Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features | Hacker News Reader

Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

macrumors.com

212 pointsstalfosknight107 comments

Of all the unnecessary AI integrations; firefox is the one I am least concerned or annoyed about. I will however be disabling anything AI related they introduce.

The presence of the code itself is a threat. There's no good reason it shouldn't be an extension, beholden to all the same "security" restrictions other extensions are.

Yes, a web browser should prioritize security and simplicity, and put optional features in a sandbox.

I am tired of turning features off. At this point I just want a boring browser that handles html/css/js, bookmarks, tabs (should sleep inactive tabs), plugins (for my chosen password manager and ad blocker), and page zoom. Those are the only features I actually use regularly.

That's it, I would be willing to make a one time purchase for that, no subscriptions... Ok, I could maybe be convinced for a subscription if it was a low yearly one.

Don't forget an obfuscation layer to spoof things like canvas fingerprinting, installed fonts, etc. I'd pay for that.

Sure, I just want the core browser stuff and plugins, security/privacy kinda goes with that.

It feels like browsers are like old IDEs where everything is bundled in. I think it would be much better it they were more like modern code editors where people can make their own custom IDE by installing the plugins they want.

Yup, providing better APIs for external bookmarks management, password management, etc would be much better than trying to provide some “one size fits all full featured built in” implementation.

Its not good enough for a fork. It needs to be a major, well maintained product, like firefox.

Safari is 90% this, and maybe before they changed how extensions worked it was like 99% this. I weep for how close it was.

You should probably look into https://justthebrowser.com/. This software sets up browser corporate policies to achieve exactly what you want.

By getting you run run arbitrary code when in the end all is does is install this policy file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/just-the-b...

Maybe we need a justtheconfig.com

The real question is whether this sets a precedent for how browsers should handle feature creep in general. Browsers have quietly accumulated telemetry, sponsored content, pocket integrations, VPN upsells — AI is just the latest.

What I like about Mozilla's approach here is the single toggle for all current and future AI. That's a genuine concession to user agency rather than the usual whack-a-mole of about:config flags. If every new feature category got this treatment (a clear, discoverable off switch), browsers would be in a much better place trust-wise.

The deeper issue is that Mozilla needs revenue diversification beyond the Google search deal, and AI features are their bet on that. So the incentive to make the toggle hard to find or slowly degrade the non-AI experience will always be there. I'd love to see them prove that wrong.

> the single toggle for all current and future AI. That's a genuine concession to user agency rather than the usual whack-a-mole of about:config flags

My thought exactly! I'm grateful that Mozilla isn't hiding the features behind dark config UI patterns.

They can't afford to, or they would have. With ads in the browser, telemetry that doesn't really switch off, etc. etc. their brand value has really fallen.

I keep meaning to make a guide "how to make firefox not suck" but I never get around to it.

It's a great browser, but I always forget the default settings are super stupid. Myself and power users all have it customized to the hilt.

It takes some serious work to get a new new FireFox install working nicely.

Could you mention some of these settings? I moved to Firefox from being a Chrome user and interested to know improvements

This. Since Firefox claims to be a privacy-first browser, it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting), and include uBlock Origin out of the box.

But it should go even further; the ultimate goal should be for all Firefox users to basically look the same from the point of view of third parties and put an end to tracking in the modern Web.

> report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting

How much do these break functionality? If I spoof language, am I going to start seeing websites in German? If I spoof screen size, am I going to get weirdly zoomed websites?

If anything, it might unbreak things.

I have my browser set to request, in order, English, a different English, then a non-English language. Some sites (Android docs, Gitlab, F-Droid) will send me the non-English content; Google even preferentially does their AI translation thing instead of the original English.

Then for some web sites it won't matter and display the dominant language of the country that you're accessing from. My Firefox sends US English as the only preferred language, but a ton of US tech companies default to showing web sites in Japanese without a way to change it because I access them from Japan. It's pretty typical of American companies that don't understand localization and accessibility.

Most infuriating is when they do it based on GeoIP. So what I'm in Istanbul currently, I know maybe a dozen words in Turkish. But no, and also they insist on having broken language switchers.

The settings used by Arkenfox broadly mirror that of the Tor browser. If you find Tor usable, then Firefox with this config should be fine.

Likewise. The main thing I change is enforcing separate address bar and search box. It takes a lot of configuring to make the address bar stop being "smart" (i.e. never send things I type there to a search engine even if they're not valid URLs), and I can't even remember what options I used to fix it.

The only things I do with a new copy of Firefox is install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and it works quite nicely.

(Oh, and an extension that redirects reddit links to old reddit, and RES)

privacy badger is still alive??

