[samschooler]

I'm going to chime in here, I think 1. This is great and Mozilla is listening to it's core fans and 2. I want Firefox to be a competitive browser. Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years.

I want my non-tech family members/friends to install Firefox not because I come over at Christmas, but because they want to. Because it's a browser that "just works." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.

I know Mozilla doesn't have much good will right now, but hopefully with the exec shakeup, they will right the ship on making FF a great browser. While still staying the best foil to Chrome (both in browser engine, browser chrome, and extension ecosystem).

[klardotsh]

Fully disagree. I use zero so-called "AI" features in my day to day life. None. Not one. Why do I need them in my browser, and why does my browser need to focus on something that, several years into the hype wave, I still *do not use at all*? And it's not for a lack of trying, the results are just not what I need or want, and traditional browsing (and search engines, etc.) does do what I want.

I'd be elated if Firefox solely focused on "the pre-AI era", as you put it, and many other power users would, too. And I somehow doubt my non-techie family cares - if anything, they're tired of seeing the stupid sparkle icons crammed down their throats at every single corner of the world now.

[PurpleRamen]

There are many features you are not using in all your software. Just being there, should not be a problem for people. You should evaluate a software by what it's giving you, and which harm it brings, not by what it's giving others you do not care about.

And so far, we can assume that AI in Firefox will be like all the other stuff people don't care about, just optional, a button here, a menu-entry there, just waiting for interaction, but not harmful.

[zwnow]

I agree, why support pushing the masses into another big tech machinery that just rips off their data and collectively makes it worse for all of us again? We are already way too cool with people frying their brains on X, TikTok, Instagram and whatnot. If anything, as devs, we should help people get back to focus on their own lifes over monetization of attentionspans. But this industry has no backbone and is constantly letting people down for a quick buck.

[chickenimprint]

You never translate any websites?

[Spacecosmonaut]

AI tools are here to stay. They will start to creep into everything, everywhere, all the time. Either you recognize the moment at which it becomes a significant disadvantage not to use them (I agree that moment is not now), or get left behind.

[wvenable]

> I use zero so-called "AI" features in my day to day life. None. Not one.

I know so many people who made that same argument, if you can call it that, about smartphones.

I recently listened to a podcast (probably The Verge) talking about how an author was suddenly getting more purchases from his personal website. He attributed it to AI chatbots giving his personal website as the best place to buy rather than Amazon, etc. An AI browser might be a way to take power away from all the big players.

> And it's not for a lack of trying, the results are just not what I need or want, and traditional browsing (and search engines, etc.) does do what I want.

I suspect I only Google for about 1/4 of things I used to (maybe less). Why search, wade through dubious results, etc when you can just instantly get the result you want in the format you want it?

While I am a techie and I do use Firefox -- that's not a growing niche. I think AI will become spectacularly better for non-techies because it can simply give them what they ask for. LLMs have solved the natural language query issue.

[protocolture]

> Because it's a browser that "just works." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.

Strongly disagree.

Theres no expectation of AI as a core browsing experience. There isnt even really an expectation of AI as part of an extended browsing experience. We cant even predict reliably what AI's relationship to browsing will be if it is even to exist. Mozilla could reliably wait 24 months and follow if features are actually in demand and being used.

Firefox can absolutely maintain "It just works" by being a good platform with well tested in demand features.

What they are talking about here, are opt out only experiments intruding on the core browsing experience. Thats the opposite of "It Just Works".

>I know Mozilla doesn't have much good will right now, but hopefully with the exec shakeup, they will right the ship on making FF a great browser.

Its already a great browser. It doesnt need a built in opt out AI experience to become great.

[mcny]

There was also no expectation of process isolation in Mozilla Firefox when Google Chrome first came into the scenes. Electrolysis was painful for Mozilla and yet it was necessary.

[charcircuit]

This is how Firefox fell behind Chrome and bled their entire market share. The strategy of letting Chrome out innovate them and then copy what they think is good is not a strategy that works.

[Izkata]

> Mozilla could reliably wait 24 months and follow if features are actually in demand and being used.

I'm also wondering how much of what they come up with could be implemented as an addon instead of a core part of the browser.

[johnnyanmac]

>Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years.

