I may be the outlier here, but in the event that somehow AI is a key component of browsers in the future, then Firefox not developing these features would be the final nail in the coffin of the...
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I may be the outlier here, but in the event that somehow AI is a key component of browsers in the future, then Firefox not developing these features would be the final nail in the coffin of the browser. Furthermore, I would hope there's opportunity to monetize them in a way that funds Firefox development as I would assume this would at least put all browsers on equal or near equal footing. It seems AI is the one area where some people are willing to pay and is almost necessary to pay on some level for the current costs of many of these services.
Having said that, the key is that it needs to be optional, and they probably just need to respect that some people don't want any of it and not pull a Microsoft where every time they change something or add some new shiny feature they don't shove it in the faces of people who have made it clear they aren't interested. Just make an option where people can opt out all of AI features now and future ones so they don't have to uncheck or check 50 different boxes.
Given how I already need to remove amazon ads from the homepage on every new install with or without a Mozilla account, this is absolutely not happening.
Just make an option where people can opt out all of AI features now and future ones so they don't have to uncheck or check 50 different boxes.
Given how I already need to remove amazon ads from the homepage on every new install with or without a Mozilla account, this is absolutely not happening.
Personally removing/changing settings I dont want on a new install is standard for any software I use so that wouldnt even register as a possible breaking point for me. I believe what Grumble4681...
Personally removing/changing settings I dont want on a new install is standard for any software I use so that wouldnt even register as a possible breaking point for me. I believe what Grumble4681 is pointing to something closer to when MS does an OS update that re-enables OneDrive and it eats up resources.
In my opinion that would be a breaking point because the software exists already, ive set the settings how I want and it will be forced On against my wishes you know? If im doing a fresh install of something Im personally always checking settings anyway so it doesnt feel onerous when I install something fresh and have to change things to fit my needs.
Hard disagree. I can import every other browser setting through my Mozilla account on a fresh install, including extensions. It is clearly kept out of that loop intentionally, and is not a good...
Hard disagree. I can import every other browser setting through my Mozilla account on a fresh install, including extensions.
It is clearly kept out of that loop intentionally, and is not a good sign if their goal is to wedge other features in against wishes.
I copy my profile directory around when setting up new machines instead of using sync services, and I've never had anything get automatically turned back on by an update. It is indeed really weird...
I copy my profile directory around when setting up new machines instead of using sync services, and I've never had anything get automatically turned back on by an update.
It is indeed really weird if sync ignores a few particular settings like that. Curiosity: what's the default value of services.sync,prefs.sync for those settings?
I accept that I could move my browser configs around manually and avoid this, but the fact is that the company has clearly made a decision to not allow all of the sponsor settings to be moved around through their tooling while everything else can be.
There's no reason to believe that their AI push will be better.
Firefox Sync has a surprising number of gaps - a recent example I found was that the search engines you can add and remove from the address bar don't sync.
Firefox Sync has a surprising number of gaps - a recent example I found was that the search engines you can add and remove from the address bar don't sync.
Yeah it's a shit spot for anyone who respects that AI isn't the magic cure all it's being peddled as, but recognizes it may have some potential future. Like the dotcom bubble, you'd be seen as...
Yeah it's a shit spot for anyone who respects that AI isn't the magic cure all it's being peddled as, but recognizes it may have some potential future.
Like the dotcom bubble, you'd be seen as crazy if after the crash you still didn't have a website, and yet "who needs a website for pet products" was seen as nuts at the time.
Threading the needle sucks, and I agree that there NEEDS to be backlash against this data harvesting forced nonsense, but it also gets a little tiring watching everyone trot out the same "AI SUCKS!" arguments every time a new product adopts because...yeah probably, but I think it does have enough of a future that full out non adoption is likely not realistic.
It gets worse of course because like the dotcom bubble you've got money men and investors who have been told by marketing and sales people outright lies and now have expectations based on that.
I wasn't around in the dotcom era, but there still feels like there's a difference there. I imagine a large existing company was not forcing you to go to their website to order stuff. Brick and...
it also gets a little tiring watching everyone trot out the same "AI SUCKS!" arguments every time a new product adopts because...yeah probably, but I think it does have enough of a future that full out non adoption is likely not realistic.
I wasn't around in the dotcom era, but there still feels like there's a difference there. I imagine a large existing company was not forcing you to go to their website to order stuff. Brick and mortar was still a thing, magazines and newspapers were still a thing. It was touted as a convenience, but there were still options to do things the way you did it prior.
The advert strategies aren't really all that different in the grand scheme of things. Nor are the investment caller pitches or corporate buzzwords or even attitude towards labor. Companies didn't become greedy in some instant in the early 2010's. But they've become so user hostile . There's no "never ask again". Settings are toggled on after updates when you explicitly turned them off. We're in a cat and mouse game with what kind of extensions we can install on our browsers and computers as a whole. And now you have to worry about all the shadow exploits comapnies use to violate your privacy and extract more data out of you for profit. AI is simply a distillation of all these in one big trillion dollar buzzword.
1999 felt like a wandering door salesmen; it can be annoying, but they are nice enough and they don't insist. Do it a few times and they'll stop coming. 2025 feels like they put a foot in my door and are trying to raid my fridge. At some point the only real response is "fuck off", because the decorum has eroded. And yes, that's not good nor even productive conversation. But it's less about conversation and more about preservation at this point.
I think you've got some rose tinted glasses about the past because there was ABSOLUTELY intrusive and miserable software around then, and extra so related to the entire dotcom/browser market...
1999 felt like a wandering door salesmen; it can be annoying, but they are nice enough and they don't insist. Do it a few times and they'll stop coming. 2025 feels like they put a foot in my door and are trying to raid my fridge. At some point the only real response is "fuck off", because the decorum has eroded. And yes, that's not good nor even productive conversation. But it's less about conversation and more about preservation at this point.
I think you've got some rose tinted glasses about the past because there was ABSOLUTELY intrusive and miserable software around then, and extra so related to the entire dotcom/browser market (helllllo internet explorer). And it's not just the internet. CES has basically been a year by year historical showing of "this is the bullshit we'll be shoving down your throat for the next cycle that fits in 4% of cases and is going on EVERYTHING!"
This is not a particularly unique cycle. There are different factors in where our society is now, but I don't think this changes my main point that AI isn't going anywhere, and not just because we've got crazy assholes once again trying to force "new thing" into everything. Pointing out, again, that yes marketing is lying about it is true, but it's also just kinda going in circles? Not that I think there's too much nuance left to discuss at this point (most everything has been said and the major breakthroughs have settled for now), but for example Larian get ripped apart because they're being realistic about things is silly.
I don't doubt it. But software was not your primary (and in many modern cases, only) interface with the world in 1999. A billboard can only be so annoying before regulations kick in. You won't...
there was ABSOLUTELY intrusive and miserable software around then
I don't doubt it. But software was not your primary (and in many modern cases, only) interface with the world in 1999. A billboard can only be so annoying before regulations kick in. You won't have pop ups dirupting your magazine article. The assistant at a physical store will only poke you so much before giving up. There's extreme cases, but in a normal society the impact is limited. Digital services just make it much faster and easier to poke at you day-in and day-out.
Those options were viable back then. it grows less and less viable by the day to not have an email to sign up for stuff, apps to log into, and a website for a purely digitial frontend to a warehouse. So in comes the data mining, ads, popups, wonky chatbots, and all the good stuff of the last 20 years of Big Tech squeezing the user dry.
And it's not just the internet. CES has basically been a year by year historical showing of "this is the bullshit we'll be shoving down your throat for the next cycle that fits in 4% of cases and is going on EVERYTHING!"
That's fair. But that's business. And business pays you to put up with a lot of BS. It's a bit different from me casually reading some news at home and needing an adblocker, cookie banner extension, and X-ing out a subscription pop-up just to read a short update.
There are different factors in where our society is now, but I don't think this changes my main point that AI isn't going anywhere
I wasn't really arguing that much. I was simply arguing that I will keep saying "AI sucks" as long as it continues to bother me. And I was using 20 years of other ways tech has continued to bother me to support the notion that AI will not be any different in respecting my boundaries, no matter how the technology develops. The same incentives and lack of regulations means they will keep poking me. I don't want to be poked.
If that's tiring to hear, then I apologize. But at some point there's not much conversation to have and you simply need to push back in a less refined way. We need to go in circles because that seems to be the only thing that works, continual yelling on social media. Not a proper forum of debate and feedback. Not our representatives. Not even refusing to spend, because shareholders will spend for you (and they aren't spending in hopes of a good product).
Yelling makes shareholders squeamish, but let me know if there's a more effective means.
This does seem to be where Mozilla is coming from on the topic. I recall one of their earlier posts this year discussing that they felt if they wanted to have any positive impact on the AI...
I may be the outlier here, but in the event that somehow AI is a key component of browsers in the future, then Firefox not developing these features would be the final nail in the coffin of the browser.
