Lots of immediate hate for AI, but I’m all for local AI if they keep that direction. Small models are getting really impressive, and if they have smaller, fine-tuned, specific-purpose AI over the “general purpose” LLMs, they’d be much more efficient at their jobs. I’ve been rocking local LLMs for a while and they’ve been great as a small compliment to language processing tasks in my coding.
Good text-to-speech, page summarization, contextual content blocking, translation, bias/sentiment detection, click bait detection, article re-titling, I’m sure there’s many great use cases. And purely speculation,but many traditional non-llm techniques might be able to included here that were overlooked because nobody cared about AI features, that could be super lightweight and still helpful.
If it goes fully remote AI, it loses a lot of privacy cred, and positions itself really similarly to where everyone else is. From a financial perspective, bandwagoning on AI in the browser but “we won’t send your data anywhere” seems like a trendy, but potentially helpful and effective way to bring in a demographic interested in it without sacrificing principles.
But there’s a lot of speculation in this comment. Mozilla’s done a lot for FOSS, and I get they need monetization outside of Google, but hopefully it doesn’t lead things astray too hard.
fuuk this AI bubble. the browser is one place where ai is not needed
100% agreed. I just hope whatever this AI they are thinking isnt about what info I should consume. What the AI think is good doesnt mean its the only info I should consume.
I dunno, having a free, open model made by a trusted company would be nice. I like initiatives like Mozilla Voice, this could be something similar. Probably not great if it’s replacing focus on the other things though.
Actually I think AI in browser could potentially become a much more effective content blocker than ad blockers like unlock in the future.
You only need Bayesian filters for that IMHO.
I recall there being at least one content blocker that worked by heuristics instead of rulesets. Cannot remember the name, but it was clearly not as effective as conventional ones, because not all ads look the same and usually people want to block the invisible trackers as well.
One feature that is currently using a trained model for local processing is Firefox Translations. There are good use for AI that can enhance privacy, but yeah the trend of slapping AI on everything because it is trendy to do so must end.
I love firefox. Hate the managment
Mozilla downsizes as it
refocuses on Firefox and AIdrops multiple products and layoff 60 so that its current budget can accomodate the stratospheric compensation of its new CEO.We dont want AI or pocket you assholes. We want a secure browser. Stop wasting your money on this shit
I’m not sure where people are getting the idea that they’re talking about putting AI in Firefox.
Mozilla seized an opportunity to bring trustworthy AI into Firefox, largely driven by the Fakespot acquisition and the product integration work that followed. Additionally, finding great content is still a critical use case for the internet. Therefore, as part of the changes today, we will be bringing together Pocket, Content, and the AI/ML teams supporting content with the Firefox Organization.
emphasis mine
How do you interpret that?
Oh for Fox’s sake!!!
Specifically, Mozilla plans to scale back its investment in a number of products, including its VPN, Relay and, somewhat remarkably, its Online Footprint Scrubber
IMO these were their best products. 🙁
Going forward, the company said in an internal memo, Mozilla will focus on bringing “trustworthy AI into Firefox.” To do so, it will bring together the teams that work on Pocket, Content and AI/Ml.
Ugh, god damn it.
I would assume they’re taking a hard look at revenue figures. I currently do use their VPN, but my impression is that it isn’t much more than a repackaging of Mullvad VPN. No idea about the other products. Is their Relay and Scrubber offering more outstanding?
So… Who’s the board of mozilla hiring the ceo, again? How did this board come to be?
I thought they switched CEOs to focus on privacy a week or so ago?
The data privacy angle was just editorialized headlines, the CEO statement did not mention it.
Specifically, Mozilla plans to scale back its investment in a number of products, including its VPN, Relay and, somewhat remarkably, its Online Footprint Scrubber, which launched only a week ago.
I just purchased an annual plan for Monitor, partially to help Mozilla. I guess this is my thanks
Same. Wth Mozilla?
Monitor is something different than mentioned. Based on this article, that product is still good. See the correction at the bottom
Let’s skip the AI and give thunderbird some love instead. Then again, it’s pretty feature complete as is. Just keep it up to date to keep running and secure.
A reminder that there are many firefox forks that exist if base firefox is adding unwanted things or you might have different wants, but sites will still “see” firefox in terms of compatibility. I’m using Librewolf with some annoyances (it doesn’t let things fingerprint to the point that it can’t even get your current time), but overall I like it.
The worst enemy of Mozilla is: Mozilla. This hasn’t changed in many years.
Won’t donate a cent to Mozilla unless they become a Firefox only non-profit. Fuck em.
While we resourced mozilla.social heavily to pursue this ambitious idea,
How many people do you need to administer a Mastodon instance? I’m pretty sure infosec.exchange is like one dude.
Didn’t they have acustom ui though? Also their moderation is pretty strict