Um, yes? Last update in December. Did someone prematurely call it dead?

i think what keeps it alive is that it shows up on the default "extensions you might especially like" screen inside the "install extensions" menu

If I'm not mistaken, no need to use Privacy Badger if you're already using uBlock Origin and Firefox Total Cookie Protection. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1d3so6g/should_i_u...

Nah, Privacy Badger is different. PB doesn't use ad blocker lists and comes with its own special features like replacing tweets with click-to-activate placeholders. And if you want to block all ads, PB works well in combination with ad blockers.

As for Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection, cookies are not the only tracking vector: https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with...

No kidding. I had to create a Google Doc document to remember all the little things that I have to clobber in Firefox to make it behave reasonably. Here is an excerpt of how I clobber the defaults:

  - Enable pixel-perfect smooth scrolling (Linux): MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 (why do we still have to do this??)
  - Enable: Ctrl-Tab cycles through recent used order
  - Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab"
  - Disable: "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab group"
  - Disable: "Enable Picture-in-Picture video controls"
  - Disable: "Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface"
  - Disable: "Recommend extensions as you browse"
  - Disable: "Recommend features as you browse"
  - Disable: "Enable link previews"
  - Homepage and new windows: Blank page
  - New tabs: Blank page
  - Disable: Web Search
  - Disable: Weather
  - Disable: Shortcuts
  - Disable: Recommended stories
  - Disable: Support Firefox
  - Disable: "Save and autofill payment info"
  - Disable: "Save and autofill addresses"
  - Disable: "Ask to save passwords"
  - Locations: Select "Block new requests asking to access your location"
  - Notification: Select "Block new requests asking to allow notifications"
  - Autoplay: Select "Block Audio and Video"
  - Virtual Reality: Select "Block new requests asking to access your virtual reality devices"
  - Default Search engine: DuckDuckGo
  - Disable "Suggest search engines to use"
  - Disable "Quick actions"
  - Disable "Suggestions from Firefox"
  - Disable: "Title Bar"
  - Default Zoom: 110%, 120%, depending on the laptop

I probably forgot a few things.

And I install the following extensions:

  - uBlock Origin
  - Privacy Badger
  - Facebook Container
  - Firefox Multi-account Container

Or you could just use user.js and not have to change every setting manually each time you start from scratch.

Yes, Betterfox all the way in + few custom settings.

I am still in position where I need to put some small pipeline to automatically download latest + merge my stuff and deploy, but even if it's manual every month or two it's not too bad.

Did not know about 'user.js', thanks! I guess creating a document that lists all my overrides was the first step. Now I have to figure out how to create a user.js that works on Linux, Macos, Windows, and maybe Android?

Same file works everywhere. Just leave out the ones that are different on platforms:

- browser.download.dir

- browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk

And instead of making a "google doc" a plaintext file would be better.

This is why I use nixos so I can easily deploy a configured firefox quickly

I just copy-paste the firefox profile folder. No need to reconfigure anything and the session is also preserved.

How does nixos solve Firefox configuration on MacOS and Windows? :-) I use all 3 OSes daily.

What does the Facebook container do that can't be done by the Multi-Account Container? I just have a Facebook/Google/AWS/etc. container set up there.

For starters, it has a habit of ruining navigation closing the page you were on when you clicked the Facebook-ish link. :p

multi container is top top, one for email, one for banking, one for shopping, one for socials

It's automatic. So if you open Facebook, or any Meta site, it automatically puts it in it's own container.

Together with Privacy Badger, Meta has no clue what you're doing on the rest of the web.

But MAC does that, too, if you create a "Facebook" container.

But I think you have to add every Meta domain into that container manually. The other one sounds like it's got them all already put into their own container. Convenient if you one day decide to set up an account on Instagram but never used it before, and forget to add it to the container.

At this level you'll probably find more utility in starting your own fork of firefox

Is this just a matter of preference or is it something else?

"Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab""

I guess personal preference?

Image preview is slightly slower and has noticeable latency, compared to the text popup that is almost instantaneous.

And it is more visually distracting. I hate UI features that interfere with my workflow. I hate most UI animations. I turned animations off on my Android phone, and now the thing just flies.

A coworker (hi Robert!) created his own version of Firefox that doesn’t suck, with sane defaults and keyboard centric: https://github.com/glide-browser/glide

Pretty impressive project, and it’s really nice to use, I would recommend to give it a try

Why are there controls to turn off AI features, but no controls to turn on AI features?

Because Firefox users have been clamoring for the ability to turn them off rather than the opposite.

I think they're asking why it has to be opt-out rather than opt-in.

The likely answer is an incentive structure that rewards someone for maximizing 'number of users using AI'.

