Mozilla lays off 60 people, wants to build AI into Firefox
Mozilla lays off 60 people, wants to build AI into Firefox
Memo details layoffs, "strategic corrections," and a desire for "trustworthy" AI.
I don't see them joining anything?
I mean, let's be real, what major function has Mozilla implemented into Firefox that hasn't been opt-out? And no, UI doesn't count, I'm talking features.
The problem isn't the existence of AI. The problem is the inescapably of it and how, under Microsoft or Google, it will harvest your data whether you like it or not. When you tell them "fuck off, leave me alone, and keep my words out of your AI's mouth", they're not going to listen. Profit motive requires them to invade.
Mozilla is a non-profit, and they've long been very good about letting you opt out things, and listening. I'm not worried about them putting AI into Firefox, because I can be reasonably sure it will be optional, in a way I know the others won't.
I'd rather they didn't go chasing this car at all, to be honest, because they're not likely to catch it, but whatever. They're renewing focus on the browser and I'm taking that as a win.
I can't contest the first point cause I'm not a firefox junkie, so I won't.
What I will contest is that the existence of AI, or, deep learning, or LLMs, or neural networks, or matrix multiplication, or whatever type of shit they come up with next, I'll contest that it isn't problematic. I kind of think it is, inherently, I think it's existence is not great. Mostly because it obfuscates, even internally, the processing of data, it obfuscates the inputs from the outputs, the works from the results. You can do that with regular programming just fine, just as you can do most of the shit that AI does with normal programming, like that guy who made a program that calculates the prices for japanese baked goods and also recognizes cancer, right. But I think AI is a step further than that, it obfuscates it more. I kind of am skeptical of it's broad implementation.
For trivial use cases, it's kind of fine, but I think maybe use cases we might consider trivial, otherwise are kind of fucked, maybe. AI summary of an article? I dunno if that's good. We might think, oh, this is kind of trivial because the user should just not really trust what the AI says, but, as with all technology, what if the user is an idiot and a moron? They might just use it to read the article for them, and then spout off whatever talking points and headlines it gives them. I can't really think of a scenario where that's actually a good thing, and it's highly possible. It might make it easier to parse an article, like that, but I don't think that's actually a good or useful tool, it's just presented a kind of illusion of utility, most especially because it was redundant (we could just write a summary and have it at the top of the article, like every article on the face of the earth), and it was totally beyond our control, at least, in most circumstances.
Also, the Mozilla Foundation is nonprofit, but the Mozilla Corporation is not. The Foundation manages the Corp, which manages Firefox development. So depending on which one you're referring to, it might be a non-profit, or it might not be. In any case, the nonprofit is a step removed from Firefox development, which I think is an important side-note, even if it's not actually that relevant to whatever conversations about AI there might be.
We already have AI in Firefox. And not gonna lie, offline (I.e. absolutely private) translations for webpages is pretty neat.
Let me share some fun Mozilla facts about their previous CEO who has now stepped down to “executive chairwoman” last week.
She received 6.9 million dollars in 2022 and 5 million in 2021, 3 million in 2020.
Her replacement is an executive from AirBnB and eBay. We will find out how much both of these are earning in 2025 when they release their financial statements.
They fired 60 staff and are adding AI to their flagship program to earn more money.
Tell me this is a good thing.
Tell me this is a good thing.
Mozilla has long been the most ethical player in this space (while still producing SOTA ML). All of their datasets/models are open source and usually crowdsourced. Not to mention, their existing work is primarily in improving accessibility.
ALSO, the other half of this story is that Firefox is becoming the primary focus again. Everybody's freaking out about the AI stuff but that's because they're only reading the headlines. The programs they've shut down are things like Hubs (Mozilla's metaverse platform), the VPN, and the sensitive data scrubber (which was using a third party service anyway).
As a software developer I am huge supporter of Mozilla's developer initiatives from Manifest V2 implementation to MDN. But it's also important to be realistic Mozilla has long had major money problems, and not the kind that giving them more would fix.
Tell me this is a good thing.
Ok. Mozilla was spreading itself too thin, spending resources trying to compete with multiple products against established brands that were already way ahead of them. They needed to focus down onto their core product rather than frivolously cast about.
