Still, I feel this would have been much better received if they made an extension. That's literally the point of having an extension system, so people can download optional features they like without it being forced on everyone. Nothing about their AI features I've seen requires direct integration with the app and can't be done with the already very powerful extension APIs (then again I didn't develop it so there could be details I'm missing).

Or if it supported custom Ollama APIs as an option, so people can host their own AI. People tend to be more supportive of that since you directly control both your data and the energy consumption. Instead your options are the biggest commercial cloud AI providers that people have by far the most problem with. For something like summarizing a webpage a small local model running on CPU works fine. If they truly see generative AI as the future, then they should know there's more to the technology than just using commercial APIs.

I actually don't blanket hate generative AI as a whole, but their implementation of it is the exact same as every other software company and has all the same problems with no unique solutions that differentiate Firefox from proprietary browsers with much more mature AI features. That's what I don't like about the direction they're going. If you specifically want AI in your browser, there's no reason to go with Firefox over Chrome or Edge; if you care about privacy or FOSS, AI on Firefox is no better because you still can't use an open source model you control; and if you hate any generative AI in general, they've just alienated you, possibly permanently, by including it by default. Firefox keeps wanting to be like the mainstream browsers while forgetting about the niche that's allowed them to thrive when every other browser fell to Chrome.

do we need them wasting resources on superfluous chatbots, when i can already get many already good and estabilished options elsewhere whenever i want to use them?

not everything needs this overestimated tool shoehorned in, regardless of whether or not people like to use it in any of its forms, and mozilla is not in a position where they can just waste time and resources like this because ai hype.

like their own offline translating engine!

Yeah, you know, like literally any piece of software they do.

It’s like getting all hyped up over linked lists.

I love linked lists! But they don’t need to be plastered all over the logo and in my search bar and endorsed as “the future” by CEOs.