This does seem to be where Mozilla is coming from on the topic. I recall one of their earlier posts this year discussing that they felt if they wanted to have any positive impact on the AI landscape they couldn't do that by avoiding AI entirely.
I don't really like it at all, but they are the one non-niche software product that seems to be letting me entirely opt out of AI features. I'd like to see that approach get picked up by other software products.
There's a lot I disagree with, but I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment. You don't make your premium technology into a TikTok slop generator if you think "people are willing to pay for AI"...
seems AI is the one area where some people are willing to pay and is almost necessary to pay on some level for the current costs of many of these services.
There's a lot I disagree with, but I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment. You don't make your premium technology into a TikTok slop generator if you think "people are willing to pay for AI" . You don't think about an ad driven scheme for your supposed knowledge hub if you think people will pay for an oracle.
The 2010's are over but it seems clear that 2020's tech still wants to fall on old habits. Habits that weren't sustainable even under the ZIRP era. I can't see that and conclude that people are actually willing to pay for AI. At least, not directly.
and is almost necessary to pay on some level for the current costs of many of these services.
Yes. We are already paying an "AI tax" as a society. Or are about to, no matter if we even use AI.
Ram prices are spiking because all the demand is coming from data centers instead of consumers. But in response pretty much all consumer electronics are also starting to jump in cost for 2026. Smartphones, laptops, other computer parts.
All during an affordability crisis America is finally being forced to admit to. The crash will be spectacular.
EDIT: I'm on a computer now, so a few minor spelling/grammar corrections.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-projected-least-220-million-people-will-pay-chatgpt-by-2030-information-2025-11-26/ Now that could just be trying to hype investment, but if that's a...
Artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has projected at least 220 million of ChatGPT weekly users will pay for a subscription, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
OpenAI projects that by 2030, 8.5% of an estimated 2.6 billion weekly users, or around 220 million people, will subscribe to its chatbot, positioning ChatGPT among the world's largest subscription businesses, according to the report.
Now that could just be trying to hype investment, but if that's a genuine and real expectation from the company, 220 million subscribers is not nothing.
Amazon for years couldn't figure out how to make money off Alexa, and now with an LLM behind it, they're selling it as a subscription through Alexa+.
I'm not even sure this is accounting for revenue that these LLM services are taking in through API usage which then other services are selling as their own service. People are paying for these AI services, and if they're half as useful as the pie in the sky that these executives are marketing their services as, people will be willing to pay for them because at a certain point they won't have a choice. People pay for things they really want or find useful when they have no alternative to get it for free, and there will come a day when investors will want their money back on their investment and when that happens across all the services, it won't be an option for someone to utilize free AI opposed to paid AI, all options will require payment and some of these people will pony up for it if it's actually that useful.
indeed.... and that's still not enough. Key metric missing is "how much would users pay for this subsciption?" But if I use ChatGPT's current prices, 20 a month 240 a year. Let's round up to 250...
Now that could just be trying to hype investment, but if that's a genuine and real expectation from the company, 220 million subscribers is not nothing.
indeed.... and that's still not enough. Key metric missing is "how much would users pay for this subsciption?"
But if I use ChatGPT's current prices, 20 a month 240 a year. Let's round up to 250 dollars per user per year and project this to a seemingly massive 55 billion dollars of revenue. Then you see claims of them committing to 1 trillion dollars of expenditures for hardware alone in 10 years and wonder if the math is mathing.
Maybe we can multiply this by 5-10x to account for pro and B2B stuff, but keep in mind that we still haven't taken labor costs into account with this yet.
And that's all assuming this is truly 220m users actively paying all year. For reference, Netflix is around 300 million after some 15 years of growth (and growth in much easier times to grow). Xbox Gamepass is 35 million after around 7 years (though you can argue gaming is much more niche than movies). Very lofty goal.
t won't be an option for someone to utilize free AI opposed to paid AI, all options will require payment and some of these people will pony up for it if it's actually that useful.
Open Source models already doomed that aspect of market lock-in. That Deepseek scare from January may have been brief tick so far, but if they start to rent seek their AI all at once then there will be a race to the bottom.
Nevermind my doubt that everyone even values such tools if it's not dirt cheap. The persistent pop ups and forced Ai integrations shouldn't be needed for a product users are actively seeking out themselves.
What you're talking about are business figures. Like what it takes to operate a successful business. What I'm talking about is the consumer behavior and theory. You initially disagreed with the...
But if I use ChatGPT's current prices, 20 a month 240 a year. Let's round up to 250 dollars per user per year and project this to a seemingly massive 55 billion dollars of revenue. Then you see claims of them committing to 1 trillion dollars of expenditures for hardware alone in 10 years and wonder if the math is mathing.
Maybe we can multiply this by 5-10x to account for pro and B2B stuff, but keep in mind that we still haven't taken labor costs into account with this yet.
What you're talking about are business figures. Like what it takes to operate a successful business. What I'm talking about is the consumer behavior and theory. You initially disagreed with the idea that people are willing to pay for it, so I provided what I believe to be a solid basis for the idea that people will pay for it. Yes, it is an important distinction as to how much they will pay for it, there's surely lots of things people would pay 10 cents for that they wouldn't pay $10 for, but I also think there's a different barrier overcome when you go from free to any cost, even 1 cent, when it comes to recurring costs and just the demand that the person gets out their credit card and types in the numbers not only for the slight inconvenience of that but also because there's another factor to that which probably makes customers weary to do that regardless of the cost, which is that any service can just decide to raise its cost later on and keep billing them at an increased cost. So if you have a service where you get a customer past that point, where they're willing to take on that mental load of accepting those conditions to pay you, regardless of what you're charging, that's already a big barrier to break down.
Now to go further, if people are willing to pay $20 for what that product is today, well if we even believe 1/10th of what Sam Altman would tell us ChatGPT will be capable of in 5 years, to me it's not that hard to believe people wouldn't be willing to pay much more than that. Many people pay $100+ a month for TV service, or used to anyhow. High monthly costs are not something people aren't willing to pay if they find enough value in the product/service.
Open Source models already doomed that aspect of market lock-in. That Deepseek scare from January may have been brief tick so far, but if they start to rent seek their AI all at once then there will be a race to the bottom.
We're talking about the general consumer here. The general consumer isn't spinning up their own LLM. And past that, I'll refer to this other comment I just made with regards to competition/alternatives of LLMs.
I'm not pretending to be an Oracle that can see the future here, I'm saying that I can see why an organization like Mozilla or company within that organization like Firefox would pursue this avenue because I see a legitimate possibility for revenue for a browser which so far has had no real ways of monetizing their product on a wide scale. Many of these other LLM/AI services have been getting into branding their own browsers, so they seemingly think that's a portal to capture customers, so Firefox already is that portal but if they want to capture those customers then they need the services to do it.
Yes. And I still disagree people will pay for it. Not as extreme as "literally no one will pay for it ever!". People paid for plenty of failed businesses after all. But I wanted to use your lens...
You initially disagreed with the idea that people are willing to pay for it, so I provided what I believe to be a solid basis for the idea that people will pay for it.
Yes. And I still disagree people will pay for it. Not as extreme as "literally no one will pay for it ever!". People paid for plenty of failed businesses after all. But I wanted to use your lens and provide the issues even with the current, lofty projections stated.
To be more precise in my phrasing, the premium model for AI as a consumer good is not viable. That's why, as usual for tech, companies are already considering ways to incentivize ad integrations and repeat all the lessons of the 2010's. Get people in for free/cheap, monetize later.
But we're not in those times with trillions to burn on the side. Consumers aren't in a great place economically, and companies are being propped up from speculation and hype. In other words, we're in a bubble. This isn't a sustainable business model.
The model's monetization will get worse before the bubble pops and everyone will suffer as a result. Even the thought of adding ads as companies pour trillions in a few years into this is such a death knell in my eyes.
m saying that I can see why an organization like Mozilla or company within that organization like Firefox would pursue this avenue because I see a legitimate possibility for revenue for a browser which so far has had no real ways of monetizing their product on a wide scale.
And I'm saying Mozilla is cutting its arm off prematurely in hopes that it can get a cool cyborg arm. The cyborg arm is cool, maybe objectively better than a human arm with enough iteration. Meanwhile, that arm was useful right now and could still grow. Just not as quick as a cyborg arm.
But the tech isn't there yet, and no ones providing ways to suggest well get there. We just assume we'll figure it out as we go along like this is some night out to town. I just see a foolish one armed man instead of a visionary, trying to fit in with everyone else who cut off their arms (or pretended to do so).
If nothing else, Google and co. Are hydras, so they can spare a dozen arms and even a dozen heads. I don't think Mozilla is the same in that regard.
What in the USP that keeps people on Chatgpt compared to other LLMs? If OpenAI start charging, why wouldn't their entire user base switch to Claude or Gemini on Mistral? Even if all western AI...
