this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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Firefox’s AI Kill Switch is a Trap: How Mozilla Made AI Your Problem (media.fedia.io)
submitted 10 hours ago by yoasif@fedia.io to c/technology@lemmy.world
52 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[–] hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

I find it funny. How Firefox users are saying, "Just turn it off, bro." in the comments now. After having Brave users shit for saying the same thing for years. Never change browser war BS..never change.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 12 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (2 children)

Oh for fucks sake, you don't even have to turn it off, just don't use the AI functions if you don't want to. Like translate or Image Caption for the blind.
The AI functions don't do shit unless you use them.
They don't slow your browser down, and they don't eat resources as is so often claimed.
Stop the fucking Mozilla hate.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 5 hours ago

Mozilla only has finite time, money, and resources, so the impact of these features is a detriment to even the people who don't use them. Those resources could have been better budgeted.

For example, "image caption for the blind" sounds great, but do you know how worthless it actually is? For starters, you can't use it on any webpage...

[–] shrugs@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

Well said. Everyone is crying about Mozilla dipping their toes in AI, while at the same time, ignoring Windows telemetry, Google's push for manifest v3 with chrome and so much more.

It's so stupid

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 7 points 8 hours ago

Some of us don't run Windows. I have blogged about Manifest v3, FWIW.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

while at the same time, ignoring Windows telemetry,

You're posting this statement on Lemmy? There is a dispropotionatly high population of Linux and OSX users here. Most of those here ignoring Windows telemetry aren't running Windows.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago

It's understandable. Those other examples are completely expected. For a FOSS project people have higher expectations and feel betrayed by Mozilla's moves with this.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yes and no, this is not about others being worse, it's about being a total non issue in Firefox.
First is that if you don't use them, the Firefox AI features do NOTHING. And on top of that you can disable them completely.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I understand your guys thing in general but really such a big thing should be opt in. I mean heck I would prefer to not even download the components but I get that is not feasible. Still it would be super simple to have it off by default and have a popup asking if the person wanted ai features enabled with an at least on option being no. never.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Most ordinary users never make a setting change,having it off by default, would make it so those users will never be aware the features are there, and having translation available on the address bar is a major feature.
Since they do no harm, I can honestly not see a reason why it should be opt in?
The people that want to turn it off are just contrarian, and possibly oppose AI as some sort of principle, disregarding that in this case it actually helps people that want to read articles in other languages, and blind people to have meaningful captions on pictures that aren't properly captioned for the blind.

You do you, but this is not you doing you, you are being contrary at far greater cost to other people, regarding something that shouldn't even be an inconvenience to you. You just choose to be difficult without having a real reason. Except you hate the word AI.

What AI feature is it exactly, that you think is detrimental to your normal use of Firefox?

I mean heck I would prefer to not even download the components

Why? And how many other features would you prefer not to download? The plugins interface maybe? Video and audio Codecs? Support for PNG? The theming capability? How many plugins do you have? What about AI features is it that is so especially horrible to you?

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

well again given the use of popups for other things that are opt in I don't see why it can't be used here. most users can say yes to a popup and no to one if the popup gives that option. Again im not wild about the llm code even being in the system as its all just bloat. Off by default just makes it easier while I move away from the software.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

its all just bloat.

Here you go:
https://www.brow.sh/

If you want a lean no bloat Web Browser there are many that fit that label way better than Firefox.
Firefox was always a full featured browser with more features than most.

Another nice little browser would be Falkon:
https://www.falkon.org/

There are dozens of such browsers, Firefox is great because it's complete, go get your incomplete browser with only aged features elsewhere, that doesn't have the new features Firefox offer.
Some of us use for instance the page translation quite often. If you are not used to that, you are limiting your browsing to only sources in languages you understand. I understand 5 languages, but not for instance Chinese and French.

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 7 points 9 hours ago

Any LLM features should've been opt-in by default if Mozilla actually gave a shit, asking the user if they wanted that useless bullshit before installing. As this technology isn't polished and can introduce vulnerabilities due to it's inherently insecure nature. A kill switch is useful if a user decided that LLMs weren't it and wanted to disable everything wholesale at the click of a button; only after they originally consented to LLM features being enabled.

Mozilla are only adding this feature because users made their LLM by default installation look pretty grim, I was one of those many dissenting voices about that. They wanted to jump on the LLM hype and cash in on some techbro attention, not considering that some of their user base would outright reject the idea.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 5 points 10 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.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 2 points 5 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 5 hours ago (1 children)

Submit that pull request, my dude

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 5 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 0 points 5 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 4 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 4 hours ago

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

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 4 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 4 hours ago (1 children)

No, but somebody has to try.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 4 hours ago

K cool thx

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 7 points 9 hours ago (4 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 8 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.

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 7 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 3 hours ago (1 children)

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

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

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

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 2 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 7 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social -3 points 7 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 7 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 7 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 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 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 7 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 7 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 6 hours ago

thanks. You have good luck with it to.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

What fingerprint issues are you aware of?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 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 6 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 6 hours ago (1 children)

No. There are 30+ there.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Its been a known issue for a while, yes.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 4 hours ago

Then go fix them

[–] Janx@piefed.social -1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Uh, I'm not trying to be all Hail Corporate or anything, but they didn't have to include the disable AI toggle. It sounds like if you turn it off, you never have to think about AI in Firefox...

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Users needed to be able to choose if they wanted those LLM features from the very beginning, opt-in is the only sane way Mozilla could've handled this push towards LLM integration in Firefox. You are being "All Hail Corporate" by refusing to hold Mozilla accountable for their user hostile behavior. In this case, insane defaults and not respecting user choice is the bad behavior on the part of Mozilla. The only respectful choice would've been allowing the user to reject LLM features when first starting Firefox. A kill switch cannot be considered enough in this case and never should be!

[–] Janx@piefed.social 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Opt-in is not just the only respectful choice, it's also the only logical or ethical one. Mozilla instead made the choice that makes the most financial sense, like every other company or nonprofit on the planet. 

If you have other ideas to fund the project, see if Mozilla will listen to you. We don't have to like it, but at this time Firefox is still the least-bad browser. But people who won't accept anything good they do are actually unhinged...

[–] XLE@piefed.social 2 points 5 hours ago
  1. Keep taking money from Google
  2. Stop giving it to random AI companies with no strings attached
  3. Don't get into a discrimination lawsuit by firing a man with a medical condition, who was leading the only profitable department
  4. Start taking donations for Firefox development
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