I think you misunderstand. Firefox users have wanted this to be opt-in or explicit-choice rather than opt-out.

The implication is that all future AI features will be opt-out.

I think the parent comment is snark. They're saying that since many Firefox users are saying "Let me turn off AI features, please!" for features they don't want at all, and few to no Firefox users are saying "Let me turn on AI features!" because few to no Firefox users want AI features in the first place, Mozilla is making AI features opt-out to "satisfy" the "want" of turning off AI features.

Those are helpfully enabled by default, you can put your feet up, Moz has you covered.

In the parallel universe where Firefox defaults to ai features being off, there's a snarky comment like yours about why it isn't on by default.

It is really tiring to hear this stuff. People (rightfully) complained there was no switch. One was added. In Chrome, you can't turn off Google's ai unless you install a third party extension that hasn't yet been blocked by Google. Not a lot of companies allow disabling their garbage, but FF does.

Can't we be happy with this nice switch?

> Not a lot of companies allow disabling their garbage, but FF does. > > Can't we be happy with this nice switch?

I want my tools to keep working the way they have been working. I don't want to be paranoid that "garbage" (as you put it), or any other controversial changes, are going to be slipped into my tools while I'm not looking.

There is something to be said about that. Firefox does keep inserting it's 'helpful features' like Pocket on users, which is very annoying.

My point is just that everyone is so critical of Firefox, when the alternative is disproportionately, orders of magnitude worse for the user.

I'd rather bash on minor Firefox grievances when it's the #1 browser, not when it's losing/lost the browser war and it's our last chance at browser engine diversity.

You need to read again. Parent is asking opt-in, not opt-out. Firefox should have been doing opt-in

You ever walk into the bathroom at work and find someone else's shit fully clogging the toilet that you now have to fix?

That's why.

It's perfectly within your capability to plunge someone else's shit down the toilet. It's not even difficult.

Why can't you be happy with this solution? They gave you a plunger, it's not like you're clearing the toilet with your bare hands!

In this example, nearly every other company in existence gives their employees nothing and asks them to use their hands (forcing AI with no option).

It's hard for me to look at Google, Win11, M$ office, and then complain about Firefox.

Most of the features in the article are already opt-in. It's not like Firefox just automatically translates articles against your will, for example.

Mozilla is mainly responding to inflammatory comments like yours by adding additional toggles to disable any sort of trace in the UI about those features even existing.

I'm worried that this will require yet another config change on top of the already-ridiculous pile. (A listing was discussed 3 months ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45696752 )

If you click through you can see that the new feature includes a single toggle to turn off all current and future AI.

That's the third-best design they could have. Second-best would be having a toggle to turn on AI. Best would be going back to building a browser and leaving out the AI entirely, or putting it in some other product that they only consider funding after they get back to 50% market share for the browser.

Market share statistics include Chrome- and Safari-based webviews do they not?

Pretty much impossible for Firefox to achieve 50% of market share

This is a good start, but there is still no way to remove what is sure to be tremendous bloat caused by these features. I would prefer if we could opt to install (or not install) them to begin with.

I remember when they removed the compact UI mode because it was "too much effort" to maintain. But I guess all this crap that no one asked for is fine, right?

Official announcement: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-controls/

Well, I'm looking forward to the new AI features and I use the AI sidebar regularly. Thanks Mozilla

I'd say browsers are a pretty good way of delivering models that run locally.

Currently, this tech is a sleeper because consumer hardware is not there yet.

Extensions, even websites, could benefit a lot from offering small models on demand and powering client-side features with them.

That is very different from a browser that embeds AI access through an API, and totally acceptable.

To be used for what? Summarising web pages?

I can give you a couple of examples:

I recently made an extension to "bookmark data". It's an auto scraper, but client side.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lidar/eckcmnibplmme...

The user has to pick the elements so the extension knows which selectors to track across similar pages.

While developing it, I imagined a near future in which a small enough model could do that for me.

In fact, if I had the resources, I could probably train one specifically for that and use webnn or onnx or something to deliver it.

I also made a quick drum beat generator https://alganet.github.io/quick-beats/

One of the things I wanted to do is improved beat detection. Several music apps have some sort of tempo detection (you tap on the desk and the microphone catches it and figures out the tempo).

While I can certainly use audio analysis to do that, it has its limits. If I wanted to detect a full drum pattern (the user taps on different objects for kick and snare, and the app fills them), something machine-learny sounds much more appropriate for the job.

---

Your poke at the issue "for what? summarising web pages?" is valid though. While I don't have the resources to train those models I mentioned, the resulting weights should be fairly compatible with todays consumer hardware.

