It's FOSSWe wonder if Firefox's decision to add a free VPN and AI can bring back lost users. 🧐
Chuckles
OldCoderThe "AI" part isn't going to help. It'll be more like an anchor dragging Firefox down to Davey Jones's Locker.
The sentiment that informed users have towards "AI" is remarkably negative. To announce that a browser is even going to have support for "AI" is an autopsy report in advance.
The part about the VPN is more nuanced. It'll probably allow Mozilla to see what sites and pages you're visiting, but not the actual content as long as "https" is used.
I'd say "no", regardless. Whatever you do in that tab is likely to go to billionaire-owned documentation systems. Possibly to #ICE and Donald #Trump as well as the billionaires are his associates. Mozilla says, certainly not, but trust needs to be maintained and the organization shows no understanding of that.
If #Firefox needed these two features, "AI" and VPN, to keep going, as the saying goes, that's all she wrote.
I recommend #LibreWolf, Ungoogled Chromium, and Tor Browser as alternatives. Yes, 2 of the 3 rely on Firefox as upstream. However, if Firefox goes under, all 3 alternatives are likely to continue in one form or another.
Personal perspective: Firefox was once the up and comer. I used it from the mid-2000s to its effective end with the release of Quantum in 2017.
Quantum was, in fact, the end of Firefox. Not so much because of the fact that XUL was removed, but because of the dismissive tone that Mozilla adopted at the time [and has since] towards developers and users.
This was the turning point where Mozilla decided that Firefox needed to be Chrome except it would be weaker. Once the decision was made, the course to the iceberg was set.
The statements that #Mozilla and its boosters offered in 2017 were similar to this: "March forward into the future. Don't be left behind. If you question what we tell you, you're a Luddite."
If developers brought up technical issues, they were washed away in a flood of market-speak. Does this sound familiar? It was very similar to the "AI" talk today.
Developers and users need to be treated as partners. Not as serfs or as krill. If a commercial or #FOSS product treats you as a serf or as krill, walk away.
The sentiment that informed users have towards "AI" is remarkably negative. To announce that a browser is even going to have support for "AI" is an autopsy report in advance.
The part about the VPN is more nuanced. It'll probably allow Mozilla to see what sites and pages you're visiting, but not the actual content as long as "https" is used.
I'd say "no", regardless. Whatever you do in that tab is likely to go to billionaire-owned documentation systems. Possibly to #ICE and Donald #Trump as well as the billionaires are his associates. Mozilla says, certainly not, but trust needs to be maintained and the organization shows no understanding of that.
If #Firefox needed these two features, "AI" and VPN, to keep going, as the saying goes, that's all she wrote.
I recommend #LibreWolf, Ungoogled Chromium, and Tor Browser as alternatives. Yes, 2 of the 3 rely on Firefox as upstream. However, if Firefox goes under, all 3 alternatives are likely to continue in one form or another.
Personal perspective: Firefox was once the up and comer. I used it from the mid-2000s to its effective end with the release of Quantum in 2017.
Quantum was, in fact, the end of Firefox. Not so much because of the fact that XUL was removed, but because of the dismissive tone that Mozilla adopted at the time [and has since] towards developers and users.
This was the turning point where Mozilla decided that Firefox needed to be Chrome except it would be weaker. Once the decision was made, the course to the iceberg was set.
The statements that #Mozilla and its boosters offered in 2017 were similar to this: "March forward into the future. Don't be left behind. If you question what we tell you, you're a Luddite."
If developers brought up technical issues, they were washed away in a flood of market-speak. Does this sound familiar? It was very similar to the "AI" talk today.
Developers and users need to be treated as partners. Not as serfs or as krill. If a commercial or #FOSS product treats you as a serf or as krill, walk away.
