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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This made me switch to waterfox
That’s cool while it lasts. I don’t have a ton of faith in a project that’s just one guy’s personal crusade to create a non-shit browser, though.
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!)
Too little, too late. I already switched and won’t be returning as long as the CEO is still employed there.
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo can suck a dick and die in a fire. I hope your company fails due to your disastrous decisions.
Bit much
What did you switch to?
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.
Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.
It would be trusted if that shit wasn’t in there to start with. Isn’t firefox like the big “extensions” browser? Why not make this an extension that people could download if they’re stupid enough to want it?
They’re acting like they’re Microsoft tying IE to Windows 98.
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.
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.
Niw if onky I knew the best Android replacement for Firefox…
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
Good enough I guess?
But why spend resources on useless features that nobody asked for and nobody’s going to take advantage of? Instead of, you know, implementing anything that may benefit the users?
It’s opt-out, so the majority of users who don’t even know about it will keep it on. That means Mozilla gets to steal their data and use it for profit, even if they don’t interact with it directly.
The plan with all unwanted bull shit features.
Why not start with disabling it by default and see how many people switch it on?
It is off by default.
Can it also cause the AI pain when you flip the switch?
The machine overlords of the future will remember you said that.
Rocko’s Basilisk can gargle my dick and balls.
I’m new to linux, so I didn’t know linux’s users hate AI It’s heart warming S2
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.
These guys played host to one of the tech world’s most prominent homophobes for decades. I like the browser but the foundation has been trying to fuck everything up since the beginning of the web.
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.
Huh? The board ousted him when his political donations came out
Out of the loop, who was that?
Eeesh, and an anti-masker too 😟
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.
That’s literally not true, though? They’ve spoke about it for ages.
What? They’ve been talking about features that are now being called the “kill switch” for the better part of a year. Literally all they did that’s new was give it a dumb name.
Just to point out that per the discussion in the screenshot: Synthetic datasets are typically generated from models that were trained by poverty-pay Kenyans. This is basically ethics-washing.
The trust was lost when they said nonsense like “AI browser” as of that means anything concrete.