And AI is the technology of the future, despite all the whinging and griping by commenters on the subject. It's being incorporated into the other major browsers, it's a must-have if Firefox is to remain relevant. I'm sure you'll be able to turn it off in the settings if you don't want it and if you're really concerned about getting AI cooties there'll be niche forks that are compiled without it.
I agree with you that Mozilla is spreading itself too thin. And don't get me wrong, I love Firefox and am a long time user. But they do need to understand their user base better.
They aren't going to become a sustainable business by copying more popular browsers. It's their differences from the mainstream that make them appealing as an alternative in the first place. I already don't like them foisting Pocket on me, which 100% should have remained an extension. I don't like the fact that Google is their default search engine, which goes against all their privacy messaging. I understand the reason is money, but that's kind of the definition of being a sellout isn't it? Their core values should always come first.
Fact is, those employees weren't fired for any good reason other than to hop on the latest tech trend. It's this sort of corporate "profit before people" bullshit that will erode any goodwill that people still have towards Mozilla. I couldn't give a fuck about adding a stupid AI driven chatbot to Mozilla, and neither, I imagine, do many of their current users. Honestly, I think "AI" has ruined the internet in a lot of ways already. It's already had a massive negative impact on the quality of search results, across all major search engines, because of all the low quality llm content that has been produced already, and it's only going to get worse. And you can't trust a single thing that comes out of those models, so what is even the point of them?
Sorry in advance for the old man rant lol.
And AI is the technology of the future, despite all the whinging and griping by commenters on the subject.
You have no idea, any more than the rest of us. Like, please tell me you understand "____ is the technology of the future" has been said more times than it's ever been true.
The idea of AI is a technology of the future, but what we have growing now is not AI, not really, and this iteration can be just as big a flop as any other technology of the moment.
And AI is the technology of the future, despite all the whinging and griping by commenters on the subject.
The entire discussion is to distract ourselves from the raw truth:
Fax machines are the technology of the future.
Fax machines will outlive us all. AI and VR will reach their heyday, then wane with years and be replaced. But whatever replaces them will sit quietly in the shadow of the everlasting Fax machine.
$6.9 million dollars?
Nice.
Ni.ce
The answers to both of those things depends very heavily on the details. I think focusing on their main products is a good thing, but adding AI sounds like one of those likely terrible decisions. We definitely need privacy friendly & open source based AI though, in all areas, so I hope this is Mozilla pushing for something sensible here.
You're right. Mozilla is the devil. Everyone go to the better option in Silicon Valley for web browsing....
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Her replacement is an executive from AirBnB and eBay. We will find out how much both of these are earning in 2025 when they release their financial statements.
Can you tell me what they were doing at either of those companies, or what they've been doing at Mozilla since they were hired there? Have you done any actual research into this, at all, are you just assuming that because you saw two shitty companies on the resume, they must be a champion of those shitty companies?
Things to add to your product when you want to look hip and trendy, but dont have any real ideas how to make your product better:
- 1990s: visitor counter
- 1995: Popups
- 2000s: flash intros
- 2005: stock photography
- 2010: local weather widget
- 2015: share to social media widgets
- 2020: fullsize 4k background stock videos
- 2024: AI assistant
1995: animated gifs, , guest books, site rings!
"Under Construction" GIF
I'm not sure if you remember, but site rings were what you used instead of Google. They were useful.
And I've seen some guest books with lots of people at some point in my childhood, but about half a year after that everybody firmly chose in favor of hierarchical boards.
And I don't share that hate for , it served the purpose of showing you a long line in a small space, implicitly saying that it's secondary temporary information, a bit like on TV.
And what's wrong with animated GIFs, animation is nice.
You forgot about blockchain and NFTs.
Remember all those IE toolbars?
I got enough installed once to fill the whole screen.
Ugh...please don't remind me.
And yet Microsoft added a weather (and bullshit) widget to windows in like 2020
I suppose many people were already using a third-party Aero widget for weather forecast since Windows 7.
I know I did.
visitor counter
I actually liked those.
flash intros
These could be used to create right atmosphere.
local weather widget
Back then I hated those, but maybe showing local weather on desktop is not such a bad thing.
share to social media widgets
Hate. Hate. Hate.
