After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.
On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.
In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.
How about you ship with it off by default and users can choose to turn it on? No? That won’t serve your corporate goals, will it?
Add a compile flag!
Repeat after me. “There is no such thing as a non physical kill switch”
That’s nice but it’s not good enough. There needs to be a compile flag so the AI code isn’t even included at all.
i wish they would release a second browser instead of whatever this is
Or they could just ship it without the AI
Would be nice if folks stopped calling LLMs AI. If they are true AI, they would be able to learn how a kill switch works and disable it
Until the bad press dies down and they feel like removing it
The Microsoft way:
“Why do you disable that”
“You’re weird. Everyone uses that”
“You cannot disable that”
I think it says something that they’re backpedaling at all. This isn’t just “bad press”, its a real market for people who want products that are “AI Free”. And since Firefox is the other-other browser, its a market they’re feeling obligated to fill.
Just don’t add the surveillance and spam features in the first place. 👍 Fuck off, Mozilla.
They could save themselves all that bullshit by just not bothering with any of it!
Or they can give people to option to use or not use it.
If you want it, it’s already there for you. Nonconsentually shoved into every single thing you use.
Absolutely it should be opt in not opt out
Why put the user through the issue of turning it off instead of having it off by default and letting those who want to use it turn it on? That’s some bullshit on Mozilla’s end. Fuck them.
Jesus you guys are so fucking whiny. Takes two seconds.
It’s not about the effort, it’s about the default. The US considered breaking Microsoft up over this. “You can always uninstall it” isn’t the point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.
That’s not an educated opinion. 90% of users don’t read shit, they just use things, badly. If you don’t care about those doofus’s protection and you think “It’s their own fault”, you’re accidentally being a bit of a douche canoe.
If a person doesn’t have any issues, then is it actually a problem they need to read up on and disable? Why is there any fault to be had at all in that case? Assuming everyone’s use case is the same is also not an educated opinion.
If individuals start having problems, the tools to fix them are there and it’s on the individual to use them. If large swaths of the user base start having problems, that’s Mozilla’s issue to fix. Right now, any prediction of which way this goes is just a guess.
I am whiny as fuck, which is why I fucking dropped everything by Mozilla from my life. Those are 2 seconds I can add to my porn addiction streamline.
It has to be opt-in or they can go fuck themselves
I think they should keep the murderous name, because at this point who DOESNT want AI dead?
Well they’re clearly not taking it all that seriously as it should be an Opt-IN feature, not an Opt-Out. They’re banking on a majority non tech savvy userbase to not even bother disabling it. fine, whatever, that’s on the user.
But it’s just more Firefox bloat that I have zero desire to deal with. If I wanted bloat in my browser I’d go use Vivaldi.
Firefox updates
New Features Popup
“NEW: AI enchanced features!”
“Enable?”Its not rocket science. Enable the AI crap to pay the heads of your stockholders andale it Opt-IN to keep users happy.
I’m already trying out LibreWolf on desktop and IronFox on mobile.
So far everything is working, probably another week of testing/using and then I’ll just uninstall Firefox.
Y’know what’s even better than a Kill-switch?
Not including it at all.
And that’s why I’ve switched to Waterfox, which honestly, everyone should, show them that it’s not good enough, by switching browser.
Waterfox needs to get on f droid. Trying to never use Google play store, disabled it.
There’s Fennec, which is similar
Until google kills sideloading
Its really too bad we cant outlaw that. Why are we allowing 2 companies to control our mobile devices (apple, google)?
Another reason to just get rid of the stupid phone. My laptops work fine.
Exactly my case as well. There are several Firefox-based browsers better than Firefox itself without the bullshit: Zen, Mercury, LibreWolf, Floorp… All are good options. But the dev behind Waterfox made a public commitment to keep this AI crap out of the browser. That sealed the deal for me.
Now if only I knew the best Android replacement for Firefox…
Check out weblibre
right now for android i recommend ironfox
Serious question: I looked into it but there are no deb packages for Waterfox. What’s the best way to advocate the devs or a distro to make one? Don’t tell me to do it myself since I lack both the time and skill.
They’ve a public git repo, I would say to raise an issue there, I’ll edit in the link in a sec, cause I forget the URL for it
Edit: that URL - https://github.com/BrowserWorks/waterfox/issues
Edit edit: you tried these? https://linuxcapable.com/how-to-install-waterfox-browser-on-debian-linux
