, and unlike Chrome you can have full ad blocking with uBlock Origin.
Only truly independent browser engine left. Firefox is entirely independent on google, but unlike its competitors this dependency is through direct cash payments.
While I do not think that the gap narrowed when measured in CPU-cycles, it's just not very noticable when Firefox doesn't feel slow.
The feature I would really want here is a switch that blocks AI summaries, overviews, etc. on any websites you browse.
Eg here's a list
https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist#...
browser.translations.select.enable
dom.text_fragments.enabled
privacy.query_stripping.strip_on_share.enabled
devtools.accessibility.enabled
https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/layout/printing/ns...
The latter, especially, seems helpful.
`privacy.query_stripping.strip_on_share.enabled` to remove "Copy clean link". I would rather it just did that clean link thing automatically, but I don't actually care about clean links -- it's just annoying having two "copy link" next to each other (especially with one which is greyed out 99% of the time!)
As an aside I think it's only matter of time before this is done without query params and instead each share link is generated just for you.
dom.text-recognition.enabled
browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate
extensions.formautofill.addresses.enabled
extensions.formautofill.creditCards.enabled
widget.macos.native-context-menus
Putting:
#context-sendimage { display:none!important; }
in that file works for me.
I think that's a good workaround, but I'll have to re-enable it when I actually need to print something.
So, the most effective path here for y’all to be heard is not flipping the switch off yourself (do so anyways!) — anyone who cares at this stage has probably opted out of being counted already, after all — but instead to ensure that news of this switch spreads to absolutely as many non-tech people as possible. Don’t argue that they should run some script that shuts off their metrics and phone home and updates. Just convince them to shut off the AI and explain that this is why their browser got slow about a year ago! They’ll flip off the switch gleefully, their phone-home will count them, and y’all will have the strongest possible impact on the telematics graphs at Mozilla.
I already ran the disable process manually on the computers I have friends and family IT duties towards, so I’ll go back and do the AI switch to be sure it’s counted next week. Yes, this is a crap way to be heard. But making a mark on feature opt-out graphs is probably the only hope we have left to get their executive leadership to stop drowning the browser for its own good.
But current Firefox users could probably temporarily turn on telemetry, activate the kill switch, and turn telemetry back off. Just make sure you wait long enough to ensure the information is sent
Gee. If only there was a way to collect users opinions on things. Welp.. guess we have to live with subtly spying on everything they do with our software.
Most people who are vocal aren't representative of users.
Many vocal people aren't even users.
Don't get me wrong, I turn off telemetry, but you're acting like it's easy to get that information. You act like people don't scream when Firefox prompts people with surveys. You act like there isn't bias in survey takers.
If you just pretend everything is easy we'll just end up reinventing the same evils we're trying to fight today. Unfortunately most evils are created from good intentions. I hear there's an entire road paved that way
Telemetry was never about user preferences but all about justifying what you were going to do anyway.
Firefox for Android has been killing it for me with the latest ux updates, I didn't expect major improvements there and was pleasantly surprised.
What I have always had with any firefox based browser on android is erratic behavior in text field. Most of the time it works well but sometimes on some commenting systems my input is duplicated/multiplicated/garbled, trying to select where you want to insert words in the middle of the sentence sometimes becomes impossible, always resetting to the beginning of the text field, etc.
On some websites it only rarely happens, on some it is much more regular. Never understod why but when I want to edit a comment I have to resort on a regular basis to copy the full comment to a note app, edit the text, and replace it in its entirety in the text field.
Super annoying but still less annoying than using a chrome based browser with no way to remove ads and have a bit of privacy control.
I'm sorry, but we'll never get corporations to do what we want if we don't throw them the smallest bone when we get our way. You need positive reinforcement too, not just negative. If it's all negative they just stop caring and you get companies lot Google who just don't give a shit anymore.
And yes, there are some AI features I like and I want in the browser. I get a lot of utility out of translation as well as semantic search of my history. I don't want agents in my browser but get, Firefox is giving us choices.
Look, no one needs to like Firefox, but let's also be honest, it's the best we got right now. Google, Apple, and Microsoft are shoving agents down our throats and putting us in walled gardens that are getting harder and harder to break from. I don't care what flavor of chromium you use, Google is still using it to control the way the web works. Everyone loves to say how chromium is has greater coverage of standards but never takes a second to question who sets those standards.
I'm sorry guys, that's the state of things now. You can't fight Google by switching to chromium. It's still their vehicle to eat the internet. Our choices right now are Safari, Firefox, and maybe ladybird. It's slim pickings and nothing is close to perfect. At this point it doesn't even matter if Mozilla is evil, because at least they're the enemy of our enemy. Google is keeping them on life support to avoid monopoly claims but how long will they need that?
So what, we're just going to hand the keys of the kingdom to the guys selling artisian turd sandwiches because what, there isn't enough mayo on your ham sandwich? Because you don't like ham?
We got a win. Celebrate. Take the break from being cynical. There's bigger battles to fight and there'll be more tomorrow. Take the night off and don't be a sore winner
Thanks for staying positive. I like Firefox, I think it's a very nice holdout against adware.