I want an application to serve me webpages and manage said webpages. It wasn't a "non-starter" for me 2 years ago when I switched off Chrome who chose to be too user hostile to ignore. It won't be a non-starter here.

>I want my non-tech family members/friends to install Firefox not because I come over at Christmas, but because they want to. Because it's a browser that "just works." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.

If "it just works" is all my non-tech family needs, I'm not really gonna intervene and evangelize for Mozilla. I don't work for them (if you do, that's fair). Most browsers "just work" so mission accomplished. These are parents who were fine paying Hulu $15/month to still see ads, so we simply have different views. I'm sure they felt the same way about my pots falling apart and insisting "well, they still work".

Meanwhile, my professional and personal career revolves around the internet, and I don't want to be fighting my screwdriver because it wants to pretend to be a drill. At some point I will throw the drill out and buy a screwdriver that screws.

[godelski]

If you want to be a power user, then be a power user. Switch to a fork like Mullvad or Waterfox.

Seriously, I don't get the problem here. I don't want AI in my browser either, but it is pretty simple for us who care to switch away. It's even easy for those who aren't technically skilled!

If this is what stops Firefox from drowning then I'm all for it. They are our last line of defense from a Google controlled internet. What Firefox puts in their browser isn't that critical to me (i.e. doesn't affect me) as long as it stays open source and there are forks. But Firefox dying does! So yeah, I'm gonna root for Firefox even when it does things I don't want because what I care about far more than any specific browser feature is the internet not being controlled by any single entity.

So can we make sure we're fighting the right battles?

[fhd2]

I think the core of the issue is that Mozilla is thinking big. They're not happy to service a niche well (which the majority of the comments on Mozilla related posts is generally asking them to), they want to get back to their glory days, capture the mainstream.

And that is tough. Chrome won because it was an, at the time, superior product, AND because it had an insane marketing push. I remember how it was just everywhere. Every other installer pushed Chrome on you, as well as all the Google properties, it was all over the (tech) news, shaping new standards aggressively etc. Not something Mozilla can match.

But they just won't give up. I don't know if I should applaud that or not, but I think it's probably the core of the disconnect between Mozilla and the tech community. They desperately want to break into the mainstream again, their most vocal supporters want them to get a reality check on their ambitions.

If I was running Mozilla, I'd probably go for the niche. It's less glamorous, but servicing a niche is relatively easy, all you have to do is listen to users and focus on stuff they want and/or need. You generally get enough loyalty to be able to move a bit behind the curve, see what works for others first, then do your own version once it's clear how it'll be valuable to the user base. I'd give this strategy the highest chance of long term survival and impact.

Mainstream is way tougher. You kinda need to make all kinds of people with different needs happy enough, and get ahead of where those wants and needs are going.

One could argue they could do both: Serve a niche well with Firefox and try to reach the mainstream with other products. I think to some degree they've tried it, with mixed results.

[tliltocatl]

The mainstream didn't get mainstream by striving to go with mainstream. They got there by serving a niche well and then expanding the niche. Trying to go mainstream without having a niche moat will make you lag behind the establishment endlessly.

I'm not an Apple fan (rather an Apple hater if you would), but they are a perfect example of this. First, have a top quality niche product, then go into the big waters with the vision you got from the niche - and then people will actually be willing to give up bells and whistles the product that is good enough.

Mozilla have a well-established niche with a vision, but they can't monetize without giving up the vision they have (and apparently consider opening for small direct donations or maybe even direct bug/feature crowdsourcing not worth it). So they keep jumping on every sidetrack. And keep losing even the niche they have.

[nottorp]

> 1. This is great and Mozilla is listening to it's core fans

It's not great. Great would be "we'll stop wasting money on extraneous features and we'll concentrate on making Firefox the best browser".

This is damage control.

[MisterTea]

> this will be a non-starter in 2 years.

Why though? Seriously.

[wkat4242]

Yeah, most of the browsers "with AI" are not existing because they're so incredibly useful. They're there because it's a hype, because their parent companies have invested billions and they need to show their shareholders it's actually being used by people. So they ram it in our faces, left right and center. They're not doing this to help us, they're helping themselves.

Mozilla doesn't need to play that game because they're not selling any AI.

[sigmar]

Do you ever need a website you're visiting translated?

Have you ever not understood a term or phrase on a website and had to go to wikipedia/urbandictionary/google to explain it?