People pay for things they really want or find useful when they have no alternative to get it for free
What in the USP that keeps people on Chatgpt compared to other LLMs? If OpenAI start charging, why wouldn't their entire user base switch to Claude or Gemini on Mistral? Even if all western AI companies started charging, there are plenty of excellent Chinese models too. I mean we all remember the panic they had when Deepseek was released and it got there with a fraction of OpenAI's budget.
The point is that none of those services are sustainable for free. The only reason they exist and work for free right now is because investors are pouring so much money into them the companies can...
The point is that none of those services are sustainable for free. The only reason they exist and work for free right now is because investors are pouring so much money into them the companies can still operate them for free, but if investment reaches peak and investors want more and more of their money back to keep their investments, then many of the free options will dry up.
Then it will be become bait and switch territory for competition until customers get worn down at the level you're talking. Where they will entice users with free options to switch, then once the switch is completed, try to compel them to pay, because the investors at the other companies will have reached the same point, they want returns and they're going to need people to pay.
If a customer switches 10 times trying to keep their free service, they end up doing a bunch of work trying to keep free instead of just paying. Eventually people just pay. This is true for many modern digital services. I can get stuff for free or reduced cost that other people are paying full price for because other people don't want to deal with the inconvenience of managing their services. It's like coupons. Why does anyone pay full price to buy any item when if they look around they can find coupons to pay less, because they're inconvenient. Now I realize that's talking about a discount versus not paying at all which has different psychological impacts, but my point is that eventually people pay for something at a level they wouldn't have otherwise because the non-direct impacts of not paying the premium is higher than the cost of paying the premium.
This also includes name recognition/brand awareness. Why does anyone pay for name brand instead of other stuff? Because you can't buy what you don't know exists. So companies that market their product successfully can sell inferior products for higher prices if customers aren't made aware of alternatives. And searching for alternatives also has a mental cost to it. When you're looking for a lawn mower, you could just go to the store and buy the first one you see, or you could look up online trying to figure out what lawn mower to buy and go through all the various criteria and factors that go into what makes a good lawn mower. A lot of people get worn down by having to think of those things, so some people really don't do a lot of digging and they will just buy whatever a semi-reputable storefront will present to them.
So at some point, Claude, Gemini etc. will likely have to have some kind of pay models too and the free experience of today goes away. Even Chinese LLMs will have to do it, they still have to pay for hardware and development too, and they potentially face the uphill battle of marketing that I mentioned above. It's definitely possible some of them could pull off an ad-supported model or such, I'm not foolish enough to say it isn't, I'm just saying that this possibly presents the closest opportunity to a subscription that people will pay for that a browser could add as its own service that actually allows a browser to acquire paying customers for, which is basically unheard of for browsers.
I'm of the opinion that Apple is going to look like the smart one when the AI bubble inevitably bursts. They're not burning dumpsters full of cash building an LLM, and they've pretty much only...
I'm of the opinion that Apple is going to look like the smart one when the AI bubble inevitably bursts. They're not burning dumpsters full of cash building an LLM, and they've pretty much only integrated ChatGPT with Siri, behind an "are you sure you want to?" gate. They've done some local-ML things that are fairly minor, useful in some cases and easy to ignore or disable otherwise. (And those efforts started years before LLM mania.)
They'll walk away with more user trust, a web browser that doesn't lie to you, and massive savings while their competitors are in flames.
Much like games of global thermonuclear warfare, the only way to win is to not play. And bamboozle your shareholders, so they think you're playing until the hype runs out.
Good, now I can use my AI browser to access AI summaries of AI written articles and really distance myself from the last bits of human effort on the internet. This is immediately eroding any trust...
Good, now I can use my AI browser to access AI summaries of AI written articles and really distance myself from the last bits of human effort on the internet.
Few companies share our strengths. People trust our brand.
This is immediately eroding any trust that I had in your brand.
Third: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software.
Just be a good browser. I don't want or need Mozilla integrations into everything.
They need revenue that isn't from Google. Creating other product offerings like VPNs and email masking are viable ways for them to monetize without destroying Firefox.
Just be a good browser. I don't want or need Mozilla integrations into everything.
They need revenue that isn't from Google. Creating other product offerings like VPNs and email masking are viable ways for them to monetize without destroying Firefox.
I wish they would stop competing with Google, et al. They lost the moment Google stepped into the ring. Firefox feels more and more like another corporate browser that only cares about numbers and...
I wish they would stop competing with Google, et al. They lost the moment Google stepped into the ring. Firefox feels more and more like another corporate browser that only cares about numbers and not about its users. LibreOffice seems to be able to provide a good Office suite without buying into all the buzz words and corporate bullshit. Mozilla shouldn't have a CEO, it should have a community manager.
Wikipedia makes more money from donations than they can spend. I don't see why a browser that feels like it's a user agent and not a website agent should do any worse. If 8 billion people can't keep a browser alive, that just means there is zero interest and it should die. But I really don't believe that would be its fate.
The difference is that there’s no alternative to Wikipedia and the engineering effort to maintain a modern browser is much higher. For Firefox, people can simply use one of the many chromium browsers.
The difference is that there’s no alternative to Wikipedia and the engineering effort to maintain a modern browser is much higher. For Firefox, people can simply use one of the many chromium browsers.
Ladybird is a modern browser written from scratch by a relatively small team. It's still possible that it will fail or become another for-profit business, but if you drop all the cruft from the...
Ladybird is a modern browser written from scratch by a relatively small team. It's still possible that it will fail or become another for-profit business, but if you drop all the cruft from the 90s, I don't think it's so unfeasable to maintain a browser.
If we can have free+libre software like Linux, VLC, LibreOffice, KDE, etc, I don't understand why we can't have a free+libre browser. We, humanity as a whole, can obviously develop and maintain multiple browsers with no noticable cost to any individual. We just do it against our own interests for some reason.
A modern browser is second only to an OS in complexity, because it is, essentially, an OS. An OS where security is extra important, because you use it to both interface with things like banks AND...
A modern browser is second only to an OS in complexity, because it is, essentially, an OS. An OS where security is extra important, because you use it to both interface with things like banks AND it goes through the mess of entropy that is the internet.
Of course, there is Linux. But the reality of Linux is that most development comes from paid engineers from companies. Per the Linux Foundation, around 70% of commits are from corporate engineers.
I'm aware of all those things. It's a daunting task. The Linux commits are from corporations, even the maintainers are basically payed by corporations, but it's still a community project, even if...
I'm aware of all those things. It's a daunting task.
The Linux commits are from corporations, even the maintainers are basically payed by corporations, but it's still a community project, even if the community mostly consists of corporations. We could have something similar with Chromium, but instead Google uses it to maintain control over the web.
Open source doesn't mean anything if the maintainer is Google. If Chromium were maintained by the NSA or a Nigerian prince, you wouldn't say "it's ok because it's open source". Google doesn't have user interests in mind, so it doesn't matter how open the source code is.
Not sure what you think your comment is adding to the discussion, but I don't have any gripes with Google in particular. I'm against all giant for-profit companies, especially those that have...
Not sure what you think your comment is adding to the discussion, but I don't have any gripes with Google in particular. I'm against all giant for-profit companies, especially those that have monopolies and are too big to fail.
Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and many other prominent figures in the FLOSS world are also problematic personas. Mozilla also had a problematic CEO a while ago. You would have a hard time using...
Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and many other prominent figures in the FLOSS world are also problematic personas. Mozilla also had a problematic CEO a while ago. You would have a hard time using any software (or any other type of product) if you would exclude everything that was related to jerks and weirdos.
I mean, sure, but as far as I know they've never of them have gone on explicitly racist/far-right rants about myths like white genocide like Kling has. To be honest, I don't really know of...
I mean, sure, but as far as I know they've never of them have gone on explicitly racist/far-right rants about myths like white genocide like Kling has. To be honest, I don't really know of anything too controversial about Linus and most of the rms stuff I know is just that he's kind of a dick sometimes? but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Linus used to occasionally rage at people, to the point of probably being outright abusive(?). He's made a point of improving on that point, and he's largely been succeeding as far as I've heard....
Linus used to occasionally rage at people, to the point of probably being outright abusive(?). He's made a point of improving on that point, and he's largely been succeeding as far as I've heard.
RMS... is kinda hyper-libertarian in some ways, to the point that (and I don't recall the specifics here, so I'm hedging a bit as I don't want to over- or under-state the issues) some of his statements have been construed as supporting drawn/animated images of children in sexual situations.
ah fuck, I went and looked it up briefly and it's worse than I remembered. He resigned a position at MIT after making statements in support of Marvin Minsky and Jeffery Epstein.
I'll always appreciate the principles and movement he was instrumental in getting off the ground; Emacs is an incredible work of software design and engineering; GNU and the GPL are one of if not the reason Linux and the free software movement has succeeded as much as it has; but the man himself is problematic to a degree that I can't support him.