Firefox is the artisan turd sandwich. They are burning dev time on features barely anyone asked, while bleeding market share for last decade
Got a source for that? HackerNews is *not* representative of the average browser user.
Well they are far from perfect but experience has shown that everybody else is worse.
Because that's the source of the complaints. I don't want to use an "AI browser", kill switch or not. If this "AI browser" dies because of their mission to destroy community goodwill, good. I'm sick of giving the benefit of the doubt every time they royally fuck up. This situation where they're the steward of the only non-Google browser is not tenable, something needs to change.
I don't need themes nor having my url bar serving search. I am not interested in an AI agent in my browser yet I welcome traduction features, do I have to shit on every company developping a software that has some features because I don't want them?
I am much more pragmatic: are these features easy to ignore/disable, do they largely increase the resources needed (disk, memory, cpu) even when not used, do these introduce bloat, etc.
I wasn't interested in pocket, I was just using a combination of firefox forks or disabling it on the devices I was using. That is the whole point of open source software.
> This situation where they're the steward of the only non-Google browser is not tenable, something needs to change.
But honestly it just feels like you didn't even read my comment. I'm sorry that it's a lot, but I'm petty sure people can handle 10-30 seconds of reading. I even said it doesn't matter if Mozilla is evil. How do you turn that into me giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm literally just arguing that there's slim pickings and to not help our bigger enemy to kill their enemies. It doesn't matter if their enemies ate evil, you're just helping the bigger evil get bigger and consolidate power. I'm saying "there's more important problems right now, not be fucking dumb and get distracted or before you know it you'll lose your head"
Malicious compliance is no compliance, it is still malicious.
Also a fan of this feature. It's actually been around awhile but I think the Asian languages are a more recent addition.
For those that don't know what trusted types are: Simply put, it splits the string type in to unsanitised_string_from_user and safe_escaped_string where unsafe strings can not be used in function parameters that only take a safe string That's heavily simplifying of course, but it's the basic idea.
Before, we did not need to disable AI stuff. Now Mozilla forced us (that is those of us who don't like or use AI) into an extra step. Guess the only thing worse is being given no choice at all though.
Right now I'm switching to Chromium for Video Calls, which I hate
Icecat/Iceweasel are sane alternatives.
Unofficial binaries can be found:
https://icecatbrowser.org/download.html
Official source: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git
I keep bumping that button on mobile and it's killing my experience.
> This is like a restaurant that releases a new feature that they will no longer defecate in your food.
You're analogy works but you can't forget that there other restaurants. That the other restaurant not only aren't making promises to not defecate in your for but they're actively advertising how much shit they can shove in a sandwich. Even the bread is made of shit!
So thank fucking god. At least there's one place where I don't have to eat shit. The bar is so fucking low it doesn't matter if they spit in it or you find the chef's ball hairs, at least it isn't shit.
Honestly, I feel more and more every day like old-man-shaking-fist-at-clouds! Can we not just have something that works without spying, without engagement-driven shit switched on all the fucking time?
I think of the Simpsons Mr Brown meme where he's asking "Is it me that's wrong?".
I can't be the only person that thinks this way!
I don't think the AI features are used for advertising data harvesting but I'm happy to be educated if you have a source saying otherwise.
Because there would be millions of emails to support asking "why can't Firefox translate a page the same way chrome can?" from people that couldn't find the AI opt-in switch.
Absolutely not! Making someone opt-in (the horror!) would result in too much confusion and support tickets! We can't ignore those tickets and tell people to figure it out, we have to cave and turn all the bullshit on by default.
I think a lot of our problems can be explained by: corporations lacking a spine and people unwilling to learn about the computer they use everyday. It's basically unacceptable to not know how to change a tire if you own a car but clicking through some browser settings is too hard, I guess.
Even better, why was the AI feature ever added in the first place?
My problem with all software that shoves these AI features in my face, is that I don’t use features under duress.
If you interrupt what I’m doing to push me to use a feature, I won’t use it. If you’re a web designer and you block the page to tell me to sign up for an account, I close the tab and vow to never create an account. If you stop what I’m doing to ask me to rate your app, I’m going to give it 1 star. Et cetera.
Now I’ll be the first to admit this is childish… it’s a flaw in my character. When I feel pushed, I push back, and software pushing me makes me irrationally angry for reasons I can’t quite articulate. In some ways I wish I wasn’t like this. But I can’t be alone. I’m certain there is a non-negligible number of people like me, and when a browser immediately shoves AI features in my face on first launch, well, the first thing I’m going to do is disable them.
The especially tragic part is that I personally find LLMs useful! And I’m at the point where I sorta want to install a Firefox extension for ChatGPT now. But the actual browser AI features were pushed on me in a way that made me feel violated, so I can’t use them on principle. Maybe in a few years I guess.
