“Mozilla has been adding in llm & ai related features to Firefox for a while, enabling them by default without asking the user… The main problem with this is users are having this forced on them with no gui option to disable these features.”
Article contains instructions for disabling the LLM through about:config.
Even open source software needs to be enshittified… for some reason.
Oh, come on… They are enabling you to use LLM is you want to. They are not forcing anyone.
https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/ai-chatbot
And here is why it is better than most alternatives out there… An Open Source AI, build with transparency and ethics should be something to be exited about - for all who use LLM… For the record, I don’t. I don’t have any use for it, my brain works fine… But I have an exception, and that’s my own private LLM, running only on my machine…
So, please take a chill pill, and do some research before yelling “WOLF!”
Article says the LLM is now enabled by default and there is no UI to turn it off. Is that wrong? Your link refers to Firefox 133 which is quite old by now.
Added: found the lobsters thread, https://lobste.rs/s/gntidf/firefox_forcing_llm_features
It’s hard to tell from there.
Added 2: HN, I haven’t looked at this yet. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45858959
So, enabled how? Tell me how it’s enabled, that I can’t turn of by the UI? I use Firefox, do you? I haven’t met LLMs in my use, in any way - most demands that you sign in, and I haven’t… Sure, you have the possibility in the sidebar, but you have to use it… it’s an option.
So tell me, what does the article say, is enabled by default? The possibility?
Please read. “LLM features cannot be disabled in the UI”
Like you’re saying, the feature is there, you’re seeing it in your own browser. There is no UI option to disable seeing it.
There’s also an option to install thousand of addons, and no UI option to disable seeing them… Oh wait, how about just not going there!
This is so stupid. It’s like not liking to use tables in a writing program, and removed about the option to use it, is there!
Oh, BTW - You can actually right click on the “Open AI chatbot” and choose to hide it… But I guess that’s too obvious for you, right?
Yeah, I didn’t even notice the button was there since I had the sidebar hidden it was easy enough to right click and remove don’t get the big deal it’s not even ‘on’ if you click it you have to set it up
Exactly. This is an article for someone who don’t know why words matter. And people here, buy it without being critical. It’s rather sad…
I really wish they wouldn’t. Firefox is one of the last good browsers.
It’s the last good browser base but all the good browsers nowadays are forks of that base.
Hopefully something other than Ladybird comes to take it’s place so we aren’t so reliant on Mozilla in the future…
There’s the Servo browser, which has a lot more going for it than Ladybird.
Ladybird doesn’t have any real financial power. If Firefox dies, so does every fork… And have a little faith in Mozilla. Just a little - not blind, just a little.
Yeah that’s fair.
Why do you say other than ladybird?
Because we need a lot less fascists and their software in the tech space.
Nitter Link & Bigger writeup on it
Thanks for the links. I’ve always gotten the ick from Kling and thus I’ve been skeptical about Ladybird. It’s good, albeit sad, to receive confirmation.
I had no idea about Cloudflare though. sigh I use it for DNS for my domains, and also for DNS challenge for Let’s Encrypt. Do you know of any free alternatives that aren’t run by fascists?
I ain’t really knowledgeable in network stuff. I’m already a Mullvad VPN customer so I use their DNS but I’m not hosting anything public.
Sadly it’s kinda hard to avoid all fash software at the moment. It’s why I don’t want even more gaining prominence.
I’m sure there’s people working on better alternatives out there. Hoping we’ll see them pop up in time.
Ah, it’s a shame that we can’t just have cool software. But such is the world now, it seems. I’m honestly a bit surprised at there being much of that in FOSS, I thought it was really quite commie-coded, but it seems every second project I think is interesting is somehow problematic.
I’m on Hyprland at the moment, which I’ve heard a couple things about, including in that article, but I’m looking at Niri. Are they less controversial?
I’m also reluctantly on Hyprland and I tend not to advertise it because of the problematic maintainer and the culture surrounding the project, but unfortunately there aren’t any good alternatives on Wayland. I haven’t heard anything bad about Niri, but unfortunately the workflow didn’t work for me. Another alternative might be River, or a more recent project called MangoWC. I have no insight into the maintainers and culture of either project though.
But yeah, I really want to move away from Hyprland.
The ladybird team is one of those “we don’t respect people’s identity and sexuality because we don’t do politics” type of people. Also racists.
I would think most non technical users would just use a different browser.
Not only them. I’m tired boss.
Mozilla Corp making sure they alienate even their 10 remaining users…
disable llm & ai related features in firefox.
I’m not going through that. sudo apt -y purge firefox*
What do you use instead?
Not the gp but I started using LibreWolf last year after my camel’s back was broken by Mozilla Corp shenanigans, I am very grateful for it
Unfortunately, at the moment, we can’t trust Mozilla and by extension with AI items so these things were removed.
https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/1919#issuecomment-4988409
I used librewolf and waterfox as well for a bit, until I noticed that were lagging behind on updates.
Now I just run vanilla Firefox auth arkenfox.js user prefs. Disables everything you’d want out of the box
deleted by creator
there’s many forks that have the stuff turned off by default like Librewolf and Floorp
I personally use Qutebrowser. there’s many better options than straight up Firefox.
Thanks everyone. I will look into using Librewolf. I’m still on Firefox because there is a Debian LTS package so it’s the path of least resistance. There doesn’t seem to be a Librewolf package in the standard repo so I’ll have to check a bit further.
There is something to be said for making modifications instead of forks so you are never waiting for an update.
Here’s my 2 cents: https://github.com/celenityy/Phoenix
And check the link for feature comparisons.
For those that don’t mind local AI, there’s a setting that uses localhost:8080 as ai endpoint. You can throw open-webui, or ollama/others at that port.
Well, you don’t have to use them. So they can’t force you to use Ai features.
This is true. Statistically, people are choosing not to use Firefox…
Kind of the opposite of forcing. Some people want it, I don’t agree with them, but better to not lose them to chrome.
But srsly Firefox nags me more about PWAs and tab groups than AI.
