Firefox Will Ship with an "AI Kill Switch" to Completely Disable all AI Features - 9to5Linux

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ekZepp@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://9to5linux.com/firefox-will-ship-with-an-ai-kill-switch-to-completely-disable-all-ai-features

Share this article: Firefox AI Kill Switch

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.

“Something that hasn’t been made clear: Firefox will have an option to completely disable all AI features. We’ve been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I’m sure it’ll ship with a less murderous name, but that’s how seriously and absolutely we’re taking this,” said Firefox developer Jake Archibald on Mastodon.

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Nindelofocho@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Why not just ship it without any of the AI stuff and give users the option to install and use it instead of bloating the application? This also confirms that the stuff is essentially OPT OUT instead of OPT IN

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- candyman337@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The bubble is AI and they want some of that bubble investor money is my guess, so they put optional AI
  
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  - rainwall@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    “On by default unless you run down a setting buried in a menu” is the thinnest type of optional in computing.
    
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- Tanoh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  In their defense a very tiny percentage of users even open options and of those an even smaller actually change stuff.
  
  Maybe slighlty different for Firefox as probably more power user use it than other random programs. But basically if something is not enabled by default, it doesn’t exist.
  
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- Ininewcrow@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  And also ….. will the kill switch turn off the AI entirely … or partially? Since the AI system is baked in, will elements of it still operate in the background even if you turn off the switch?
  
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  - mirshafie@europe.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Not sure what you mean by “will it operate in the background”? The current (and planned) features collect no data. The “operate” when you use them. Disabling them will remove them from the UI.
    
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  - ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    What he wrote doesn’t seem ambiguous on this at all. But we’ll see.
    
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- ceenote@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Because they’re counting on people who know nothing about technology using the AI stuff when it’s placed in front of them.
  
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- tauonite@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  All AI features will also be opt-in. I think there are some grey areas in what ‘opt-in’ means to different people (e.g. is a new toolbar button opt-in?), but the kill switch will absolutely remove all that stuff, and never show it in future. That’s unambiguous.
  
  Sounds like they will be opt in, not opt out
  
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  - rainwall@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    No, go deeper into that thread.
    
    The dev has a really hinky defention of “opt-in” thats basicslly “yes we push all this on by default and realize it will be the nirm for most of our users because of that, but you technically dont have to interact with it so thats opt-in.”
    
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  - tauonite@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I don’t see why there is a big outrage. Sure I’m not a fan of the AI features and I certainly will disable them but it’s tot like they’re forced upon me. Some people like (want) AI in the browser and good for them. For me, it doesn’t change my experience at all
    
    (Commented this separately on purpose)
    
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- 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This should just have been an extension. Having this as a core integration makes the browser have more surface area for attack.
  
  If compromised, it won’t be an easy fix like disabling/removing an extension.
  
  Looks like execs behind closed doors are just trying to water down the Firefox brand until it’s hollow and then jump ship.
  
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- loutr@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Many people love AI, I have a lot of acquaintances who actively seek out the best “AI browser” whatever that means. It makes sense for mozilla not to fall out this bandwagon just yet.
  
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Sanctus@anarchist.nexus ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Is there nobody with sanity left? This has blown up so much the user base clearly does not want it. Focus your efforts elsewhere. You gain marketshare by putting users first. Also fuck markets.

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- troed@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If all Firefox users donated to Mozilla it could work. Alas, we don't.
  
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  - rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I probably would, if the organizational structure and its spending focus(es) weren’t so fucked up. They have been spending insane amounts of money on bullshit like AI instead of core browser features, and their leadership has extremely high wages for something that should be a non-profit open source organization. And it has been like this for years at this point.
    
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  - 6nk06@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You can donate to Mozilla, you cannot donate to Firefox.
    
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  - douglasg14b@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Pretty much this.
    
    They are making market based decisions because they have to, and all the users bitching and moaning about them making financially driven decisions don’t donate anyways.
    
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  - phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Then let’s
    
    How? Where? I’ll donate, take my money, and ads a voting system where paying users can vote for the next features
    
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  - Sanctus@anarchist.nexus ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I would donate if I ever had spare money but I never do.
    
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- ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  A very vocal portion of the user base, but we don’t actually know what absolute portion cares. I’m personally unlikely to use possible AI features outside translation, but Mozilla has generally done enough that I don’t feel particularly worried they’re going to mess with my privacy or force me to use a feature I don’t want.
  
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  - Dekkia@this.doesnotcut.it ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They could do a survey amongst Firefox users about what they want.
    
    But if the result is anti-AI they can’t claim anymore that they weren’t aware of their users opinions.
    
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- Emi@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  We need valve but for browsers.
  
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  - tonytins@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Funny. That’s exactly what Mozilla used to be.
    
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  - SinningStromgald@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Floorpand Ladybird seem to be the two browsers people are looking towards to shakeup the browser market once they release.
    