If instead these companies would just dial it back several notches, I would have had the curiosity to try these features out myself, and I’d likely be using them by now. But the way they’ve tried so hard to force them on me has destroyed my trust and now, not only am I not using whatever feature they promote, I hate their product more than I otherwise would.
Firefox isn’t actually that bad here, and now that there’s a simple kill switch, I may actually try their chatbot sidebar thing. But for companies like MS, I will never, ever, ever use any of their AI features for the reasons above. (I’ve literally uninstalled Windows now, it’s gotten so bad.)
Here’s what you do:
- Make a “what’s new” section in settings.
- Put a link in there that takes me to a webpage where I can see what’s new.
- That’s it.
Instead what always seems to happen is that I’m in the middle of trying to do something with the software and in order to do that I must close whatever popup you’re shoving in my face to tell me about the new feature. I don’t have time to read it now because I opened the software with an intention to finish a task and I don’t have time to read it now. And then later when I finally do have the time to look at your new feature? Nobody bothers actually putting that information anywhere persistent, so I guess I’m out of luck even if I care about the feature.
Updating to a new iOS version is a perfect example of this. Say there are a dozen apps that have a new feature popup on first launch when you update iOS. Imagine a typical day waking up and trying to use my phone. I have to drive somewhere so I try to put an address into Maps and have to immediately fend off the “what’s new in maps” dialog so I can type the address I need to go to. Then I want to put on the song my kid is yelling at me to play and have to fend off the “what’s new in Music” popup. Later I’m trying to respond to an important text and have to fend off “What’s new in messages”, etc etc etc.
That first day using iOS is an absolute nightmare because of this.
Now imagine the alternative: a simple badge icon in the settings app, and I tap it and see a link to “what’s new in iOS”, and guess what, it can be a fucking webpage! I can bookmark it! I can add it to my reading list and see it later! Hell, I can even share it with my friends!
But no, instead apps insist on trying to increase “engagement” with their new feature, because some PM’s promo packet wants to include “this many users used my new feature” and the only way they can think to do this is to (1) stop the user from accomplishing their task until they tap the cutesy “Got It!” button, and (2) don’t bother with persisting it anywhere, because the idea that the user doesn’t have time to check out the feature now is so foreign to these sociopaths it never even crossed their mind.
Whatever works for large numbers is what will happen.
But overall, you and I (and many) will try to push back and insist on consent.
The sign-up form with an unchecked "sign me up for your newsletter" option.
The first-run experience with a question... "do you want us to notify you of new features?"
But this is not the norm, and even if good actors get rewarded by a few childish customers, bad actors seem to get rewarded much more by a massive infusion of funds.
BiasScanner - Firefox Plug-In https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/bias-scanner/
It continually amazes me how people use a Google product on their desktop, as if they don't send enough data to an ad company. Actually, I'm not sure why I type this, any rational arguments are definitely not winning them over.
> It continually amazes me how people use a Google product on their desktop, as if they don't send enough data to an ad company.
I'd love to have alternatives, but which ones are there? Firefox is not an alternative; audio does not work for me as I am pulseaudio free here. On chrome-based browsers audio works fine, out of the box, so it is not my system that is at fault; it is mozilla that is at fault. I also reported this, the lazy firefox dev said all Linux users use pulseuaudio these days. Well ...
I could recompile it but compiling firefox is a pain in the ...:
https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/xsoft/firefox...
I am not going to use a build system that is +20 years old and only exists because Mozilla is too lazy to switch to cmake or meson/ninja as primary build tool.
> Actually, I'm not sure why I type this, any rational arguments are definitely not winning them over.
Well I gave one rational argument: can't play audio on my linux box if I use firefox (by default that is). I can give many more reasons too. You seem to make the point that Google is worse, so we should also use a bad product (firefox). I think we really need better browsers in general. Firefox simply isn't one and that is Mozilla's fault. There is a reason why it went into decline. Mozilla gave up the fight - the ad-money made it weak.
Obviously I don't have any data backing me up here, but I'm going to guess that that isn't the main reason why so many people choose Chrome over Firefox.
Would second this. Mach uses Python, and the dependencies they use are a pain whenever no pre-built wheels are available. Especially so when you see that an "optional" Mach dependency for build system telemetry is what busting the configuration (not build) stage...
> mozilla is basically a google subsidiary
"Everyone" knows that Mozilla has a heavy financial reliance on Google. So are you bringing this up to suggest that Mozilla also consistently acts to benefit Google and its ad network? If so, where's the proof? If not, what's the point you're making?
> firefox telemetry is almost comparable to chrome
Comparable to Chrome what? Telemetry? Something else? What is Firefox using that data for? In the service of or against users? What's the point you're trying to make? If you're making assertions, where's the proof?
You're making a lot of imprecise comments, most of interpretations of which carry a large burden of proof, and then complaining that people are just down-voting and moving on.
You need to update your priors. The popular opinion is there is a reason to enable it by default. ChatGPT is the #5 most popular website in the world, more popular than Wikipedia, Reddit or Twitter. The vast majority of users want to use AI.
Firefox has so many nice things like containers but basic performance issues are still unresolved.