this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
-30 points (25.8% liked)

Technology

81907 readers
6136 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

TL;DR: Mozilla recently released AI controls for Firefox: a single control panel that lets people disable AI features in the browser or pick and choose which to leave on. On the surface, this sounds like a win for user choice in an era of AI-everything.

If we dig deeper, you can start to see that the kill switch isn’t the whole story. This feature acts like an accountability sink. By giving you an off-switch, Mozilla’s leadership shifts the ethical burden of AI onto the user - turning their design choices into your responsibility.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Bro, just turn it off if you don't want it.

Or use Tor Browser or Mullvad Browser if you don't wanna deal with it.

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 6 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

LLM features should be opt-in by default, full stop. Just turning it off without being given a choice to refuse is very scummy behavior on the part of Mozilla. What if they wanted to use the default Firefox? Shouldn't a user be allowed to opt-in and have LLM features off by default on every fresh install?

It's nice having options that respect your freedom of choice and don't force their deluded ideas upon you...I feel that mainline Firefox, made by Mozilla should do that as well! By not holding Mozilla to higher standards, you get another Microsoft Edge or Chrome situation all over again, this time in open source spaces.

[–] RalfWausE@feddit.org 1 points 14 hours ago

Look at my post history, I am as violently anti abominable Intelligence as it gets, but as much as I would have liked for Mozilla to either stay completely away from that curse or maybe make it available as an plugin... I am fine with the way they handled it.

If you absolutely don't want anything of that crap in your browser feel free to use and recommend a fork, or Vivaldi, or NetSurf or Dillo.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world -3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Like I said, then use a fork.

Tor and Mullvad made some excellent browsers.

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 5 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Still not the point, if Mozilla wanted to implement LLM features, they needed to do it right! Opt-in is the ethical and user respecting way to handle it. We can all use Forks, but if you let a corporation get away with insane defaults...It will get worse.

[–] RalfWausE@feddit.org 2 points 3 hours ago

What do you want to do against this? Not use the browser? Well... fine, I guess.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 0 points 13 hours ago

Feel free to make the pull request, dawg

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

How about we remove it from the browser, and if you want it you can install it as an addon.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 0 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Submit that pull request, my dude

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have the authority to authorize its approval, or are you just trying to shut people up with a thought-terminating cliché

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

You don't need authority if its your own code, technically. Just commit and build.

If you're wanting it as the default for everyone who uses that browser, Lemmy is not the place to request it. Hit up Mozilla, ask them to change it, or change it yourself and ask them to review your pull request. They authorize and approve from outside contributors quite often, so don't sell yourself short.

But also, yes, i love the cliche because people just moan on lemmy about things instead of actively addressing the issue with the appropriate people on the appropriate mediums.

Airing your grievances out here is fun though. I get it. but asking the people upset about it to do some work is also fun.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Why do you want people to stop discussing this? Are you running community management for Mozilla? If not, why is discussing it not "addressing the issue"? People are engaging in discourse.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world -1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Not once did I say I want people to stop discussing this.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

What is the purpose of this message?

But also, yes, i love the cliche because people just moan on lemmy about things instead of actively addressing the issue with the appropriate people on the appropriate mediums.

Airing your grievances out here is fun though. I get it. but asking the people upset about it to do some work is also fun.

Awfully ironic to say this, now that "code is free". What work are we talking about?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Talking to Mozilla is work, but you can also keep talking to me as well.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Do you really believe Mozilla would accept a pull request to remove AI from their codebase?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 10 hours ago
[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

bro use another thing. don't complain or suggest something should be different! Just abandon toot sweet. Seriously im in process of moving to either waterfox or librefox but the browser is practically an abstracted next level of the os so moving over is just a bit faster than moving my os. At least for my main browser.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Librewolf keeps crashing my machine whenever I alt tab out of a game to it.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Might just be a Firefox bug, since it's a very light fork. Try Firefox and see if it does the same thing.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I switched back to Firefox after the third time it happened. Not a Firefox issue

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 8 hours ago

Well, you could import the same policies into Firefox that LibreWolf uses, or it might be some workaround in your graphics driver that acts on the filename of the Firefox executable.

Obviously you don't need to test, but just throwing out ideas if you would want to.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Better yet, just make a pull request. Its open source. Can build your own Firefox.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social -3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

xactly. or why even fork. just start building a new browser writing straight assembly or better yet bro code it with ai.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The source code is there. Why reinvent the wheel. Its like 2 or 3 commands to build it.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

oh building it straight up removes the ai? do builds ever fail? what are the three commands. I won't need specific libraries or other requirments for my os yeah?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Ezpz

  • Download source
  • Delete ai commits
  • Install deps per Firefox and OS docs
  • Build per Firefox and OS docs

Now you won't ever have to worry about it.

Better yet, install Tor Browser or Mullvad browser and save yourself from typing 3 command lines.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 0 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

im already moving to either waterfox or librefox. comes down to if my addons have any issue with either. hoping waterfox as I already sorta have waterfox for a specific setup I don't want to change.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Ah well I wish you luck with the fingerprint issues with those two browsers. Weird to care about AI being in your browser but not about that, but I guess its better than Chrome.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 12 hours ago

thanks. You have good luck with it to.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

What fingerprint issues are you aware of?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

https://github.com/BrowserWorks/waterfox

Search "fingerprint" on the issues page. Read the "closed" issues as well, because all they did was close the issue and direct them to a discussion page.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Could you link to a real issue so we aren't guessing about what we are looking at?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'm seeing closed bugs from 2021 here, are we supposed to take these seriously?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Its been a known issue for a while, yes.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 10 hours ago

Then go fix them