First thing I did when some hey we added AI… was to right-click and disable it.
Mozilla under fire for Firefox AI "bloat" that blows up CPU and drains battery
Submitted 8 months ago by moe90@feddit.nl to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Now, several users have taken to the Firefox subreddit to complain about high CPU usage when using the feature, as well as express their disappointment in Mozilla for adding AI to the browser.
I don’t think even downloads the model if you never enable or use it.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
Isn’t this enabled by default? And don’t you have to manually edit the config settings in the browser to disable it?
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
It wasn’t for me
browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled = false
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
“I’ve noticed that my CPU, GPU, and power usage when I run games. Valve needs to fix this ASAP!”
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world 8 months ago
I love that people get upset that their CPU is using its resources when they're using it.
callouscomic@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Why don’t they download more CPU? Are they stupid?
mannycalavera@feddit.uk 8 months ago
I want my cou to be idle all the time! Damn it why did I spend so much on a CPU only for it to “do work”? FFS.
Psythik@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Reminds me of how some people get upset when their OS uses up all their RAM, no matter how much they have. It’s like they want their PC to be sluggish and unresponsive. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.
nathan@piefed.alphapuggle.dev 8 months ago
Holy fucking shit. I swear to God, I had to download chromium because running Jupiter lab in browser ate through 22gb of ram and got my shit OOM killed. If this is what's causing it I stg. I'm not even using vanilla Firefox, but the Zen fork got tebased on v141 right before this happened
Evotech@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sounds kind a jupyter lab issue
nathan@piefed.alphapuggle.dev 8 months ago
Julyterlab has been pinned for multiple versions now and the issue only started happening on the latest Firefox update. Still works fine in chromium
vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Keep firing
funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hmm, I bet Librewolf doesn’t have that…
pycorax@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Instead of capitalising on Google pissing off power users with its crusade against adblockers, why the hell is Mozilla fucking up so hard here? Seriously, which chain of command green lit all of this and didn’t even think this would be remotely an issue?
hummingbird@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The company is doomed with this kind of leadership
absquatulate@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Even if they wanted to bank on the adblocker thing I imagine they can’t because they have to stay in Google’s good graces. Like 90% of their revenue was google money, and has been for years now.
At this point I’d honestly even pay for a privacy focused mozilla browser that is clean of all this crap, just to keep them afloat, but fat chance of that happening.
pycorax@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
At this point I’d honestly even pay for a privacy focused mozilla browser that is clean of all this crap, just to keep them afloat, but fat chance of that happening.
As much as I’d love for something like that I don’t think it’s even remotely possible. I don’t think enough people are willing enough to pay for a browser that respects them, heck the amount of people who remain on Chrome shows that people aren’t even willing to take a small step to stop using a browser that’s actively working against their interests. I’d love to be proven wrong though.
not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
it might have been Laura Chambers, who is CEO since early 2024.
It has been less than a week since the new interim CEO took over the reigns from long-time Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. Today news broke that Mozilla is changing its product strategy going forward. The organization plans to focus on bringing “trustworthy AI into Firefox” and to scale back some of its other products and services.
Breaking: Mozilla changes strategy, focuses on Firefox and AI
She used to work for McKinsey according to her Wikipedia which explains a lot if you ask me.
orclev@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sadly this is nothing new for Mozilla. It’s easier to count the decisions they’ve made that aren’t terrible than the ones that are. Their history is a long series of fuckups occasionally punctuated by a decent decision.
medem@lemmy.wtf 8 months ago
Because of this, I’ve always had ‘mixed feelings’ (to put it mildly) towards Mozilla, and sometimes I really struggle not to hate them. They’re (yet) not Google or Microsoft and that’s cool, but besides that, I also cannot think of more than a handful of good decisions against a ton of pretty awful ones, so right now I’ve settled for ‘a necessary evil’, which is pretty sad considering their potential.
paequ2@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Come to LibreWolf, the waters fine!
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Am a wolf (that uses LW), can confirm
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
It really is! Just needs ya Android fork and it’ll be on all my devices.
orclev@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Try IronFox on android.
not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
use ironfox for android, it’s the continuation of Mull
nothingcorporate@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Waterfox and/or Librewolf FTW
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Is that what the FUCK has been happening? I’ve been having tabs just BLOW Up in ram and CPU usage
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
This doesn’t trigger unless you enable and use it afaik
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Same here … all I do is read most of the time … I’m only interested in reading about 2,000 words which shouldn’t take any data … yet Firefox will struggle under the weight of advertising, adblock, scripts, background links, preloading and all kinds of stupidity that I will not and refuse to use.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The pathological need to find something to use LLMs for is so bizzare.
It’s like the opposite of classic ML, relatively tiny special purpose models trained for something critical that just can’t be done conventionally.
But this:
AI-enhanced tab groups. Powered by a local AI model, these groups identify related tabs and suggest names for them. There is even a “Suggest more tabs for group” button that users can click to get recommendations.
Take out the word AI.
enhanced tab groups. Powered by a local algorithm, these groups identify related tabs and suggest names for them. There is even a “Suggest more tabs for group” button that users can click to get recommendations.
If this feature took, say, a gigabyte of RAM and a bunch of CPU, it would be laughed out. But somehow it ships because it has the word AI in it? That makes no sense.
I am a massive local LLM advocate, but this is just stupid.