I would say: Don't have heros. Or more specifically: People shouldn't be heros, only some of their actions should be regarded as heroic. I think it is perfectly reasonable to praise rms for his...
I would say: Don't have heros. Or more specifically: People shouldn't be heros, only some of their actions should be regarded as heroic.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to praise rms for his contributions to the free software world, but also to call him out and oppose him on his weird unrelated political statements where he seems to have no expertise whatsoever. Nobody is perfect.
Stop spreading lies, please. RMS did not support Epstein in any way. He stated that he can imagine that his colleague and acquaintance Minsky might have felt like what was going on was consensual....
Stop spreading lies, please. RMS did not support Epstein in any way. He stated that he can imagine that his colleague and acquaintance Minsky might have felt like what was going on was consensual. That's pretty far from endorsing what was happening.
If my colleague, of whom I think highly, has been accused of exploiting a child sex slave, contrary to my expectations, I might prefer to hear from a judge before jumping to conclusions.
Yeah, he's apparently pretty rude, comes aross as an old lecher, but that's like half men in his age bracket I know. Which does not mean it is allright, but it's kinda fighting the windmills as we can keep pressing these men to behave while teaching kids to be better and wait a generation or two for actual results.
And honestly, normally you wouldn't suspect people around you to be outright slaves. Maybe we'll learn more eventually, when we get access to the investigation files. Hopefully. One day.
As for support if drawn images, some places seem to be able to handle that kind of material without getting outraged, for some reason. In Japan, Germany and Finland, for example, drawn stuff is considered a fantasy disconnected from abuse and thus fine. So maybe RMS is, despite your feelings, very much inside the Overton window?
Please link me directly to these rants you write of, because I can't find them. I looked at the article you linked in your comment above, and I looked at the pages it links to, and in none of...
they've never of them have gone on explicitly racist/far-right rants about myths like white genocide like Kling has
Please link me directly to these rants you write of, because I can't find them.
I looked at the article you linked in your comment above, and I looked at the pages it links to, and in none of those various links did I actually find Kling himself "ranting about white genocide".
Instead, the tweets of Kling's that I found being criticized, I would describe them as belonging to a thread of "criticism against DEI due to perceiving it as reverse discrimination" (or something along those lines).
It's important to be accurate when levying these kinds of criticisms against someone. Inaccuracy makes such criticisms easier to dismiss.
Thanks for the info about Kling, I wasn't aware. That saddens me a bit, I had hoped that Ladybird might evolve into a fully positive thing, a real alternative in the browser space. With a...
Thanks for the info about Kling, I wasn't aware.
That saddens me a bit, I had hoped that Ladybird might evolve into a fully positive thing, a real alternative in the browser space. With a rightwing nutjob as lead dev that idea is kinda fucked.
Yeah, that's how I feel, too. Like, the work he's doing is really impressive but I don't really want to support a project where the leader spews great replacement bullshit.
Yeah, that's how I feel, too. Like, the work he's doing is really impressive but I don't really want to support a project where the leader spews great replacement bullshit.
Firefox development isn't exactly funded by donations because Mozilla the non-profit is separate from Mozilla the corporation. The comments here explain the nuance better than I can summarise:...
Firefox development isn't exactly funded by donations because Mozilla the non-profit is separate from Mozilla the corporation. The comments here explain the nuance better than I can summarise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39346814
I wish there were enough people like us to carry an entire web browser but we are few. They gotta do what they gotta do and I’ll stick around for as long as theres at least a way to disable it,...
I wish there were enough people like us to carry an entire web browser but we are few.
They gotta do what they gotta do and I’ll stick around for as long as theres at least a way to disable it, and it stays disabled when I do disable it.
Whyyyyyyyyyy I've used Firefox as my daily browser for almost 15 years. I have no desire to switch but if I keep getting AI shit shoved down my throat I might have to.
Whyyyyyyyyyy
I've used Firefox as my daily browser for almost 15 years. I have no desire to switch but if I keep getting AI shit shoved down my throat I might have to.
I am thinking to switch to a fork, Zen browser seems to disable AI features by default. For all these years I didn’t want to use a Firefox fork because it may lack the very latest security...
I used Zen for months and enjoyed it but ended up switching off it back to Firefox due to some serious slowdowns. I also wasn't overly impressed by the communication I saw by the Dev in the subreddit.
I used Zen for months and enjoyed it but ended up switching off it back to Firefox due to some serious slowdowns.
I also wasn't overly impressed by the communication I saw by the Dev in the subreddit.
I'm on Zen now and have been for a few months. Other than its lack of Widevine, it's excellent for my daily needs. And when I do need Widevine, I swap to Safari since I'm on a Mac.
I'm on Zen now and have been for a few months. Other than its lack of Widevine, it's excellent for my daily needs. And when I do need Widevine, I swap to Safari since I'm on a Mac.
I keep four core browsers on my system: Safari, because it's a Mac. Firefox, because it was my daily driver for 20 years, Zen because I like it better than Firefox right now, and Vivaldi because I...
I keep four core browsers on my system: Safari, because it's a Mac. Firefox, because it was my daily driver for 20 years, Zen because I like it better than Firefox right now, and Vivaldi because I sometimes need the V8 engine for things like running the keyboard mapper and firmware updater for my keyboard. I also have Opera but since installing Vivaldi I haven't had any need for it. Probably going to uninstall it after I post this comment.
At the moment they are explicitly marketing themselves as an AI-free alternative to Firefox: https://bsky.app/profile/vivaldi.com/post/3m6yyjfmjf62y. Marketing is not a promise though, for example...
Marketing is not a promise though, for example a few years ago Google and Samsung released ads mocking Apple for removing the headphone jack, and then almost immediately removed it themselves. So I think it's reasonable to be skeptical, but it's also reasonable to trust Vivaldi if they have earned it (I know nothing about the company).
The charger was worse. Samsung made fun of Apple, only for they themselves to forgo the charger 2-3 months later with the new Galaxy S release. The headphone jack at least took a few years iirc
The charger was worse. Samsung made fun of Apple, only for they themselves to forgo the charger 2-3 months later with the new Galaxy S release.
Right? I just re-looked into it, and have set up a monthly donation for it. I occasionally have to use other browsers for work or because I'm setting something up unrelated to my normal browsing,...
Right? I just re-looked into it, and have set up a monthly donation for it. I occasionally have to use other browsers for work or because I'm setting something up unrelated to my normal browsing, and they are strictly inferior to Vivaldi. Happy to support good web practices and no BS AI!
As I read this thread, I can also see the far-left line of browser-icons installed on my laptop -- LibreWolf Waterfox Zen Browser Tor (Ungoogled) Chromium Mullvad I unreservedly recommend all of...
As I read this thread, I can also see the far-left line of browser-icons installed on my laptop --
LibreWolf
Waterfox
Zen Browser
Tor
(Ungoogled) Chromium
Mullvad
I unreservedly recommend all of them.
Edit to Add: I don't have it yet, but Helium Browser is on my "Someday Soon" list.
There's a difference between implementing AI features that users can easily opt in or out of and shoving AI down their throats. Given Mozilla's track record, I'll wager they stand a better chance...
There's a difference between implementing AI features that users can easily opt in or out of and shoving AI down their throats. Given Mozilla's track record, I'll wager they stand a better chance than most to toe that line acceptably.
When I made this post, I copy pasted the title which was 'Mozilla Names New CEO, Firefox To Evolve Into A "Modern AI Browser"' I don’t agree with the change. His message made it clear he wants to...
When I made this post, I copy pasted the title which was 'Mozilla Names New CEO, Firefox To Evolve Into A "Modern AI Browser"'
I don’t agree with the change. His message made it clear he wants to move Firefox toward an AI browser, so including that in the title feels relevant.
I removed Firefox To Evolve Into A "Modern AI Browser" from the title for two reasons: Especially coming from Phoronix, the inclusion of that quote in the title felt like ragebait It isn't the...
I removed Firefox To Evolve Into A "Modern AI Browser" from the title for two reasons:
Especially coming from Phoronix, the inclusion of that quote in the title felt like ragebait
It isn't the main point or theme of the CEO's statement, so focusing on it in the title adds undue weight
I would much rather people read the entire article from Mozilla and then write a comment, rather than first (or just) read "Firefox to evolve into a modern AI browser" and write a reaction to that.
I have since changed the link from the Phoronix article to the actual source from Mozilla, and updated the title again to something neutral.
Even in your changed article, it remains the forefront of the quotes. Removing the main point of discussion from the title is downplaying the point of the article.
Even in your changed article, it remains the forefront of the quotes. Removing the main point of discussion from the title is downplaying the point of the article.
Well I can't imagine this will go over well. Actually reading the article, I think his statement does a good job of both siding AI until the last sentence. Yeah dog, that's a no for me. I can't...
Well I can't imagine this will go over well. Actually reading the article, I think his statement does a good job of both siding AI until the last sentence.