Have you ever wanted to do a 'fuzzy search' of a 300 page document (where you don't know the exact string of text to ctrl-f, but want to see where they talk about a particular topic)?

[throwaway613745]

Because the future and market is certain, don’t you know?

[andrepd]

> Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years.

The confidence with which people say these things...

s/AI/NFT and I've heard this exact sentence many times before.

[AuthAuth]

NFT was always a meme and crypto has proven its staying power.

[sethops1]

Hacker News was borderline insufferable during the 2022/23 NFT craze when all the startups, investments, and headlines were going into whatever new disruption NFTs/blockchain were allegedly going to cause.

At least with AI I do get some value out of asking Gemini questions. But I hardly need or want my web browser to be a chatbot interface.

[lawtalkinghuman]

The metaverse is clearly the future. Zuckerberg said so, after all.

Browsers without metaverse integration will be a non-starter.

[wvenable]

Comparing LLMs to NFT isn't fair. Being able to talk to you computer and have it understand you and even do the things you ask is literally StarTrek technology.

I've never seen a technology so advanced be so dismissed before.

[brokencode]

I totally agree. It’s just going to become an expectation that AI is in the browser.

It’s so nice just to be able to ask the browser to summarize the page, or ask questions about a long article.

I know a lot of people on Hacker News are hostile to AI and like to imagine everybody hates it, but I personally find it very helpful.

[protocolture]

>It’s just going to become an expectation that AI is in the browser.

Why? Is there evidence to back this up? Are there massive customer write in campaigns trying to convince browser companies to push more AI?

>I know a lot of people on Hacker News are hostile to AI and like to imagine everybody hates it, but I personally find it very helpful.

I love it. I love going to the AI place and knowingly consulting the AI for tasks I want the AI to perform. That relationship is healthy and responsible. It doesnt need to be in everything else. Its like those old jokes about how inventions are just <existing invention> + <digital clock>.

I dont need AI on the desktop, in microsoft office, replying to me on facebook, responding to my google searches AND doing shit in my browser. One of these would be too much, because I can just access the AI I want to speak to whenever I want it. Any 2 of these is such substantial overkill. Why do we have all of them? Justify it. Is there a user story where a user was trying to complete a task but lacked 97% accurate information from 5 different sources to complete the task?

[bayindirh]

Considering pirating the whole internet and boiling the planet is required to summarize a single page in a mediocre manner, it’s understandable that people who knows how the sausages are made are against it.

[johnnyanmac]

>but I personally find it very helpful.

Options are nice. They were (and poteitally will) not making it optional and if people like me weren't "hostile to Ai" they wouldn't have had to back-track with this.

[kgwxd]

then you can install an extension.

[Melatonic]

Why does the browser itself need AI features ?

You can still easily visit chagpt via web if Gemini or whatever

[vaylian]

It's obvious to you. But many people will think that Firefox doesn't support (accessing) AI unless that feature is prominently displayed.

Most people don't understand how the web works.

[tgv]

Lots of disagreement, but from necessity I (sort of) agree. Firefox foremost needs users. If it takes AI features to get them, so be it. However, Firefox cannot afford to lose its loyal user base, so they have to be optional.

[samschooler]

Honestly if it were up to me, yes I'd love Firefox to stay in the niche, but they have to follow the market if they want to stay relevant. I just hope they can push more adoption.

[frm88]

I am highly sceptical of all AI features and it seems Gardner and other cyber security experts are starting to wake up as well:

The programs let you outsource and automate tasks, such as online searches or writing an email, to an AI agent. The only problem is that these same AI capabilities can be tricked into executing malicious commands hidden in websites or emails, effectively turning the browser against the user.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/security-experts-warn-companies-t...

For now this is restricted to Perplexity Comet and OpenAI Atlas and only the UK has issued an official warning, but why would I, personally, want my Firefox browser with an opt-out risk instead of an opt-in?

[m4rtink]

Yeah, that's like having a browser without without support for blockchain, semantic web or UML! No one would use it without these absolutely critical features!

[chironjit]

I'm surprised your take is so controversial. This really is it - yes, the current core users are not interested in AI but most people in our lives who are not techies do use them, and Firefox needs win these users if it wants to stay relevant.