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  - ChaosMonkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It seems to me that the issue is how we consume the web versus games: We’re used to pay to play but not to browse the internet. Valve is able to make money without relying on affiliations or donations.
    
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- Xylight@lemdro.id ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Getting stuck on Lemmy can get us into an echo chamber. A lot of the mass public actively uses AI and may even appreciate these features.
  
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  - XLE@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    [citation needed]
    
    This sounds like an opinion from the LinkedIn echo chamber.
    
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brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Does anyone even talk about what the “AI features” are?

Could I, liked darken webpages? Automated ublock filters? Create a price/feature table out of a shopping page?

See, this would all be neat like auto translate is neat. But I’m not really interested in the 7 millionth barebones chatbot UI. I’m not interested in loading a whole freaking LLM to auto name my tabs, or in some cutsie auto navigation agent experiment that still only works like 20% of the time with a 600B LLM, or a shopping chatbot that doesn’t do anything like Amazon/Perplexity.

That’s the weird thing about all this. I’m not against neat features, but “AI!” is not a feature, and everyone is right to assume it will be some spam because that’s what 99% of everything is.

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- fodor@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Right right. If they had real innovation, they would have defined it clearly as you suggested. But they didn’t, so they don’t. It’s all snake oil, again, because that’s the entire AI industry.
  
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  - frank@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The term snake oil is actually especially fitting for this, due to its origins.
    
    In Britain in the 1700s there was a somewhat common recommendation for using rattlesnake oil from the fat of the snake for skin diseases/rheumatism. The efficacy is debated but it’s got some amount of potential for change (if not help).
    
    This turned into people in the US selling mineral oil as “snake oil” as a total panacea. So a product that actually could do stuff being used as the poster child for a completely useless product that can solve every issue ever, buy as much as you can today.
    
    Snake oil indeed.
    
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- SlurpingPus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You reminded me that one use for AI I’d really like is removing all photos of Trump, Musk and Putin from my screen. Another is filtering the twenty reposts of every event in US politics. Alas, I need these in phone apps more than the browser.
  
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  - brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You don’t need LLMs for that. An iPhone is plenty powerful enough for image recognition and text classification.
    
    That’s sorta the funny thing about AI. There’s tons of potential, but it’s just unimplemented. Even on PC, you pretty much have to have some Nvidia GPU and fight pip setting up python repos to get anything working.
    
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  - chunes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I would use it to block all the people whining about AI
    
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  - rozodru@pie.andmc.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    you don’t even need AI for that and can do it on your phone. Piefeed for example asks you when initially setting up an account “Hey do you want to see stuff about Trump, Musk, etc? no? cool we won’t show you that” and that’s it. works great.
    
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  - Cherry@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’d like a AI feature that bounces back on any ads or intrusive crap including propaganda. But AI is being pushed by the same people so if it happens it won’t be genuine and it will just evolve to give the illusion of not being pushed.
    
    FF, any browser, any social media platform , I can select ‘I don’t wanna see this’ or go adjust settings to disable but nah, an update later and it’s back, or it comes back under another form.
    
    It’s still manipulation. And I can’t trust it to manipulate ever.
    
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- mirshafie@europe.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  AI chatbot in sidebar (you can choose which chatbot you want, similar to how you choose default search engine)
  
  Shake to summarize page (on mobile)
  
  AI Window (separate from Normal and Private window, upcoming). Apparently it lets you chat with an AI agent to power-browse the internet.
  
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  - FinalRemix@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    So, nothing.
    
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  - jaybone@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Can’t wait to power browse.
    
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  - brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The later is the mildly interesting one, but in my experience just not useful enough to do much, even on specific browsing finetunes or augmented APIs.
    
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  - Zorque@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    Apparently it lets you chat with an AI agent to power-browse the internet.
    
    … I feel I have an idea of what this means, but it still breaks my brain just a little bit.
    
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- TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Does anyone even talk about what the “AI features” are?
  
  The one I use the most is their offline translation. I don’t have to send my data to Google Translate.
  
  My sister (blind) uses the new screen reader stuff a lot.
  
  Mozilla is certainly adding good AI features, but the chatbot integration isn’t something I have much use for.
  
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  - baggachipz@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Translation and screen reader have been a solved thing for a while, no “AI” browser necessary. I’m all for nice features, but bolting in a chat bot that phones home with activity data ain’t one of them.
    
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- Tehhund@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Could I, liked recolor webpages? Automate ublock filters? Detect SEO/AI slop?
  
  This is an excellent point: there are potential features I wouldn’t mind trying out. But of course those features aren’t available, because aren’t the features that Mozilla leadership’s buddies in tech are pushing, and often work against what big tech wants.
  
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Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The reason the “kill-switch” wasn’t made clear originally was because it literally didn’t exist until users very vocally tool them where to shove their AI crap.

It was added on afterwards.

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- Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What? They’ve been talking about the features now being called a “kill switch” for almost a year. Literally all they did was give it a dumb name.
  
  Image
  
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  - ErmahgherdDavid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Synthetic datasets are typically generated from models that were trained by poverty-pay Kenyans. This is basically ethics-washing.
    