It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
Yeah dog, that's a no for me. I can't trust any software thanks to AI.
Having skim-read it, my takeaway ... I think that he thinks that, if he uses the word "trusted" enough times, the trust will simply seep into us thru osmosis.
Having skim-read it, my takeaway ... I think that he thinks that, if he uses the word "trusted" enough times, the trust will simply seep into us thru osmosis.
This doesn’t sound tooooo bad…but still not a huge fan of it. I’m slowly starting to switch from Chrome to Vivaldi, which, I know is still Chromium based…but IMO better than fully using Chrome....
Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable. Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it.
This doesn’t sound tooooo bad…but still not a huge fan of it.
I’m slowly starting to switch from Chrome to Vivaldi, which, I know is still Chromium based…but IMO better than fully using Chrome. And in this case, maybe better than FF too.
The piece starts off promising, pivots too much to AI in the latter half and then the strategy document is very concerning. I think I preferred when their treatment of Thunderbird was benign...
The piece starts off promising, pivots too much to AI in the latter half and then the strategy document is very concerning. I think I preferred when their treatment of Thunderbird was benign neglect rather than focusing on making them have a AI headline product with adoption targets
Yeah the strategy document has a lot to dislike, what jumped out at me: Not for me they won't! And I'll stop using Firefox and Thunderbird if this is what they transform into!
Yeah the strategy document has a lot to dislike, what jumped out at me:
New AI-native interfaces will replace traditional browsers and email clients.
Not for me they won't! And I'll stop using Firefox and Thunderbird if this is what they transform into!
I understand the loss of revenue from Google is a huge blow and they need to make it up somewhere else, but fellas, what are we doing here?? I want to pay Mozilla so they can continue funding...
I understand the loss of revenue from Google is a huge blow and they need to make it up somewhere else, but fellas, what are we doing here?? I want to pay Mozilla so they can continue funding development of Firefox, with the caveat I don’t want them to put my money towards AI services. I’m wait listed for thunder mail, I will gladly pay for that service, and yet none of their paid services are mentioned in the CEO’s blog. Only investing in AI. So much for diversify revenue, Mr. All-My-Eggs-Go-In-One-Dumb-Fucking-Basket.
I've been using Firefox basically since it released back in the middle ages, and although I think this announcement smells like trouble I don't see any alternatives. For me personally all Chromium...
I've been using Firefox basically since it released back in the middle ages, and although I think this announcement smells like trouble I don't see any alternatives.
For me personally all Chromium browsers ultimately empower the devil Google, so they're out of the question; Firefox forks are potentially too insecure, and other browser projects are afaik too niche to be a real alternative.
I guess I'll check the arkenfox repository and their latest additions more frequently for the next releases and update my user.js accordingly. And hope for the best.
Waterfox has posted a reaction clarifying they will never include LLMs. As a long time Firefox user, I'll be migrating off after this CEO statement. Honestly I was already frustrated by the LLM...
Waterfox has posted a reaction clarifying they will never include LLMs. As a long time Firefox user, I'll be migrating off after this CEO statement. Honestly I was already frustrated by the LLM features that had started showing up, so it's for the best.
Waterfox, Librewolf, and Ironwolf (on Android) are my go to browsers for the moment. They are all FF based with lots of BS cut out and better, more secure default settings.
Waterfox, Librewolf, and Ironwolf (on Android) are my go to browsers for the moment. They are all FF based with lots of BS cut out and better, more secure default settings.
vs. So will it evolve into an "AI browser" or will it in fact remain a web browser where AI features are inconsequential to its primary function and can easily be turned off? Sounds like another...
AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off.
vs.
It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
So will it evolve into an "AI browser" or will it in fact remain a web browser where AI features are inconsequential to its primary function and can easily be turned off?
Sounds like another set of additions to the growing multitude of settings I have to adjust when I choose to install Firefox on a new system. Will be looking at Waterfox or Librewolf henceforth.
My tip for anyone else too curious not to read the article is to mentally replace "AI" with "smurf".
Sucks to see them go this route but I guess adding the AI label is crucial to getting funding nowadays. I've been wanting to switch away from Firefox recently as I've been experiencing some odd...
Sucks to see them go this route but I guess adding the AI label is crucial to getting funding nowadays. I've been wanting to switch away from Firefox recently as I've been experiencing some odd slowdowns. Since I'm on a Mac, I'm going to try using webkit browsers for a while. I've been using Kagi's Orion on Mac and it's been great though the mobile version is fairly buggy. Kagi is also working on a Linux version (based on GNOMEs browser) so it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
No need for that. Edit: Thank you for the exemplary, and I laughed at the sentiment attached to it, but my comment was the lowest effort I put into a post in a while. I would personally call it...
Exemplary
No need for that.
Edit: Thank you for the exemplary, and I laughed at the sentiment attached to it, but my comment was the lowest effort I put into a post in a while. I would personally call it noise, not exemplary.
I think that would be better, but I also deem it insignificant enough to ping them for it. My feelings about these topics has reached the level of @balooga simply replying "Christ what an asshole"...
I think that would be better, but I also deem it insignificant enough to ping them for it.
My feelings about these topics has reached the level of @balooga simply replying "Christ what an asshole" to anything US pres related and that was reflected, though unintentionally, in my curt post.
I may be the outlier here, but in the event that somehow AI is a key component of browsers in the future, then Firefox not developing these features would be the final nail in the coffin of the browser. Furthermore, I would hope there's opportunity to monetize them in a way that funds Firefox development as I would assume this would at least put all browsers on equal or near equal footing. It seems AI is the one area where some people are willing to pay and is almost necessary to pay on some level for the current costs of many of these services.
Having said that, the key is that it needs to be optional, and they probably just need to respect that some people don't want any of it and not pull a Microsoft where every time they change something or add some new shiny feature they don't shove it in the faces of people who have made it clear they aren't interested. Just make an option where people can opt out all of AI features now and future ones so they don't have to uncheck or check 50 different boxes.
Given how I already need to remove amazon ads from the homepage on every new install with or without a Mozilla account, this is absolutely not happening.
Personally removing/changing settings I dont want on a new install is standard for any software I use so that wouldnt even register as a possible breaking point for me. I believe what Grumble4681 is pointing to something closer to when MS does an OS update that re-enables OneDrive and it eats up resources.
In my opinion that would be a breaking point because the software exists already, ive set the settings how I want and it will be forced On against my wishes you know? If im doing a fresh install of something Im personally always checking settings anyway so it doesnt feel onerous when I install something fresh and have to change things to fit my needs.
Hard disagree. I can import every other browser setting through my Mozilla account on a fresh install, including extensions.
It is clearly kept out of that loop intentionally, and is not a good sign if their goal is to wedge other features in against wishes.
I copy my profile directory around when setting up new machines instead of using sync services, and I've never had anything get automatically turned back on by an update.
It is indeed really weird if sync ignores a few particular settings like that. Curiosity: what's the default value of services.sync,prefs.sync for those settings?
These appear to be the relevant settings for sponsored content, but they don't all even have sync settings.
The first two don't exist by default anyway.
I accept that I could move my browser configs around manually and avoid this, but the fact is that the company has clearly made a decision to not allow all of the sponsor settings to be moved around through their tooling while everything else can be.
There's no reason to believe that their AI push will be better.
Firefox Sync has a surprising number of gaps - a recent example I found was that the search engines you can add and remove from the address bar don't sync.
Yeah it's a shit spot for anyone who respects that AI isn't the magic cure all it's being peddled as, but recognizes it may have some potential future.
Like the dotcom bubble, you'd be seen as crazy if after the crash you still didn't have a website, and yet "who needs a website for pet products" was seen as nuts at the time.
Threading the needle sucks, and I agree that there NEEDS to be backlash against this data harvesting forced nonsense, but it also gets a little tiring watching everyone trot out the same "AI SUCKS!" arguments every time a new product adopts because...yeah probably, but I think it does have enough of a future that full out non adoption is likely not realistic.
It gets worse of course because like the dotcom bubble you've got money men and investors who have been told by marketing and sales people outright lies and now have expectations based on that.
I wasn't around in the dotcom era, but there still feels like there's a difference there. I imagine a large existing company was not forcing you to go to their website to order stuff. Brick and mortar was still a thing, magazines and newspapers were still a thing. It was touted as a convenience, but there were still options to do things the way you did it prior.
The advert strategies aren't really all that different in the grand scheme of things. Nor are the investment caller pitches or corporate buzzwords or even attitude towards labor. Companies didn't become greedy in some instant in the early 2010's. But they've become so user hostile . There's no "never ask again". Settings are toggled on after updates when you explicitly turned them off. We're in a cat and mouse game with what kind of extensions we can install on our browsers and computers as a whole. And now you have to worry about all the shadow exploits comapnies use to violate your privacy and extract more data out of you for profit. AI is simply a distillation of all these in one big trillion dollar buzzword.
