Hey all, just a reminder to keep the community rules in mind when commenting on this thread. Criticism in any direction is fine, but please maintain your civility and don't stoop to ad-hominem etc. Thanks.

B- but- ✨yaiy window!!1!✨!1!!

It depends. If it's just for the sake of plugging AI because it's cool and trendy, fuck no.

If it's to improve privacy, accessibility and minimize our dependency on big tech, then I think it's a good idea.

A good example of AI in Firefox is the Translate feature (Project Bergamot). It works entirely locally, but relies on trained models to provide translation on-demand, without having Google, etc as the middle-man, and Mozilla has no idea what you translates, just which language model(s) you downloaded.

Another example is local alt-text generation for images, which also requires a trained model. Again, works entirely locally, and provide some accessibility to users with a vision impairment when an image doesn't provide caption.

I've actually flipped on this position - but before you pull out your pitchforks and torches, please listen to what I have to say.

Do we want mass surveillance through SaaS? No. Do we want mass breach of copyright just because it's a small holder and not some giant publisher - I.e "rules for thee" type vibe? Hell no. But do we throw the baby out with the bath water? Also: heck no. But let's me underline a few facts.

1. AI currently requires power greedy chips that also don't utelize memory effectively enough
2. Because of this it's relegated to massive, globe heating infrastructure
3. SaaS will always, always track you and harvest your data
4. Said data will be used in marketing and psy-ops to manipulate you, your children and your community
5. The more they track, the better their models become, which they'll keep under lock and key
6. More and more devices are coming with NPUs and TPUs on-chip
7. That is the hardware has not caught up to the software yet

See where I'm going with this?

Add to the fact that people like their chatbots and can even learn to use them responsibly, but as long as they're feeding the corpos, it'll be used against them. Not only that, but in true silicon valley fashion, it'll be monopolized.

The libre movement exists to bring power back to the user by fighting these conditions. It's also a very good idea to standardize things so that it's not hidden behind a proprietary API or service.

That's why if Mozilla seeks to standardize locally run AI models by way of the browser, then that's a good thing! Again; not if they're feeding some SaaS.

But it their goal and their implementation is to bring models to the general consumer so that they can seize the means of computing, then that's a good thing!

Again, if you'd rather just kick up dust and bemoan the idiocy and narcissistic nature of Silicon Valley, then you've already given them what they want - that they, and they alone, get to be the sole proprietaries of AI that is standardized. That's like giving the average user over to a historically predatory ilk who'd rather build an autocracy than actually innovate.

Mozilla can be the hero we need. They can actually focus on consumer hardware, to give people what they want WITHOUT mass tracking and data harvesting.

That is if they want to. I'm not saying they're not going to bend over, but they need the right kind of push back. They need to be told "local AI only - no SaaS" and then they can focus on creating web standards for local AI, effectively becoming the David to Silicon Valleys Goliath.

I know this is an unpopular opinion and I know the Silicon Valley barons are a bunch of sociopaths with way too much money, but we can't give them monopoly over this. That would be bad!! We need to give the power to the user, and that means standardization!

Take it from an old curmudgeon. I've shook my fist at the cloud, I've read a ton of EULAs and I've opposed many predatory practices. But we need to understand that the user wants what the user wants. We can't stick our heads in the sand and just repeat "AI bad" ad nauseum. We need to mobilize against the central giants.

We need a local AI movement and Mozilla could be in the forefront of this, if it weren't for the pushback and outright cynicism people trevall generally (and justifiably) have - but we can't let these cretinous bastards hold all the AI cards.

We need libre AI, and we need it now!

Thank you for your consideration.

When I want AI, I use this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DuckDuckGo+AI+Chat&ia=chat&duckai=1

My worry about AI built into my browser is that it'll be turned into data mining, training, and revenue generation resulting in exploitation and manipulation of me.

Those unhappy have another option: use an AI‑free Firefox fork such as LibreWolf, Waterfox, or Zen Browser.

Any idea as to when LibreWolf will be coming out with a mobile browser?

We see a lot of promise in AI browser features making your online experience smoother, more helpful, and free from the everyday disruptions that break your flow

I don't really see AI and LLMs as a solution there. Things that disrupt are typically ads or other capitalist nonsense. What are they thinking and how will AI help?

The post stresses the feature will be opt-in and that the user “is in control.”

Nothingburger

Personally I don't want AI anywhere.

Just render the page, page renderer.

Well if they do I'll just switch to whatever browser that doesn't.

The more AI is being pushed into my face, the more it pisses me off.

Mozilla could have made an extension and promote it on their extension store. Rather than adding cruft to their browser and turning it on by default.

The list of things to turn off to get a pleasant experience in Firefox is getting longer by the day. Not as bad as chrome, but still.

I think Mozilla's base is privacy focused individuals, a lot of them appreciating firefox's opensource nature and the privacy hardened firefox forks. From a PR perspective, Firefox will gain users by adamantly going against AI tech.

Why not just distribute a separate build and call it “Firefox AI Edition” or something? Making this available in the base binary is a big mistake. At least doing so immediately and without testing the waters.

They're really trying to shove this down our throats aren't they?

Hear me out.

This could actually be cool:

• If I could, say, mash in "get rid of the junk in this page" or "turn the page this color" or "navigate this form for me"

• If it could block SEO and AI slop from search/pages, including images.

• If I can pick my own API (including local) and sampling parameters

• If it doesn't preload any model in RAM.

...That'd be neat.

What I don't want is a chatbot or summarizer or deep researcher because there are 7000 bajillion of those, and there is literally no advantage to FF baking it in like every other service on the planet.

And... Honestly, PCs are not ready for local LLMs. Not even the most exotic experimental quantization of Qwen3 30B is 'good enough' to be reliable for the average person, and it still takes too much CPU/RAM. And whatever Mozilla ships would be way worse.

That could change with a good bitnet model, but no one with money has pursued it yet.

You want AI in your browser? Just add as a "search engine" option, with a URL like

https://chatgpt.com/?q=%25s

, with a shortcut like @ai. You can then ask it anything right there in your search bar.

Maybe also add one with a URL with some query pre-written like

https://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page for me: %s

as @ais or something, modern chatbots have the ability to make HTTP requests for you. Then if you want to summarize the page you're on, you do Ctrl+L Ctrl+C @ais Ctrl+V Enter. There, I solved all your AI needs with 4 shortcuts without literally any client-side code.

We dont want ai, Mozilla. We dont want it.

Those unhappy have another option: use an AI‑free Firefox fork such as LibreWolf, Waterfox, or Zen Browser.

And I have taken that other option.

Also: Vanadium and/or Ironfox on Android.

I think ive lost hope at this point to see AI being actually useful in any application except chat gpt and code editors.

Companies are struggling how to use Ai in their products because it actually doesnt improve their product, but they really really want it to.