They’ve said they want to do local AIs though. If that’s the case I’m all in.
Mozilla lays off 60 people, wants to build AI into Firefox
Submitted 2 months ago by einat2346@lemmy.today to technology@lemmy.world
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/mozilla-lays-off-60-people-wants-to-build-ai-into-firefox/
Comments
kzhe@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
yojimbo@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Firefox on Android doesn’t support keyboard shortcuts - for the last 12 years. Sooo - let’s add the bloody AI, that is going to help
Siegfried@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Why are u using a keyboard on a smart phone? Is that a thing?
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
- They’re not adding ai to Firefox, at least that’s not what the memo said, the memo said they were refocusing on Firefox (firing people who worked on their metaverse thing for example), and doing so on the side.
- They specifically stated that Firefox mobile is a big focus moving fowards
vox@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
tbf most people aren’t using physical keyboards with their phones, this mostly applies to tablets which are much less popular and android tv (where firefox isn’t even officially supported anymore)
yojimbo@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
bt keyboards can be absolutelly critical for some users with disabilities. most of the developing world can’t afford to own several devices like a computer and a phone.
doctorcrimson@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So to recap, your choices are
-
One of 70 flavors of Chromium including the “privacy centric” Opera who run Chinese loan shark gangs for some reason, Edge which is Microsoft Chromium and aside from hardware acceleration capabilities is pretty meh, and Brave which despite operating their own separate search engine index are one of the most likely to sell your data and/or kidneys
-
Rapidly Enshitifying Firefox
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Safari - no comment
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Whatever the fuck Gecko is…
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
librewolf? mullvad browser? Tor browser?
doctorcrimson@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Librewolf is built on Gecko.
Tor Browser seems cool, it’s what I use on my phone whenever I have spare time to let it load before searching things which don’t require a lot of bandwidth.
Mullvad? Is that some kind of slur? I’ve never heard of that but searches say it’s a VPN client. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
theplanlessman@lemmy.world 2 months ago
RE: point 1, I’m a fan of Vivaldi, a privacy-focused highly modified chromium build developed by former Opera developers who were disillusioned by the direction that company went in.
SpookySnek@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Still chromium sadly. I’ll stick with the only other option until they shit the bed completely :(
doctorcrimson@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That sounds nice, I’ll check it out.
-
maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 2 months ago
I hope the folks laid off land on their feet.
I’m starting to think FF is being deliberately run into the ground by the higher ups. It would be good to hear from some of the devs about their thoughts on all this.
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
fuck firefox! it’s been full of bloat for almost 10 years now. Use Librewolf instead.
Emerald@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Weird to say fuck firefox and then suggest using modified firefox instead
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
That’s not all of what I said
Firefox is full of tracking from advertising companies and Google now
Librewolf is Firefox without the bloat and with hardening done out of the box
pendulum_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This surprises people? Mozilla has always been Mozilla’s biggest enemy.
havokdj@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well guys we had a good run, free and open source software is officially over
vox@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
that’s a bit of an overreaction
Routhinator@startrek.website 2 months ago
Not entirely. There is LibreWolf (Formerly IceWolf) on desktop. librewolf.net
Mull is apparently an Android option that’s also a fork, but I’m just installing it now, and can also say its only on FDroid.
kzhe@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Librewolf will die if Firefox dies. They don’t have the resources to maintain a rendering engine
havokdj@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I know man it’s a joke lol. There’s a bajillion forks of firefox that are mostly better than vanilla firefox itself. FOSS will never die.
Routhinator@startrek.website 2 months ago
Mull works well on android. Firefox login works too.
mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
FUCKING NO MOZILLA YOU WERE OUR LAST FUCKDAMN HOLDOUT
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
they sold out to google and other advertising trackers a long time ago. Librewolf
grubders@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
i thought mozilla new CEO would be better but heck no, sounds like i’ll be hoping around in webkit browsers
hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
why the fuck would I need an AI in a browser? 0 fucks given for this “feature”. firefox is devolving into an edge.
UnityDevice@startrek.website 2 months ago
You already have AI in Firefox - local translations for example. Developing local AI aligns perfectly well with Mozilla’s goals, but it seems people panic as soon as they see the two letters together.
MisterD@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Wiz@midwest.social 2 months ago
“It looks like you are browsing porn. Can I help?”
mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Desperate to gain marketshare, fucking samsung to apple. I hate it and I have no other options left after Firefox is enshittified
red_pigeon@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Oh come on, don’t be a troglodyte. Nowadays we are supposed to need AI everywhere. I’m waiting for my AI bidet so that I can chat with it when I do my business.
havokdj@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“What is my purpose?”
“You wash my asshole when I poop”
“Oh my god”
Flumpkin@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Theoretically I can imagine AI in the browser to be awesome to combat AI on the web. Let the AI wars begin!
mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You really have no fuckdamn naive your statement is. You don’t want an AI war and we cannot avoid one.
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
How about, and run with me on this, Mozilla stops trying to be Microsoft and Google and instead just provides the cleanest, most barebones-yet-privacy-oriented browser? Will they ever have market dominance? No, and they never will even with AI tools. Fuck AI and what it’s doing to the planet and fuck all of the capitalists enshittifying The Last Browser.
Wiz@midwest.social 2 months ago
A browser could be top dog if it was just less shitty than the others, like the Brother printers, that print without bloatware and mob tactics of HP.
We want a browser that just browses.
MisterD@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
But what about AI ? It has to be everywhere! Somebody please think about adding AI to Firefox! I need it to do ???