1999 felt like a wandering door salesmen; it can be annoying, but they are nice enough and they don't insist. Do it a few times and they'll stop coming. 2025 feels like they put a foot in my door and are trying to raid my fridge. At some point the only real response is "fuck off", because the decorum has eroded. And yes, that's not good nor even productive conversation. But it's less about conversation and more about preservation at this point.
I think you've got some rose tinted glasses about the past because there was ABSOLUTELY intrusive and miserable software around then, and extra so related to the entire dotcom/browser market (helllllo internet explorer). And it's not just the internet. CES has basically been a year by year historical showing of "this is the bullshit we'll be shoving down your throat for the next cycle that fits in 4% of cases and is going on EVERYTHING!"
This is not a particularly unique cycle. There are different factors in where our society is now, but I don't think this changes my main point that AI isn't going anywhere, and not just because we've got crazy assholes once again trying to force "new thing" into everything. Pointing out, again, that yes marketing is lying about it is true, but it's also just kinda going in circles? Not that I think there's too much nuance left to discuss at this point (most everything has been said and the major breakthroughs have settled for now), but for example Larian get ripped apart because they're being realistic about things is silly.
I don't doubt it. But software was not your primary (and in many modern cases, only) interface with the world in 1999. A billboard can only be so annoying before regulations kick in. You won't have pop ups dirupting your magazine article. The assistant at a physical store will only poke you so much before giving up. There's extreme cases, but in a normal society the impact is limited. Digital services just make it much faster and easier to poke at you day-in and day-out.
Those options were viable back then. it grows less and less viable by the day to not have an email to sign up for stuff, apps to log into, and a website for a purely digitial frontend to a warehouse. So in comes the data mining, ads, popups, wonky chatbots, and all the good stuff of the last 20 years of Big Tech squeezing the user dry.
That's fair. But that's business. And business pays you to put up with a lot of BS. It's a bit different from me casually reading some news at home and needing an adblocker, cookie banner extension, and X-ing out a subscription pop-up just to read a short update.
I wasn't really arguing that much. I was simply arguing that I will keep saying "AI sucks" as long as it continues to bother me. And I was using 20 years of other ways tech has continued to bother me to support the notion that AI will not be any different in respecting my boundaries, no matter how the technology develops. The same incentives and lack of regulations means they will keep poking me. I don't want to be poked.
If that's tiring to hear, then I apologize. But at some point there's not much conversation to have and you simply need to push back in a less refined way. We need to go in circles because that seems to be the only thing that works, continual yelling on social media. Not a proper forum of debate and feedback. Not our representatives. Not even refusing to spend, because shareholders will spend for you (and they aren't spending in hopes of a good product).
Yelling makes shareholders squeamish, but let me know if there's a more effective means.
This does seem to be where Mozilla is coming from on the topic. I recall one of their earlier posts this year discussing that they felt if they wanted to have any positive impact on the AI landscape they couldn't do that by avoiding AI entirely.
I don't really like it at all, but they are the one non-niche software product that seems to be letting me entirely opt out of AI features. I'd like to see that approach get picked up by other software products.
Not an outlier. I agree completely.
From everything I've ever read, the costs that people pay are still not remotely profitable.
There's a lot I disagree with, but I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment. You don't make your premium technology into a TikTok slop generator if you think "people are willing to pay for AI" . You don't think about an ad driven scheme for your supposed knowledge hub if you think people will pay for an oracle.
The 2010's are over but it seems clear that 2020's tech still wants to fall on old habits. Habits that weren't sustainable even under the ZIRP era. I can't see that and conclude that people are actually willing to pay for AI. At least, not directly.
Yes. We are already paying an "AI tax" as a society. Or are about to, no matter if we even use AI.
Ram prices are spiking because all the demand is coming from data centers instead of consumers. But in response pretty much all consumer electronics are also starting to jump in cost for 2026. Smartphones, laptops, other computer parts.
All during an affordability crisis America is finally being forced to admit to. The crash will be spectacular.
EDIT: I'm on a computer now, so a few minor spelling/grammar corrections.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-projected-least-220-million-people-will-pay-chatgpt-by-2030-information-2025-11-26/
Now that could just be trying to hype investment, but if that's a genuine and real expectation from the company, 220 million subscribers is not nothing.
Amazon for years couldn't figure out how to make money off Alexa, and now with an LLM behind it, they're selling it as a subscription through Alexa+.
I'm not even sure this is accounting for revenue that these LLM services are taking in through API usage which then other services are selling as their own service. People are paying for these AI services, and if they're half as useful as the pie in the sky that these executives are marketing their services as, people will be willing to pay for them because at a certain point they won't have a choice. People pay for things they really want or find useful when they have no alternative to get it for free, and there will come a day when investors will want their money back on their investment and when that happens across all the services, it won't be an option for someone to utilize free AI opposed to paid AI, all options will require payment and some of these people will pony up for it if it's actually that useful.
indeed.... and that's still not enough. Key metric missing is "how much would users pay for this subsciption?"
But if I use ChatGPT's current prices, 20 a month 240 a year. Let's round up to 250 dollars per user per year and project this to a seemingly massive 55 billion dollars of revenue. Then you see claims of them committing to 1 trillion dollars of expenditures for hardware alone in 10 years and wonder if the math is mathing.
Maybe we can multiply this by 5-10x to account for pro and B2B stuff, but keep in mind that we still haven't taken labor costs into account with this yet.
And that's all assuming this is truly 220m users actively paying all year. For reference, Netflix is around 300 million after some 15 years of growth (and growth in much easier times to grow). Xbox Gamepass is 35 million after around 7 years (though you can argue gaming is much more niche than movies). Very lofty goal.
Open Source models already doomed that aspect of market lock-in. That Deepseek scare from January may have been brief tick so far, but if they start to rent seek their AI all at once then there will be a race to the bottom.
Nevermind my doubt that everyone even values such tools if it's not dirt cheap. The persistent pop ups and forced Ai integrations shouldn't be needed for a product users are actively seeking out themselves.
What you're talking about are business figures. Like what it takes to operate a successful business. What I'm talking about is the consumer behavior and theory. You initially disagreed with the idea that people are willing to pay for it, so I provided what I believe to be a solid basis for the idea that people will pay for it. Yes, it is an important distinction as to how much they will pay for it, there's surely lots of things people would pay 10 cents for that they wouldn't pay $10 for, but I also think there's a different barrier overcome when you go from free to any cost, even 1 cent, when it comes to recurring costs and just the demand that the person gets out their credit card and types in the numbers not only for the slight inconvenience of that but also because there's another factor to that which probably makes customers weary to do that regardless of the cost, which is that any service can just decide to raise its cost later on and keep billing them at an increased cost. So if you have a service where you get a customer past that point, where they're willing to take on that mental load of accepting those conditions to pay you, regardless of what you're charging, that's already a big barrier to break down.
Now to go further, if people are willing to pay $20 for what that product is today, well if we even believe 1/10th of what Sam Altman would tell us ChatGPT will be capable of in 5 years, to me it's not that hard to believe people wouldn't be willing to pay much more than that. Many people pay $100+ a month for TV service, or used to anyhow. High monthly costs are not something people aren't willing to pay if they find enough value in the product/service.
We're talking about the general consumer here. The general consumer isn't spinning up their own LLM. And past that, I'll refer to this other comment I just made with regards to competition/alternatives of LLMs.
I'm not pretending to be an Oracle that can see the future here, I'm saying that I can see why an organization like Mozilla or company within that organization like Firefox would pursue this avenue because I see a legitimate possibility for revenue for a browser which so far has had no real ways of monetizing their product on a wide scale. Many of these other LLM/AI services have been getting into branding their own browsers, so they seemingly think that's a portal to capture customers, so Firefox already is that portal but if they want to capture those customers then they need the services to do it.
Yes. And I still disagree people will pay for it. Not as extreme as "literally no one will pay for it ever!". People paid for plenty of failed businesses after all. But I wanted to use your lens and provide the issues even with the current, lofty projections stated.
To be more precise in my phrasing, the premium model for AI as a consumer good is not viable. That's why, as usual for tech, companies are already considering ways to incentivize ad integrations and repeat all the lessons of the 2010's. Get people in for free/cheap, monetize later.
But we're not in those times with trillions to burn on the side. Consumers aren't in a great place economically, and companies are being propped up from speculation and hype. In other words, we're in a bubble. This isn't a sustainable business model.
The model's monetization will get worse before the bubble pops and everyone will suffer as a result. Even the thought of adding ads as companies pour trillions in a few years into this is such a death knell in my eyes.
And I'm saying Mozilla is cutting its arm off prematurely in hopes that it can get a cool cyborg arm. The cyborg arm is cool, maybe objectively better than a human arm with enough iteration. Meanwhile, that arm was useful right now and could still grow. Just not as quick as a cyborg arm.