I blame the complete and utter lack of imagination of small-to-mid AI labs for the missing variety in that space.

It results in people not being very creative in imagining valid, non-shitty spammy marketing ways of using AI. They exist though.

Firefox should just spin up a separate "Firefox Lite" without all the "features".

If accurate, this strikes me as something like malicious compliance.

> Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language.

Machine translation can be useful when you want to get the gist of something in a language you don't know.

> Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages.

OCR? Okay...

> AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names.

What is this feature even trying to do? It sounds like ill-defined trash.

> Link previews, which show key points before you open a link.

Or I could just click the 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.

This is the thing that most people are probably complaining about. Lumping the other features in with it is a distraction.

> The AI features can be disabled entirely or individually, so users can pick and choose what they want to use

It sounds like you would want to switch off two of them and leave two of them on, no? How is that malicious compliance?

The master AI switch is for people that have moral issues with all AI, so they want all future features turned off.

Mozilla is grouping a bunch of unrelated stuff in with the one thing people don't want.

That's because "AI" is a bunch of unrelated stuff that happens to use LLMs. Maybe you don't agree that machine translation using a large language model is AI, but other people do.

Soon: "Oopsie woopsie, we changed your expressed preferences... care to try again?"

This is expected behavior in Microsoft products, but has Firefox ever done anything like this?

Yes, many times. See all the options they keep adding for siphoning your usage data even though you already used all the previous ones to indicate very clearly that you want none of that.

Too little, too late. Switched to Brave and haven’t been happier. Firefox lost the plot years ago.

Brave comes with its own branded "Leo"[1] AI assistant built into the browser lol

[1] https://brave.com/leo/

Every time brave gets walked out as some good alternative I cant get past the vc / crypto coin / brave-reward holding garbage.

Maybe they're ok now but they had some really gross mistakes (?).

There's a lot of confusion around the "brave-reward holding garbage."

To be brief, Brave issued grants to users, which those same users could then direct to their favorite content creators. So, the grants _started with Brave_, and initially _remained with Brave_ until they were claimed by the designated content creator. If the content creator never claimed the grant, it could be recycled back into the pool, and re-issued to another Brave user in the future.

The _grossness_ of this "controversy" is in the fiction surrounding it, and not in the details itself. Some falsely claimed Brave solicited donations on behalf of content creators—that was never the case. _Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it._

Rewards has always been opt in, so you don't need to get past it to use Brave. We would not be here without it, but use Chrome or Firefox if you prefer. IMHO "really gross" applies to the Google spyware embedded in Chrome, and Firefox has had its share of "gross mistakes" since I left.

For those who don't want to free ride, we will offer Brave Origin soon. One time payment for stripped down Brave, no opt-in UX of any kind.

Hope apps follow this lead—AI should be a toggle, not a default.

I think for Firefox to be successful in breaking free from google funding is to make gecko easily embeddable in other apps, ala WebKit / electron / etc. I think it would get more funding from a wider variety of independent parties that way. Unfortunately they seem to have gone in the opposite direction... Although I am sure they have their reasons.

[dupe] Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-controls/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46858492)

I don't want to download the code or models for those features in the first place, Mozilla.

It's incredible that even vscode had this before Firefox. How could they misjudge their audience so badly?

Wasn’t their translations project “pre AI”? That’s not running an LLM is it?

Most modern translation tools are language models and this was true even before the LLM chatbot explosion. The difference is they were trained on smaller (and less dubiously sourced) datasets and the output that was trained for was translations directly rather than conversations.

It's not an LLM but it is a tiny pre-trained ML model running inside the browser. Funded by the EU and made in partnership with a few European universities as well: https://mozilla.github.io/translations/docs/

Their level of acceptance for releasing a new model (AKA new language support) is to benchmark within 5% difference of Google Translate, basically proving you don't need an external party to do good-enough translations for you. It's like the coolest thing they worked on recently.

I would like to see them provide -AI-free builds ... just to be sure.

Waterfox is best way to get sane defaults.

too late I already stopped using it

That control would be LibreWolf, turns off the rest of the bad things too

Someone needs to make an ai blocker like add blocker

justthebrowser.com

too late.

I hate FF since some random morons decided it's a good thing on mobile to use the last used folder for bookmarks, instead of the mobile bookmarks folders.

I have several thousand curated bookmarks. And I only discovered too late the new "feature". Disrupted my former flow (mark on mobile, sort/categorize on desktop)

They could have made this configurable, but no... those smart asses knew better.

I have that GitHub issue where they initially discussed it for iOS bookmarked and screenshoted, to remind myself how utterly stupid some people are. I hate every sucker involved.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com