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Another local LLM guy here, i fully agree with you - this is just a move to probably acquire capital in the case that the google-cashflow stops.
Saleh@feddit.org 8 months ago
I agree with you on almost everything.
It’s like the opposite of classic ML, relatively tiny special purpose models trained for something critical, out of desperation, because it just can’t be done well conventionally.
Here i disagree. ML is using high dimensional statistics. There exist many problems, which are by their nature problems of high dimensional statistics.
If you have for an example an engineering problem, it can make sense to use an ML approach, to find patterns in the relationship between input conditions and output results. Based on this patterns you have an idea, where you need to focus in the physical theory for understanding and optimizing it.
Another example for “generative AI” i have seen is creating models of hearts. So by feeding it the MRI scans of hundreds of real hearts, millions of models for probable heart shapes can be created and the interaction with medical equipment can be studied on them. This isn’t a “desperate” approach. It is a smart approach.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Fair point. Not on the semantics, but on taking the best approach, yeah.
tabular@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Based on this patterns you have an idea, where you need to focus in the physical theory for understanding and optimizing it.
How do you tell what the patterns are, or how to interpret them?
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
even without AI, to me tab groups are already feature creep bloat in browsers. do people really put that much effort into organizing tabs?
hisao@ani.social 8 months ago
You probably look at tabs as something inherently transient. In my tab group powered workflow a lot of tabs are persistent between browser restarts and stay open at all times. To try to formalize it, there is a set of core tabs that are permanently open, and there are transient tabs are opened and closed from those core tabs. Before tab groups I used “Tree Style Tab” extension but I like tab groups more. It’s especially cool tab groups are integrated well with containers so that you can have for example I2P tab group tied to I2P container configured to use I2P proxy port to automatically browse all tabs opened within group through your I2P proxy port.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It is to some people. My approach though, when I happen to have multiple “work group” to organize, is just to use my OS ability to have multiple windows. No need for any extra bloat, the feature is already there, and it works as I’m used to.
But apparently, using the tools already available to you is not a common skill these days :(
RecursiveParadox@lemmy.world 8 months ago
For work at any given point I have 17-20 tabs open. It’s totally useful for me to sort them into tabs to cut out the “noise” when I’m doing research.
tabular@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I started using tab groups when they released vertical tabs.
mr_satan@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Yes, especially at work. Different tasks, different tab groups. Once the task is done, the group dies. Really useful when working on multiple tasks at “the same time”.
Pair that with multi account containers and temporary containers and it’s a godsend tool for web dev.
exu@feditown.com 8 months ago
I like the tab groups. I use them often at work to group an issue with related tabs and my attempts at solving it. Also makes it easier to pause work on one problem and work on something else because I have the tabs grouper and know exactly where to go back.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 8 months ago
No, but I think the idea of a second layer of organization to tabs is a wonderful idea. Maybe not a gig of RAM to sort them, sure.
Godort@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
The pathological need to find something to use LLMs for is so bizzare.
Venture capital dumped so much money into the tech without understanding the full scope of what it was capable of. Now they’re so in so deep that they desperately NEED to find something profitable it can do, otherwise they’ll lose the farm.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Firefox has little financial motivation for this, though?
Other than getting “AI” investor money, if that’s the plan… But otherwise it just feels like they’re following a meme.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 8 months ago
When I’m browsing around with multiple tabs open, the last thing I want is something to start moving them around and messing my flow up. This is a solution looking for a problem.
otter@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Yup
The auto naming feature is neat in some cases, like the AI chats themselves
- It’s convenient for searching through 10s or 100s of chats later on
- I spawn new chats often and it’s tedious to name them
- I don’t have a strong preference for what the title is as long as it’s clear what the chat was about
Tab groups don’t hit those points at all
- I’ll have a handful of tab groups
- I don’t make them often
- I have a strong preference for what it’s called, and the AI will have trouble figuring out exactly what I’m using those sites for
Krudler@lemmy.world 8 months ago
browser.ml.chat.enabled false
mesamunefire@piefed.social 8 months ago
I hate how many of these you have to do on any new installation of Firefox.
Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
A space for vanilla ff experience extension, sort of like sanemacs?
woelkchen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You only disable the chat. Overall setting seems to be
browser.ml.enable.burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
I also see an extensions.ml.enable. Anyone with actual knowledge of the source code know what those are doing?
Serinus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
about:config
in your address bar
themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Mozilla does it again, adding useless crap.
xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Make a stable, privacy respecting, robust browser with a powerful extension environment? No let’s try do do chrome 2
haloduder@thelemmy.club 8 months ago
It’s definitely an issue with the culture among tech companies.
They’re all regurgitating each other’s shit, so whenever a bad idea gets passed around, they all jump on board.
tempest@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
How do you think they will do that without any money?
It’s always “just do the browser” , ignoring the fact that everything you listed doesn’t matter at all to the general public who are likely using Chrome because it’s the default on their device.
Mozilla is trying to find revenue sources but people just complain about it.
The AI integration is clearly attempting to be a new search box.
Dicska@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I switched to FF after having enough of Chrome’s shenanigans. I don’t make changes easily, and I took the sacrifice of not being able to receive calls over Facebook (desktop browser, and some of my acquaintances wouldn’t leave FB), and I still preferred Firefox after that.
And now they want to turn it into another Chrome? I could still just use Chrome and have the lost functionality. I mean I won’t, but they will just lose users with that direction.