But the tech isn't there yet, and no ones providing ways to suggest well get there. We just assume we'll figure it out as we go along like this is some night out to town. I just see a foolish one armed man instead of a visionary, trying to fit in with everyone else who cut off their arms (or pretended to do so).
If nothing else, Google and co. Are hydras, so they can spare a dozen arms and even a dozen heads. I don't think Mozilla is the same in that regard.
What in the USP that keeps people on Chatgpt compared to other LLMs? If OpenAI start charging, why wouldn't their entire user base switch to Claude or Gemini on Mistral? Even if all western AI companies started charging, there are plenty of excellent Chinese models too. I mean we all remember the panic they had when Deepseek was released and it got there with a fraction of OpenAI's budget.
The point is that none of those services are sustainable for free. The only reason they exist and work for free right now is because investors are pouring so much money into them the companies can still operate them for free, but if investment reaches peak and investors want more and more of their money back to keep their investments, then many of the free options will dry up.
Then it will be become bait and switch territory for competition until customers get worn down at the level you're talking. Where they will entice users with free options to switch, then once the switch is completed, try to compel them to pay, because the investors at the other companies will have reached the same point, they want returns and they're going to need people to pay.
If a customer switches 10 times trying to keep their free service, they end up doing a bunch of work trying to keep free instead of just paying. Eventually people just pay. This is true for many modern digital services. I can get stuff for free or reduced cost that other people are paying full price for because other people don't want to deal with the inconvenience of managing their services. It's like coupons. Why does anyone pay full price to buy any item when if they look around they can find coupons to pay less, because they're inconvenient. Now I realize that's talking about a discount versus not paying at all which has different psychological impacts, but my point is that eventually people pay for something at a level they wouldn't have otherwise because the non-direct impacts of not paying the premium is higher than the cost of paying the premium.
This also includes name recognition/brand awareness. Why does anyone pay for name brand instead of other stuff? Because you can't buy what you don't know exists. So companies that market their product successfully can sell inferior products for higher prices if customers aren't made aware of alternatives. And searching for alternatives also has a mental cost to it. When you're looking for a lawn mower, you could just go to the store and buy the first one you see, or you could look up online trying to figure out what lawn mower to buy and go through all the various criteria and factors that go into what makes a good lawn mower. A lot of people get worn down by having to think of those things, so some people really don't do a lot of digging and they will just buy whatever a semi-reputable storefront will present to them.
So at some point, Claude, Gemini etc. will likely have to have some kind of pay models too and the free experience of today goes away. Even Chinese LLMs will have to do it, they still have to pay for hardware and development too, and they potentially face the uphill battle of marketing that I mentioned above. It's definitely possible some of them could pull off an ad-supported model or such, I'm not foolish enough to say it isn't, I'm just saying that this possibly presents the closest opportunity to a subscription that people will pay for that a browser could add as its own service that actually allows a browser to acquire paying customers for, which is basically unheard of for browsers.
I'm of the opinion that Apple is going to look like the smart one when the AI bubble inevitably bursts. They're not burning dumpsters full of cash building an LLM, and they've pretty much only integrated ChatGPT with Siri, behind an "are you sure you want to?" gate. They've done some local-ML things that are fairly minor, useful in some cases and easy to ignore or disable otherwise. (And those efforts started years before LLM mania.)
They'll walk away with more user trust, a web browser that doesn't lie to you, and massive savings while their competitors are in flames.
Much like games of global thermonuclear warfare, the only way to win is to not play. And bamboozle your shareholders, so they think you're playing until the hype runs out.
Optional and the possibility to use a local model.
Good, now I can use my AI browser to access AI summaries of AI written articles and really distance myself from the last bits of human effort on the internet.
This is immediately eroding any trust that I had in your brand.
Just be a good browser. I don't want or need Mozilla integrations into everything.
They need revenue that isn't from Google. Creating other product offerings like VPNs and email masking are viable ways for them to monetize without destroying Firefox.
I wish they would stop competing with Google, et al. They lost the moment Google stepped into the ring. Firefox feels more and more like another corporate browser that only cares about numbers and not about its users. LibreOffice seems to be able to provide a good Office suite without buying into all the buzz words and corporate bullshit. Mozilla shouldn't have a CEO, it should have a community manager.
Wikipedia makes more money from donations than they can spend. I don't see why a browser that feels like it's a user agent and not a website agent should do any worse. If 8 billion people can't keep a browser alive, that just means there is zero interest and it should die. But I really don't believe that would be its fate.
The difference is that there’s no alternative to Wikipedia and the engineering effort to maintain a modern browser is much higher. For Firefox, people can simply use one of the many chromium browsers.
Ladybird is a modern browser written from scratch by a relatively small team. It's still possible that it will fail or become another for-profit business, but if you drop all the cruft from the 90s, I don't think it's so unfeasable to maintain a browser.
If we can have free+libre software like Linux, VLC, LibreOffice, KDE, etc, I don't understand why we can't have a free+libre browser. We, humanity as a whole, can obviously develop and maintain multiple browsers with no noticable cost to any individual. We just do it against our own interests for some reason.
A modern browser is second only to an OS in complexity, because it is, essentially, an OS. An OS where security is extra important, because you use it to both interface with things like banks AND it goes through the mess of entropy that is the internet.
Of course, there is Linux. But the reality of Linux is that most development comes from paid engineers from companies. Per the Linux Foundation, around 70% of commits are from corporate engineers.
Chromium is technically open source, as well.
I'm aware of all those things. It's a daunting task.
The Linux commits are from corporations, even the maintainers are basically payed by corporations, but it's still a community project, even if the community mostly consists of corporations. We could have something similar with Chromium, but instead Google uses it to maintain control over the web.
Open source doesn't mean anything if the maintainer is Google. If Chromium were maintained by the NSA or a Nigerian prince, you wouldn't say "it's ok because it's open source". Google doesn't have user interests in mind, so it doesn't matter how open the source code is.
This is just blatant low-effort anti-Google bias, no facts involved. I wish such posts weren't so commonly accepted.
Not sure what you think your comment is adding to the discussion, but I don't have any gripes with Google in particular. I'm against all giant for-profit companies, especially those that have monopolies and are too big to fail.
But it's also run by a guy who's problematic, to say the least.
Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and many other prominent figures in the FLOSS world are also problematic personas. Mozilla also had a problematic CEO a while ago. You would have a hard time using any software (or any other type of product) if you would exclude everything that was related to jerks and weirdos.
I mean, sure, but as far as I know they've never of them have gone on explicitly racist/far-right rants about myths like white genocide like Kling has. To be honest, I don't really know of anything too controversial about Linus and most of the rms stuff I know is just that he's kind of a dick sometimes? but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Linus used to occasionally rage at people, to the point of probably being outright abusive(?). He's made a point of improving on that point, and he's largely been succeeding as far as I've heard.
RMS... is kinda hyper-libertarian in some ways, to the point that (and I don't recall the specifics here, so I'm hedging a bit as I don't want to over- or under-state the issues) some of his statements have been construed as supporting drawn/animated images of children in sexual situations.
ah fuck, I went and looked it up briefly and it's worse than I remembered. He resigned a position at MIT after making statements in support of Marvin Minsky and Jeffery Epstein.
I'll always appreciate the principles and movement he was instrumental in getting off the ground; Emacs is an incredible work of software design and engineering; GNU and the GPL are one of if not the reason Linux and the free software movement has succeeded as much as it has; but the man himself is problematic to a degree that I can't support him.
Be careful meeting your heros.
I would say: Don't have heros. Or more specifically: People shouldn't be heros, only some of their actions should be regarded as heroic.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to praise rms for his contributions to the free software world, but also to call him out and oppose him on his weird unrelated political statements where he seems to have no expertise whatsoever. Nobody is perfect.
Stop spreading lies, please. RMS did not support Epstein in any way. He stated that he can imagine that his colleague and acquaintance Minsky might have felt like what was going on was consensual. That's pretty far from endorsing what was happening.
If my colleague, of whom I think highly, has been accused of exploiting a child sex slave, contrary to my expectations, I might prefer to hear from a judge before jumping to conclusions.
Yeah, he's apparently pretty rude, comes aross as an old lecher, but that's like half men in his age bracket I know. Which does not mean it is allright, but it's kinda fighting the windmills as we can keep pressing these men to behave while teaching kids to be better and wait a generation or two for actual results.
And honestly, normally you wouldn't suspect people around you to be outright slaves. Maybe we'll learn more eventually, when we get access to the investigation files. Hopefully. One day.
As for support if drawn images, some places seem to be able to handle that kind of material without getting outraged, for some reason. In Japan, Germany and Finland, for example, drawn stuff is considered a fantasy disconnected from abuse and thus fine. So maybe RMS is, despite your feelings, very much inside the Overton window?
Please link me directly to these rants you write of, because I can't find them.
I looked at the article you linked in your comment above, and I looked at the pages it links to, and in none of those various links did I actually find Kling himself "ranting about white genocide".