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- TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s literally not true, though? They’ve spoke about it for ages.
  
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Atomic@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Repeat after me. “There is no such thing as a non physical kill switch”

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- A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yep. Have no reason to trust it does what it says it does.
  
  and even if it does what it says it does, no reason to believe that it wont default to on with the next update.
  
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  - Atomic@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m just gonna say this. The former head of CIA had his laptop camera taped over. If he doesn’t trust the digital toggle. Neither should you.
    
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- Tiger_Man_@szmer.info ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  sudo rm -rf /*:
  
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  - Atomic@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You’re not deleting the data. Just the adress to the data.
    
    Still not a kill switch.
    
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- Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  “Software controls are sufficient and hardware controls are expensive. Robust software protections are just as safe as hardware based lockouts.” - people who have never heard of Therac-25
  
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biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The real issue is not whether we are going to be force-fed this features or not, but the fact that a foundation with limited resources is going to spend any sizable amount of them developing a solution its users are not interested in.

Waiting for Ladybird at this point.

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- vzqq@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  These guys played host to one of the tech world’s most prominent homophobes for decades. In like the browser but the foundation has been trying to fuck everything up since the beginning of the web.
  
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  - TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Huh? The board ousted him when his political donations came out
    
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  - markko@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    According to your link below he was co-founder of Mozilla in 1998. Based on the other information on that page, he had a very significant role in shaping Mozilla and their tools, so as disagreeable as his personal views may be, it’s not impossible that Firefox might not even exist today were it not for his work there.
    
    Someone else has already pointed out that he was pushed out, but he actually resigned due to public pressure (he was only CEO for 11 days, and one of the board members even left due to him being appointed) before going on to found Brave and becoming the CEO there lol.
    
    If I chose not to use products based on the personal beliefs of the people who worked on them I don’t think I’d have very many options. Mozilla has made heaps of questionable decisions over the years, but the other options are generally much worse.
    
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- Wooki@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Librewolf
  
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puppinstuff@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Not buying it. Kill switch will migrate further and further into about:config until it eventually too goes away without notice in an update six months from now.

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- silasmariner@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  No that’s way too paranoid. Honestly 20 years not 6 months. And by then ladybird will be viable so nbd
  
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rozodru@pie.andmc.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- Landless2029@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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tonytins@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I have a better kill switch: Waterfox and LibreWolf. Don’t have to worry about of that nonsense right out the gate.

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- ekZepp@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Image
  
  👍
  
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- eager_eagle@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Zen has also committed to not include AI features
  
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- Cherry@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I jumped to LibreWolf this week. Really like it, it looks acat and feels the same. But I trust it more.
  Been a FF user for over 10 years.
  
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- ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  But that’s just saying that instead of using Firefox and not turning on the feature, you’ll use a less maintained version of Firefox where they didn’t enable the feature. I don’t feel like those projects have much value add in the privacy spectrum compared to Firefox, particularly when one of them was owned by an advertising company, and neither of them actually has the resources to maintain or operate a browser in isolation, which is a major concern regarding security and privacy both.
  
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- Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Some websites doesn’t work with librewolf like Onshape.com . Is there an easy solution for website like those?
  
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oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They could save themselves all that bullshit by just not bothering with any of it!

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- MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Or they can give people to option to use or not use it.
  
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gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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@programming.dev

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Dekkia@this.doesnotcut.it ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I hope people don’t buy the story that the kill switch was part of the plan all along.

This is clearly the result of mozilla scrabling for a compromise after the backlash to their recent announcement.

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termaxima@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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bitjunkie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Until the bad press dies down and they feel like removing it

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Sam_Bass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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

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justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Thats nice mozilla.

Installed and set up Librewolf yesterday. Absolutely recommend to everyone.

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Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Or they could just ship it without the AI

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flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
In their defense, Mozilla doesn’t have their own source of income, they heavily depend on search sponsorships. Jumping onto the AI train is one way to keep afloat for now

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skisnow@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Why not start with disabling it by default and see how many people switch it on?

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Burninator05@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I don’t really know what an ‘ai browser’ is and at this point I feel like i really need to ask. What makes a browser “AI”?

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BaraCoded@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They could save time and efforts and just not implement AI features

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titanicx@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is a response to all the backlash. Oops, we"forgot" to mention you can completely turn this all off… (Quick, vibe code a kill switch guys!)

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GunnarGrop@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
IDK guys, do you think a web browser should be a “broader ecosystem of trusted software” or a web browser?

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friend_of_satan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Too late. I switched to librewolf.

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Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
only shipped it because of the backlash, they will quitely remove it eventually.

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tryagain@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Too late - they already lost me.

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nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
i wish they would release a second browser instead of whatever this is

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Jhex@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
clearly some damage control strategy here… but good news if true

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teft@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They must’ve noticed people fleeing in droves to librewolf or floorp.

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Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It would be trusted if that shit wasn’t in there to start with.

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