Of course, I have opinions on other ways it could make money instead of jumping on the latest hot thing (pocket, fakespot, VPN, etc) without actually truly building the ecosystem but at least they are trying.

[gigel82]

I'd love to live in your world for a bit... I can't imagine any future where having AI in your browser is a net positive for any user. It sounds like an absolute dystopian privacy and security nightmare.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Why?

Imagine you have an AI button. When you click it, the locally running LLM gets a copy of the web site in the context window, and you get to ask it a prompt, e.g. "summarize this".

Imagine the browser asks you at some point, whether you want to hear about new features. The buttons offered to you are "FUCK OFF AND NEVER, EVER BOTHER ME AGAIN", "Please show me a summary once a month", "Show timely, non-modal notifications at appropriate times".

Imagine you choose the second option, and at some point, it offers you a feature described as follows: "On search engine result pages and social media sites, use a local LLM to identify headlines, classify them as clickbait-or-not, and for clickbait headlines, automatically fetch the article in an incognito session, and add a small overlay with a non-clickbait version of the title". Would you enable it?

[afavour]

Most users are entirely ignorant of privacy and security and will make choices without considering it. I don’t say that to excuse it but it’s absolutely the reality.

[knowitnone3]

I don't know. What if the AI can remove all junk from the page, clean it up, and only leave the content - sort of like ublock origin on steroids?

[doctorpangloss]

haha, what if I told you that the currently existing, shipping product, "ChatGPT / Gemini uses a browser for you" will have more users than Firefox in two years? I will even bet you that will likely be the case in 2 months.

[cvoss]

> any future

> any user

[heavyset_go]

The absolute reactionary response to anything Mozilla does is quite the something to watch, I've never seen another company held to the same standards.

If you read the Mozilla and Firefox related threads over the past week, you'd think Mozilla was the scourge of the internet, worse than DoubleClick in their heyday and worse than Google's hobbling of Chrome.

That said, the AI options for Firefox are opt-in. If you don't want them, don't use them. You are correct in that this is where software is heading, and AI integration is what users will expect going forward.

[1gn15]

Just so everyone else knows, the complaining is by definition reactionary.

> In politics, a reactionary is a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believe possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society.

But I guess HackerNews is infamous for being conservative, so it's not too surprising.

[thisislife2]

> I've never seen another company held to the same standards.

The only "standard" expected from them is the same as any other for-profit company - "stick to your stated values and don't be duplicitous". For example, Apple, Meta, Microsoft are all lambasted here when they claim to "respect" user privacy and their products do the opposite.

Also, you should note that unlike these BiGTech that make multiple products and services, the company behind Firefox (and Thunderbird) makes only a few products and earns 100's of millions of dollars in annual revenue from it (some here in HN say they currently make more than a half a billion dollars a year now!). That's a lot of money. And yet, most of their products continues to be "shitty" (i.e. subpar). That's why they are losing user base. Instead of really improving their core product, the company just continues to seek new avenues of creating revenues. That's the "MBA CEO mindset" that everyone here in HN usually complain about. Do you want a browser that's faster and light on resources, or a browser that would display even more ads to you right in the browser? (Guess what Firefox prioritised?). Every user of Firefox can already avail ChatGPT (or some other AI service) if they want to. The only reason to embed it onto Firefox is to just make extra money by violating user privacy (we all know AIs are now personal data harvesters), without adding any real value to the browser.

Now, consider the opensource philosophy they espouse. Again, with the 100's of millions of dollars they have in hand, Gecko, the rendering engine of the browser is still not a truly modular piece of code that can be easily used in other projects. And that's by design (this is why most of the browsers that use the Firefox-Gecko codebase are just Firefox clones with superficial changes to the UI and config). If I remember right, Nokia spent considerable effort to try and reuse Gecko (make it modular?) - https://web.archive.org/web/20180830103541/http://blog.idemp... - and Sailfish OS now uses that fork in its mobile browser. (It was only when Mozilla feared that they were losing the mobile browser war that they decided to offer Gecko as a hacky modular codebase for only the Android platform, to be used as webviews or create other browsers. Similar options for Desktop platforms still don't exist).

Isn't all that a valid criticism, whether you are a capitalist or an opensource developer?

[andai]

At this point they should just bring back Eich and go fully trad ;)

[nektro]

> Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years.

LOL