Instead, the tweets of Kling's that I found being criticized, I would describe them as belonging to a thread of "criticism against DEI due to perceiving it as reverse discrimination" (or something along those lines).
It's important to be accurate when levying these kinds of criticisms against someone. Inaccuracy makes such criticisms easier to dismiss.
Thanks for the info about Kling, I wasn't aware.
That saddens me a bit, I had hoped that Ladybird might evolve into a fully positive thing, a real alternative in the browser space. With a rightwing nutjob as lead dev that idea is kinda fucked.
Yeah, that's how I feel, too. Like, the work he's doing is really impressive but I don't really want to support a project where the leader spews great replacement bullshit.
Firefox development isn't exactly funded by donations because Mozilla the non-profit is separate from Mozilla the corporation. The comments here explain the nuance better than I can summarise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39346814
I wish there were enough people like us to carry an entire web browser but we are few.
They gotta do what they gotta do and I’ll stick around for as long as theres at least a way to disable it, and it stays disabled when I do disable it.
Whyyyyyyyyyy
I've used Firefox as my daily browser for almost 15 years. I have no desire to switch but if I keep getting AI shit shoved down my throat I might have to.
Change to what though? They're all corrupting into these AI charged browsers.
I am thinking to switch to a fork, Zen browser seems to disable AI features by default.
For all these years I didn’t want to use a Firefox fork because it may lack the very latest security patches, but it is what it is.
I've been a satisfied Zen user for many months now. I say go for it.
I used Zen for months and enjoyed it but ended up switching off it back to Firefox due to some serious slowdowns.
I also wasn't overly impressed by the communication I saw by the Dev in the subreddit.
I'm on Zen now and have been for a few months. Other than its lack of Widevine, it's excellent for my daily needs. And when I do need Widevine, I swap to Safari since I'm on a Mac.
Vivaldi
Thanks but no thanks. For now I'll stick to anything not Chromium based. I find the trajectory of Chromium worrisome.
I keep four core browsers on my system: Safari, because it's a Mac. Firefox, because it was my daily driver for 20 years, Zen because I like it better than Firefox right now, and Vivaldi because I sometimes need the V8 engine for things like running the keyboard mapper and firmware updater for my keyboard. I also have Opera but since installing Vivaldi I haven't had any need for it. Probably going to uninstall it after I post this comment.
If you think a Chromium based browser isn't going to turn into AI shit, you're fooling yourself.
At the moment they are explicitly marketing themselves as an AI-free alternative to Firefox: https://bsky.app/profile/vivaldi.com/post/3m6yyjfmjf62y.
Marketing is not a promise though, for example a few years ago Google and Samsung released ads mocking Apple for removing the headphone jack, and then almost immediately removed it themselves. So I think it's reasonable to be skeptical, but it's also reasonable to trust Vivaldi if they have earned it (I know nothing about the company).
The charger was worse. Samsung made fun of Apple, only for they themselves to forgo the charger 2-3 months later with the new Galaxy S release.
The headphone jack at least took a few years iirc
I've been a user of Vivaldi for almost a decade. Please show me any evidence of Vivaldi going down that route.
if anything, the Vivaldi team is against using AI for the browser, which is refreshing.
Right? I just re-looked into it, and have set up a monthly donation for it. I occasionally have to use other browsers for work or because I'm setting something up unrelated to my normal browsing, and they are strictly inferior to Vivaldi. Happy to support good web practices and no BS AI!
sad that a good stance is so rare these days
Sorry for a facebook link.
Vivaldi roadmap for 2026:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1PvMXWArpz/
They also put it on their own mastadon instance https://social.vivaldi.net/@Vivaldi/115728747391375438
Librewolf and Waterfox seem to be good FF forks that strip away most of the bullshit and have better defaults.
I especially love that I can manage LibreWolf updates through homebrew.
Mullvad browser.
As I read this thread, I can also see the far-left line of browser-icons installed on my laptop --
I unreservedly recommend all of them.
Edit to Add: I don't have it yet, but Helium Browser is on my "Someday Soon" list.
There's a difference between implementing AI features that users can easily opt in or out of and shoving AI down their throats. Given Mozilla's track record, I'll wager they stand a better chance than most to toe that line acceptably.
I think you phrased this in a way that contradicts your intended point as those sound the same to me
You're correct. The "can't" was intended to be "can." Edited to correct.
They probably meant "can" instead of "can't" would be my guess.
I assume so, but my telling them is so they know to fix it for clarity not because I doubted what they meant.
When I made this post, I copy pasted the title which was 'Mozilla Names New CEO, Firefox To Evolve Into A "Modern AI Browser"'
I don’t agree with the change. His message made it clear he wants to move Firefox toward an AI browser, so including that in the title feels relevant.
I removed
Firefox To Evolve Into A "Modern AI Browser"from the title for two reasons:I would much rather people read the entire article from Mozilla and then write a comment, rather than first (or just) read "Firefox to evolve into a modern AI browser" and write a reaction to that.
I have since changed the link from the Phoronix article to the actual source from Mozilla, and updated the title again to something neutral.
Thanks mate, and also for the transparency 👌
I think it is. "AI" is referenced 7 times, the same amount as "Firefox"
And "trust" is mentioned 9 times (10 if you count "antitrust"). I don't think word-counts are the best way to determine the main theme of an article.
Even in your changed article, it remains the forefront of the quotes. Removing the main point of discussion from the title is downplaying the point of the article.
Well I can't imagine this will go over well. Actually reading the article, I think his statement does a good job of both siding AI until the last sentence.
Yeah dog, that's a no for me. I can't trust any software thanks to AI.
Having skim-read it, my takeaway ... I think that he thinks that, if he uses the word "trusted" enough times, the trust will simply seep into us thru osmosis.
This doesn’t sound tooooo bad…but still not a huge fan of it.
I’m slowly starting to switch from Chrome to Vivaldi, which, I know is still Chromium based…but IMO better than fully using Chrome. And in this case, maybe better than FF too.
The piece starts off promising, pivots too much to AI in the latter half and then the strategy document is very concerning. I think I preferred when their treatment of Thunderbird was benign neglect rather than focusing on making them have a AI headline product with adoption targets
Yeah the strategy document has a lot to dislike, what jumped out at me:
Not for me they won't! And I'll stop using Firefox and Thunderbird if this is what they transform into!
I understand the loss of revenue from Google is a huge blow and they need to make it up somewhere else, but fellas, what are we doing here?? I want to pay Mozilla so they can continue funding development of Firefox, with the caveat I don’t want them to put my money towards AI services. I’m wait listed for thunder mail, I will gladly pay for that service, and yet none of their paid services are mentioned in the CEO’s blog. Only investing in AI. So much for diversify revenue, Mr. All-My-Eggs-Go-In-One-Dumb-Fucking-Basket.
I've been using Firefox basically since it released back in the middle ages, and although I think this announcement smells like trouble I don't see any alternatives.
For me personally all Chromium browsers ultimately empower
the devilGoogle, so they're out of the question; Firefox forks are potentially too insecure, and other browser projects are afaik too niche to be a real alternative.I guess I'll check the arkenfox repository and their latest additions more frequently for the next releases and update my user.js accordingly. And hope for the best.
Waterfox has posted a reaction clarifying they will never include LLMs. As a long time Firefox user, I'll be migrating off after this CEO statement. Honestly I was already frustrated by the LLM features that had started showing up, so it's for the best.
Waterfox, Librewolf, and Ironwolf (on Android) are my go to browsers for the moment. They are all FF based with lots of BS cut out and better, more secure default settings.
vs.
So will it evolve into an "AI browser" or will it in fact remain a web browser where AI features are inconsequential to its primary function and can easily be turned off?
Sounds like another set of additions to the growing multitude of settings I have to adjust when I choose to install Firefox on a new system. Will be looking at Waterfox or Librewolf henceforth.
My tip for anyone else too curious not to read the article is to mentally replace "AI" with "smurf".
Sucks to see them go this route but I guess adding the AI label is crucial to getting funding nowadays. I've been wanting to switch away from Firefox recently as I've been experiencing some odd slowdowns. Since I'm on a Mac, I'm going to try using webkit browsers for a while. I've been using Kagi's Orion on Mac and it's been great though the mobile version is fairly buggy. Kagi is also working on a Linux version (based on GNOMEs browser) so it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
No need for that.
Edit: Thank you for the exemplary, and I laughed at the sentiment attached to it, but my comment was the lowest effort I put into a post in a while. I would personally call it noise, not exemplary.
If I could name a CEO, I'd name him "Huggles." Maybe it would be humbling.
I think that would be better, but I also deem it insignificant enough to ping them for it.
My feelings about these topics has reached the level of @balooga simply replying "Christ what an asshole" to anything US pres related and that was reflected, though unintentionally, in my curt post.
Probably a good thing. Anytime I have heard about him it hasn't been good.