> Enzor-DeMeo says it is important that AI features in Firefox are “something people can easily turn off”.
It seems like it should be opt-in instead of opt-out. At the very least, ask up front, and have a single switch to make it like it’s not there at all.
I love how with tech, now the only future that anyone can imagine is one that nobody but tech executives want.
It feels a little like when Microsoft invested in Apple back in the 90s. Microsoft needed Apple so they didn’t look like too much of a monopoly. Google has been funding Mozilla’s whole existence for at least 20 years. At first it may have purely been do dominate search, but at some point I think the incentives shifted to Google needing Firefox so they can claim they aren’t a monopoly in the browser space and competition exists.
And anyway you're factually wrong. They produce much more than what you listed, many of their undertakings are contributions to open-source, the development of web standards, underlying technologies that browsers (not just Firefox) use to render the web, etc.
You're being childish and somewhat absurdly so. Mozilla and Firefox are a large part of the reason the modern web is usable (in the technical sense - usability for the deaf and blind, screen readers, etc)
I'm sure he does, but he is trying to get different users.
The problem Firefox has is that it has accumulated "problem" users who are only there because they've left everywhere else.
In other words, people didn't choose Firefox cause its better, they chose it because it "wasn't x". They were offended by some action of their last browser, and left.
This is the worst user demographic to have. They'll only hang around till you do something that offends them. Which will inevitably happen.
With 2% market share the goal of the new CEO is not to pander to existing users. It's to convince new users to switch because Firefox is better.
I was even a Pocket user when they acquired it, immediately stopped using it at that point because it was clear as day how stupid that integration was.
It's death by a thousand cuts, all to get some "other users" while alienating all the existing ones.
I'm even for all the AI features, but please let me add my own self-hosted LLM. Currently you can only set one via about:config, and as soon as you use any other LLM, the settings are lost. If I wanted everything locked down I could just use Chrome instead.
It's not X is the same as it's better than X. Just because someone chooses something because it isn't the other thing isn't saying both suck.
Throwing their fans under the bus to try and get new users has been Mozilla's tactic for the last 15 years. Which is why they're down to 2% market share.
Doing it harder isn't going to help them.
I guess they will get a lot of interest after this new round of Mozilla bullshit.
Tried Zen today and it didn't feel right—felt too much like it wanted to be Arc but ended up a bit frankenstein-y in the process.
Open to suggestions that aren't Arc or Brave, if anyone has them!
I'm kinda strictly against Chromium because I first installed Chrome to break up a browser monopoly that threatened the long term future of the web. I uninstalled it once it flipped from "the browser that's making the web better" to "the browser that's making the company Google better at the expense of the web"
It's not really a political stance, but a pragmatic one. I appreciate that makes it hard to find alternatives, but I can't logically justify using Chrome.
I don't use the integrated calendar or mail client, just the browser and you don't notice these features are even there since they don't spam you.
It is chromium based however.
Now I am going to have to propose the canonisation of one of Firefox's forks, which will be difficult because we are sensitive to supply chain issues.
The browser situation grows more grim by the day.
[1] https://www.waterfox.com/blog/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox/
Waterfox is independent again: [0]
And System1 are an “ad-tech” company but the term should be used loosely. The ownership made sense as they are a search engine aggregator and they own a bunch of old school search engines like DogPile, InfoSpace etc. Nothing to do with what people associate ad-tech with, i.e. tracking you across the web or collecting personal data.
Unfortunately, life is not a song.
1. doesn't (and won't) munge personal data
2. will be available in 2035
?
I worked for a branch where the manager's bonus was tied to gross sales. So what did he do? Prioritize a product line that sold well, with low (actually negative!) profit margins.
He didn't sail blindly into icebergs; he targeted them like our factory was his personal pinball.
In this case, CEO compensation should have carefully nuanced incentives, not simply quarterly increments in stock price.
Or the company gets acquired.
How about if I need an AI to read the page, I could just right-click and select? It's the same way how the screenshot feature currently works.
(Wait, I just right-clicked and discovered there's a AI item on the menu. Maybe it's already how it works? If so, then it's not very on-the-nose and I can accept it existing)
> The bulk of Mozilla’s revenue coming from its Google search deal.
Just show a donation message already. If Wikipedia can collect that much donations just for hosting a set of websites, Mozilla, who's doing some really important work for the Internet and maybe humanity at this point, can only collect more.
The internet market makers think that ad blocking is antisocial, so in fact mozilla's firefox only reason for being is that its not the internets favorite browser which is a hell of a mission statement to offer, but thats as generous an assessment as I can make with those fellows, hell I still use firefox out of habit but I always keep a chrome install for the times firefox just doesn't work, but even then I'm just lazy and even when running firefox I've never installed an ad blocker which seems to increasingly be firefox's reason for existence.
Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491
Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299934
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295268
Make Me CEO of Mozilla
sudo apt remove firefox-esr
Done.
So if I don't have any such provider, am I safe from AI?
And what about local models?
I like and regularly use the AI sidebar, and I'm interested to see that Firefox does in the AI space.
While I agree that Firefox has wasted time on non-core browser features, AI is not one of those. Browsers are information retrieval and display programs, and AI as a revolutionary information transformation technology is a natural part of that.
camillomiller•1mo ago