Mastodawn

Sarah Jamie Lewis Dec 16

Mozilla has a new CEO. Once again iterating that the future of Firefox is AI first, AI by default:

"Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software"

"It will evolve into a modern AI browser"

"AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off."

Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozillas-next-chapter-anthony-enzor-demeo-new-ceo/

Mozilla’s next chapter: Building the world’s most trusted software company | The Mozilla Blog

Today, I step into the role of CEO of Mozilla Corporation. It is a privilege to lead an organization with a long history of standing up for people and buil

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Sarah Jamie Lewis Dec 16

Mozilla insist that people trust them. I assume they have insight and metrics that reinforce that view.

Perhaps I am getting old and this truly is the only path forward to maintain an independent browser.

I continue to feel that this is a terrible idea that has likely irrevocably jeopardized the future of firefox and, by extension, the open web.

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Sarah Jamie Lewis

The overhead of disabling every single AI-first change in Firefox is already starting to weigh on firefox-forks.

My view on this hasn't really shifted in the last few months: unless an existing organization, with strong principles, steps forwards and commits to a hard fork I don't really see a future for Firefox.

(I think there are probably only 1-2 orgs with the combination of experience / maturity to actually pull that off, and none of them seem to be even considering that kind of future)

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ravenlb

Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis feels like we are all watching for the rug pull everyone knows is coming ☹️

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slowtiger Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis
Oh yes. "Es nervt."

(would it be possible to write an add-on which does this with a single button?)

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Jonathan Kamens 86 47 Dec 16

@slowtiger @sarahjamielewis TLDR not in a way that will be accessible to most people.
The Firefox devs aren't going to expose to add-ons the API to turn off AI, so the functionality would need to be implemented in an experimental API. Those can't be installed via addons.mozilla.org and can only be installed transiently for debugging, or in the Nightly or Developer Edition builds of Firefox. Ref: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/extensions/webextensions/basics.html#adding-experimental-apis-in-privileged-extensions

API Implementation Basics — Firefox Source Docs documentation

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slowtiger Dec 16

@jik @sarahjamielewis
Thx for educating me!

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luna the doggie

Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis I don't think I've seen any AI feature that wouldn't be disabled with browser.ml.enable = false in about:config so this really shouldn't be an issue for forks.

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Jennifer 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 16

@lunareclipse @sarahjamielewis It's always much easier to not have to turn any AI options off because there isn't any to begin with.

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luna the doggie

Dec 16

@transcendentempress @sarahjamielewis my point is that this is not putting meaningful overhead on forks when there's one config option to turn off all AI features. nothing more and nothing less.

when forks already have to change many other options, and this is one option for all of the AI features they keep adding, it's really not an issue in this regard.

this doesn't change that I totally think Mozilla is wasting everyone's time integrating AI into the browser in the first place. it's just not a big deal for forks.

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Michael Richardson 🇨🇦Dec 16

@lunareclipse @sarahjamielewis wish one could find out how many actually turn it off. But, it would violate privacy.

@derekheld
Then choose Librewolf (a Firefox fork without telemetry or AI)

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EF Dec 18

@vampirdaddy @derekheld I used LW but the statement is not entirely true. They do their best to switch stuff off but have still needed to go toggle some setting manually. My time with FF and its clones is coming to an end... rapidly.

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vampirdaddy Dec 18

@EF @derekheld
Do you have any alternatives to recommend?
Privacy-oriented, context-isolation/containerisation, ad-blocker

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EF Dec 18

@vampirdaddy @derekheld not yet but want to try Iridium (same time as I try NetBSD probably) or Ungoogled-Chromium. Hoping Ladybird will be a new beginning and may look at one of the browsers forked from FF a while ago. Am limited by what browsers the OSs I use build as I have neither the skill or inclination to build one from source.

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vampirdaddy Dec 18

@EF @derekheld
Iridium is chromium-based.
Unfortunately it has a history of lagging often multiple years behind the upstream.

Currently the head is based upon chromium 120.0.6099.224 from nearly 2 years ago - which also is the currentmost patch.
https://github.com/iridium-browser/iridium-browser

Thus I'd strongly recommend to use ungoogled-chromium instead of . That is similarly optimised for privacy, but quite current and patched.

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EF Dec 19

@vampirdaddy @derekheld thanks for the post but if it is a little older, perhaps that is fine. Most updates are for non-features. There was an interesting thread the other day about finished software (not suggesting any browser or other software relying on security can be finished and safe ad infinitum). For non-corporate end users, perhaps it matters less?

Wanted to try Waterfox but they don't do a musl libc flavour.

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Bert Driehuis Dec 19

@EF @vampirdaddy @derekheld Always use a browser that is actively following upstream patches. If you don't you will be a sitting duck if ever you visit the properly motivated malicious website.

Even your bookmarked known safe sites are one lapse of domain renewal away from becoming a malware source.

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EF Dec 19

@bertdriehuis @vampirdaddy @derekheld take a more pragmatic approach in that browsers can only have a limited impact as sandboxed, use a heavily locked down account and don't visit pwn.me or similar ppus adblocker, script blocker... Fully accept the suggestion but most complex software is playing catch-up for the next 0-day.

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Myrakel Dec 17

@derekheld @sarahjamielewis
This is SO true for many applications... sometimes you just want them to see that you disagree with them.

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condret

Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis there are already good ffox forks. besides that many people don't hate ai and won't move because of it

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Bart Veldhuizen 🚀Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis I’ll only believe him if there is an easy to find AI kill switch in Firefox. So far, there isn’t.

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uebelhacker Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis not sure whether #firefox forks like in @iode's #iodéOS can also offer "AI disable by default" or remove any #AI code, but it seems a legitimite way to go. Also, it will be an #EU country to handle such modifications. #France #digitalsouvereignity

"""
iodé Browser

iodé browser is based on Firefox with #telemetry disabled, trackers removed, and alternative search engines: #Qwant (default), #Brave, #Ecosia, #Metager, Qwant light, #Startpage and several #Searx instances.
"""
https://iode.tech/iodeos/

iodéOS - iodé

Privacy-friendly selection of apps We have preinstalled for you a selection of privacy-friendly apps, listed below. It is to be noted that we also have made the uninstallation of preinstalled apps possible with iodéOS! iodé The place to control and visualize the data transmissions from your phone. From here you can: News The News app ... Read more

iodé

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Tim Chambers Dec 16

@sarahjamielewis Came to same realization a year ago. My choice @Vivaldi - although their overall browser is closed source, and they do use Chromium rendering engine (open source but deeply influenced by Google) they are trustworthy in their defiance of big tech, their intense effort at privacy, blocking every privacy issue Chome does not - and their passion for the Open Social web. Plus their building in of Notes and RSS apps into browser makes you less dependent on cloud systems for such.

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