David GerardFirefox hit me today with the fucking AI bot popups
discovered some of the browser .ml .* shit i'd disabled in about:config had *switched back on*
someone at mozilla is playing fuck fuck games with users' preferences
ahistorical immaterialist@davidgerard yep they are - I changed the Google search to include the &udm=14 to kill AI overviews. It persisted until a Firefox update came through, then it disappeared.
MarjorieR@jimbob @davidgerard maybe better to create a new search engine with the required parameters and disable the plain Google one?
I have a entry 'Google (AI free)' in my list of Firefox search engines with the url
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14&tbs=li:1
This is not changed when I get Firefox updates.
Needless to say I rarely need to use it (I mostly use a deAIed DDG).
d@nny disc@ mc²@davidgerard self immolating in front of the firefox statue where they used to have the mozilla rust meetups and i saw a bright shining future go up, up, up into the fog over the bay bridge as it lit up like gatsby's green light
Andrew Wooldridge ⛰️@hipsterelectron @davidgerard my name is on that pillar and I've watched the lights dancing on the bridge there but I think the heart of the company is gone
@triptych @davidgerard i'm very sorry to hear that :( ❤️
@triptych @davidgerard i'm still running nightly because the logo is very beautiful but i'm also unsure if that exposes me to things my distro could protect me from
Ruth [☕️ 👩🏻💻📚✍🏻🧵🪡🍵]@davidgerard I switched to Waterfox on my computer and it’s completely left out all the AI stuff. Spoiling because it’s annoying behavior but also I hadn’t known this was available until recently!
Shaadra@shaadra I don’t have the descriptions to hand, especially because the search history is in my old Firefox browser. But I basically read through both of their “about“ sections and decided that waterfox fit what I was looking for a little bit better. if you’re already on LibreWolf and it’s working for you then I don’t think there’s a compelling reason to switch.
@platypus Fair! And thanks for your perspective. I did a little reading in the meantime and found that Waterfox seems more aimed at keeping the old plugins alive and having better customisation than Firefox, which happens to improve privacy. LibreWolf is more focussed specifically on privacy and security.
@shaadra thanks for sharing that back! That makes sense. Re customization, I am often saying “the browser is the user’s agent!” (Which I picked up from a friend)
cuan_knaggs
jz.tuskThanks for the heads-up. These days I read the release notes when I do a Firefox upgrade. Never thought I had to before.
But I'll bet these aren't mentioned.
ben moretti@davidgerard waterfox is pretty nice
Awakened Samurai@davidgerard if we talk about forks, why not to test Zen browser? https://zen-browser.app/
Jon@doubleV @davidgerard I tried Zen after a recommendation here and love it. But sadly, it crashes on my fedora laptop and I can't find out why.
@jhamre @davidgerard strange... Zen from flatpak?
@doubleV @davidgerard yes, flatpack.
Deinstalled, deleted all data. Doesn't help.
It crashes right from the beginning.
@jhamre @davidgerard maybe to fill an issue on GitHub?
@jhamre @davidgerard on my atomic Fedora (Aurora) Zen working just fine and it originates from flatpak
jbz@davidgerard same, still don't know what else to add to my user.js to truly wipeout the AI nonsense.
Nicole ParsonsWhen the fossil fuel industry funds an international state surveillance platform, there are no half-measures.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-06/google-thiel-stand-out-in-saudi-prince-s-silicon-valley-tour
Surveillance Capitalism melded with Coercive Capitalism.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-peter-thiel-rupert-murdoch-met-with-bin-salman-2020-1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/13/trump-tech-execs-riyadh/
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/larry_ellison_wants_all_data/
Ponygol@davidgerard They also started with the "Not Now" shit when asking if the user wants to use a feature.
Guess yes means yes and no means "please bug me more until I misclick by accident".
Asta [AMP]@davidgerard godDAMN. This post just made me check mine and AGAIN
AGAIN
it's on AGAIN
AGAIN
it's on AGAIN
@aud can we find the diff where they did this? I feel a writeup coming on
@davidgerard @aud being able to change settings at all is a really fucked up thing to do and if i was very evil and didn't want e.g. linux distros fucking my shit up i would make sure to avoid putting individual changes into the source code and would make it more like the feature flag switchers we had at twitter for backend services. possibly "policy" could be a good search term as well since i believe that's what their enterprise policies are named
@aud @davidgerard Is it the extra non ml.chat ones? I found some a few weeks ago
@froztbyte @aud yeh pile of that shit, including ones i know i fucking disabled
@davidgerard @aud I’m afk now but I’ll check when I get home. Think these ones I found the other day showed up in the last 3~5 weeks
Afaict they’re pulling the bayfucker “we’ll respect your choice… for that old thing we’ve deprecated” playbook of evading consent by adding n+ new tickboxes
@davidgerard @aud a'ight finally keyboard
browser.ml.chat is was the first setting
later they added more shit under browser.ml, with browser.ml.enabled supposed to be controlling the entire set (I haven't verified)
browser.tabs.groups.smart is a different branch for the tabs feature
I _think_ this shit all launched in 138, but I can't find my notes file now so treat that as data coming from unreliable squishy brainmeats
@davidgerard @aud here is the other thing that I found: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-ai/ai-link-previews-firefox/
the post itself is from april but something in august got me looking and then found it there
other refs:
https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/ml/
https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/ml/extensions.html
typedfern@davidgerard I switched to Librewolf, and I'm never looking back.
redsakana@davidgerard Looks like Mozilla also overrode Group Policy settings of these items that had been configured with Status: default. Switched to Status: locked, let's see if it makes a difference in the future.
Also set browser.ml.minimumPhysicalMemory to a large number (unit is GB) to pre-empt new fuckery.
Rodrigo DiasJust checked mine and you're right. Disabled them again. Annoying.
Emma (has_many_books of old)
William Oldwin@emma @davidgerard I've moved from Firefox to Vivaldi, choosing a Chromium-based browser as the lesser evil. That's the pretty pass to which things have come.
zbrando
Jaime Herazo@davidgerard
I don't regret switching to Librewolf, but wish we had another alternative
I don't regret switching to Librewolf, but wish we had another alternative