A modern AI browser [LWN.net]

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 3:01 UTC (Wed) by denials (subscriber, #3413)
Parent article: Mozilla gets a new CEO: Anthony Enzor-DeMeo

Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

I love Firefox and have used it as my primary browser and supported it in various ways since it was Phoenix 0.1, but this "evolution" is concerning. Do Firefox users want Mozilla to take it this direction?

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A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 7:25 UTC (Wed) by rrolls (subscriber, #151126) [Link] (2 responses)

What Firefox needs is to implement this promise _correctly_:

> AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off.

And I think doing that correctly is surprisingly simple, we've just gotten used to not seeing it. It needs three things:

(1) Make each individual AI feature optional.
(2) Have a single settings page to control these features, with a button to turn everything off at once if you so desire.
(3) Most importantly: Have a setting to control whether newly-added features are on or off when they are added.

Firefox, like many other pieces of modern software is actually still pretty good at (1), making everything optional. The big problem we see today is the lack of (3): you're forced to update your software Because Security™* and then new features that you didn't want get added and enabled by default and that's what makes the whole experience terrible. _If only_ those people who don't like change (like me) can just set one setting to say "keep all new features disabled until I explicitly turn them on" and have this take effect forever, there'd be a lot fewer moans about updates. As it stands, it's a constant game of whack-a-mole.

Actually, I've just realised this isn't even about AI, this is just about user experience around feature updates in general.

*standard caveat: of course by this I am not suggesting that you don't need updates to stay secure, just pointing out that corporates use "you need security updates" as an excuse to shove features you don't like down your throat at the same time.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 8:22 UTC (Wed) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link] (1 responses)

When I read the last part of that quoted sentence, my first thought was that it should rather be an "opt-in" instead of "opt-out". i.e. AI turned off by default and a way to turn on the features easily than mucking around with "about:config".

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 14:18 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

It would be strange if they made it their focus and also disabled it.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 7:44 UTC (Wed) by rrolls (subscriber, #151126) [Link] (4 responses)

And, for the record, there _are_ some uses of AI I find useful:

- DuckDuckGo's Search Assist is useful more often than not, if I'm just quickly checking something.
- I use ChatGPT (on a free account) on an irregular basis - maybe once a month - mainly to look up something of the nature where a search engine would work if only I knew what to search for. For example, "there's this movie where XYZ happens, what was it called?" - and a more recent example, where it surprised me how well it performed - "here's a popular recreational maths problem, but can you find me papers about a specific very slightly different but related problem?" - I'd _never_ have figured that one out on my own. It's also useful when you want to do initial research on a programming language or library that you have zero experience with and want a starting point.
- I've used a local text AI as a rubber duck debugger a few times.
- Translation services, for _reading_, are invaluable, especially if they can be done locally (thus privately). I think Firefox is adding some kind of local translation AI - this is one of the few browser AI features I'd probably keep enabled.

Of course I'm still opposed (and I think most people are) to using AI for publishing (e.g. use AI to translate something if you're the only one that's going to read it; but don't publish something you ran through an AI translator, instead just let the reader run _their_ AI, on your handwritten work, into their preferred language if they wish). But these are some places where AI is genuinely helpful, so as much as I will ride the anti-AI bandwagon in general, I wouldn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 9:49 UTC (Wed) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link]

> I think Firefox is adding some kind of local translation AI - this is one of the few browser AI features I'd probably keep enabled

It's been there for maybe two years, I think. Though it responds quickly to languages which haven't been downloaded, which makes me suspicious that probably it has an online fallback.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 17, 2025 15:55 UTC (Wed) by denials (subscriber, #3413) [Link] (2 responses)

The in-browser translation is the one AI feature in Firefox that I've appreciated. That's a great combination of usefulness and protection of privacy (vs dumping text into deepl or Google Translate).

Everything else they've done so far, I want turned off. Which currently means turning it off manually in every instance of Firefox I use, because those preferences don't sync.

The Mozilla Connect community forum has been filled for months with complaints about the existing AI features and begging the organization to just focus on being a web browser. The new CEO is ignoring their own community.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 18, 2025 10:19 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

The Mozilla Connect community forum has been filled for months with complaints about the existing AI features and begging the organization to just focus on being a web browser. The new CEO is ignoring their own community.

Or those who (a) subscribe to the community forum and (b) feel strongly enough about the existing AI features to complain. There might be a silent majority that either likes the existing AI features just fine but doesn't want to engage in a shouting match with the AI detractors in the community forum, or quietly ignores the existing AI features outright, or else doesn't show up in the community forum in the first place.

The Mozilla people should obviously take note of what goes on in their community forum, but it would also be reasonable to assume that for them, the community forum is not the only source of input on what Firefox users are thinking.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 19, 2025 9:53 UTC (Fri) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link]

Mozilla doesn't listen to feedback that they should focus on the browser anyway so lots of people have probably given up on that one.

And similarly, AI hype (and a tendency to put the latest hyped stuff into everything in general, see blockchain and cloud) seems to affect most CEOs anyway, no matter what anyone else says, so most people opposed to that have probably given up on trying to make them see sense by now too.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 19, 2025 17:26 UTC (Fri) by burki99 (subscriber, #17149) [Link] (2 responses)

concerning disabling it, see the following Mastodon post:

Something that hasn't been made clear: Firefox will have an option to completely disable all AI features.

We've been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I'm sure it'll ship with a less murderous name, but that's how seriously and absolutely we're taking this.
https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 22, 2025 8:35 UTC (Mon) by rrolls (subscriber, #151126) [Link] (1 responses)

Following your link, I think it's important to highlight the very next post too:

> All AI features will also be opt-in. I think there are some grey areas in what 'opt-in' means to different people (e.g. is a new toolbar button opt-in?), but the kill switch will absolutely remove all that stuff, and never show it in future. That's unambiguous.

Speaking genuinely, not sarcastically: both of these posts are really good news and, I'm sure, incredibly important to a lot of people.

My main question now is: why wasn't this publicised more widely and clearly in the first place? That would have been genuinely good PR for Firefox - something which it hasn't gotten much of for years.

A modern AI browser

Posted Dec 25, 2025 11:08 UTC (Thu) by davidgerard (guest, #100304) [Link]

Because that thread was a PR disaster response to the backlash against the CEO's comments about making Firefox an "AI browser."