/s
Virulent@reddthat.com 2 months ago
At this point the only thing that could save Firefox is a rewrite
DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
No! Not again!
SineNomineAnonymous@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Long time FF user, things really aren’t looking good for Mozilla as a whole.
OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The paradox of tech right now “we are going to build the most complex technology known to man into our product in the next 12 months. Are we hiring record numbers of people to get it done? No. We fired a bunch of people and everyone else will just have to be extremely hardcore.”
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
They’re refocusing on Firefox and continuing the ai stuff they were already doing. They fireded people who were working on fediverse and metaverse platforms. Did you even read the article?
Miaou@jlai.lu 2 months ago
Ugh? It’s far from complex
quackers@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
- Some guy with no clue what hes talking about, 2024
Caboose12000@lemmy.world 2 months ago
ew.
LightDelaBlue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
FF no !
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
LoL, and I had been contemplating switching to Firefox on my phone. Fucking nope! Not gonna board a ship that has decided to follow the pack into the ice…
cikano@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So instead you’re using a browser by companies already in the ice?
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Jumping ship means trying to go in a different direction. I’m not gonna upheave my entire online presence just to get onboard with a company who is not only going the same way, but is woefully behind in the race to go that way.
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 2 months ago
To be fair, I’ll take the ship at the back of the ice-kamakaze-pack over the one at the front. More time to jump ship when something better comes by.
twoshoes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m using chrome on phone, because it’s basically part of the operating system, but I did like Fennec. It’s a fork of Firefox mobile with a few more privacy features (or so they advertise)
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m just using Brave (yes, I know but it doesn’t annoy ME so I’m fine with it) which is just Chrome without the constraints.
Coreidan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This world blows
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the browsers, not leave it in darkness!
witx@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
That’s a very good way of me leaving Firefox behind…
lemmylem@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Librewolf is a nice fork of Firefox
frezik@midwest.social 2 months ago
To go where, though? Lynx? Everything else is Chromium and that’s not much better.
witx@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Librewolf. If all else fails I’ll pop my old Emacs config and browse whichever websites I can there
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
To a Gemini reader. Kristall is nice. Lagrange is … interesting.
MeanEYE@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Am smelling a Firefox fork. Though if AI is anything malicious you can rest assured Debian folks would declaw it.
ikidd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If the past is any indication, it’ll either be off by default or you can turn it off. So maybe it isnt’ all the drama that people make it sound like.
jeeva@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But it’s a hellishly expensive thing that seems to not attract enjoyment from current Firefox users, and seems unlikely to bring new users, and (again) seems to be prioritised over other things that could better use the money, like developers, so…
Why.
kttnpunk@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Okay, well I’m ready to write a angry email now who’s with me? Anybody know the best address?
bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social 2 months ago
they have a mastodon instance, and many official accounts with job titles.
browse mastodon.social
Patches@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I gotchu fam.
mellowheat@suppo.fi 2 months ago
laverabe@lemmy.world 2 months ago
paywall
laughterlaughter@lemmy.world 2 months ago
as Firefox is the only browser that can’t trace its lineage back to Apple and WebKit
What a slap on Konqueror’s face.
ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Unfortunately, KHTML was discontinued in 2023
barsoap@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I mean yes no kinda Konqueror simply accepted a bunch of downstream patches, including a name change.
…more or less. It could for a long time use all three of KHTML, WebKit (fork of KHTML) and QtWebEngine (Blink wrapped for Qt, that is, a fork of WebKit), they recently removed KHTML support because noone was updating it and it hasn’t been the default for ages.
If they hadn’t implemented multi-engine support in the past they probably would’ve switched over to “whatever Qt provides” right-out, it’s KDE after all. Ultimately they’re providing a desktop, not a web browser. Back in the days they did decide to roll their own instead of going with Firefox but it was never a “throw project resources at it” kind of situation, there were simply KDE people who felt like working on it. Web standards were a lot less involved back around the turn of the millennium, and also new and shiny. Back in the days people thought that HTML 4.01 Strict and XHMTL would be a thing that servers actually would start to output instead of the usual tagsoup.
laughterlaughter@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s quite the bummer. But still. Saying that almost all browsers can trace their lineage to Apple and Webkit is technically correct, but it’s just a half-truth. As Apple and Webkit were once based on KHTML.
nixcamic@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I don’t really see it this way it’s just marketing. Saying “all other browsers descend from big bad corporate Apple” is scary, saying “all other browsers descend from another open source project” is meh.
laughterlaughter@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You have a point. But still, they could have added an “ackshually” footnote or something.
ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 2 months ago
“It’s all KHTML”, I heard.
shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What a sad day to be alive
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
oh fuck off Mozilla…
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 2 months ago
So, what is else out there? Can the guys making adblocker just make a browser or so?
Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Whyyyy Mozilla? I want to love you, rally, but you wont let me.
normalexit@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I hate that they are laying people off. I do however want to use some machine learning powered adblock, for those harder to block ads, otherwise I don’t feel like every app needs an AI assistant. It’s bad for the Internet generally and for the power grid.
mellowheat@suppo.fi 2 months ago
lol rip
Etterra@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well it’ll be fun trying to find a replacement that doesn’t small use anything made by Google, like Opera does.
hatsa122@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Plz not you mozilla, you are one of the last good guys that remains from the early days
bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social 2 months ago
hard to tell what your objection is. i think layoffs are sad, and i hope it wasn't a matter of corporate greed. but i'm excited for the AI thing