It really grinds my gears. Why does my bank insist on installing an app to approve transactions, and why does that app have a huge background video playing every time i open it? It really should consist of an MFA code generator.
2015: share to social media widgets on porn sites
How about, and run with me on this, Mozilla stops trying to be Microsoft and Google and instead just provides the cleanest, most barebones-yet-privacy-oriented browser? Will they ever have market dominance? No, and they never will even with AI tools. Fuck AI and what it's doing to the planet and fuck all of the capitalists enshittifying The Last Browser.
We need a new Foundation willing to develop a fork.
A browser could be top dog if it was just less shitty than the others, like the Brother printers, that print without bloatware and mob tactics of HP.
We want a browser that just browses.
But what about AI ? It has to be everywhere! Somebody please think about adding AI to Firefox! I need it to do ????????????
/s
uggggggggggh. I'm using Firefox because chrome is really going too far with it's manifest v3 garbage killing decent adblockere and Firefox is basically the only non chromium based option. Please for the love of everything that is holy. Just. Make. Your. Browser. Better. Don't need ai gimmicks. Definitely don't need to lay people off. You need to get back on track. Holy heck. This is the worst.
AI will be great for translation of webpages locally instead of sending content over the wire
My brother, I weep with you and agree with angrily gritted teeth at all your words.
its* manifest v3 garbage.
FUCKING NO MOZILLA YOU WERE OUR LAST FUCKDAMN HOLDOUT
they sold out to google and other advertising trackers a long time ago. Librewolf
Gonna have to pass on that one good buddy. Don't shit up Firefox.
why the fuck would I need an AI in a browser? 0 fucks given for this "feature". firefox is devolving into an edge.
Nowadays we are supposed to need AI everywhere. I'm waiting for my AI bidet so that I can chat with it when I do my business.
"What is my purpose?"
"You wash my asshole when I poop"
"Oh my god"
You already have AI in Firefox - local translations for example. Developing local AI aligns perfectly well with Mozilla's goals, but it seems people panic as soon as they see the two letters together.
Desperate to gain marketshare, fucking samsung to apple. I hate it and I have no other options left after Firefox is enshittified
Fuck sake. Sick of ai being added into everything. Please dont ruin firefox
You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the browsers, not leave it in darkness!
I want a upvote for sharing, down vote the concept button. I hate it.
As much as I hate it, think it's a terrible part for a free, open, and secure web; it's probably a solid business move based on the hype.
The "upvote good, downvote bad" mentality needs to die. As others have said, the arrows are to promote/reduce visibility of content. Whether you agree with the content of the post should be irrelevant.
Obviously. I've just got two emotions about the content I want to show.
That's precisely how it's being used now though. People don't want things they don't like to be seen, so they downvote.
I think maybe that's exactly how people are using it, it's just that most people aren't thinking "oh, well, this post made me a little mad or uncomfy, but I like the content and discussion that it's spurned, so I'll toss it an upvote". I think most people are more inclined to go "THIS POST MADE ME MAD! GRUG DOWNVOTE!". It doesn't even really not make sense, it would be kind of insane to spend like, even just a minute, thinking consciously about every single upvote or downvote you make, it would take a million years for anyone to ever upvote or downvote anything, and a lot of people would just not engage unless they were really committed, which doesn't necessarily map to their level of discernment, but might just instead map to how mad people could get over a given thing. Plenty of people could get mad enough about a thing to sit through a minute long wait period to downvote something.
Think of the up vote button more as a "this information is worth spreading" button than "I like or agree with this content".
🤦
Whyyyy Mozilla? I want to love you, rally, but you wont let me.
You may be in an abusive relationship with your browser. 💔
Enshittification continues.
I wonder when Steam will go.
It'll go when they go public.
That's the downfall of every company
i literally dont open the steam client anymore, that's how bad it is, it regularly consumes an ENTIRE gigabyte of ram doing literally nothing in the background, the UI is buggy, messy, and just generally hard to navigate. It's also just not a very good platform, steam doesn't have a particularly good linux release binary.
I actually cannot stand steam anymore.
"Doing nothing" is probably downloading an update. There's also a difference between reserved RAM and actually used one.
For example .NET applications grab RAM when they need it, but they don't just free it afterwards if not necessary (Like it needs 1 GB, uses that, but when the work is done your task manager keeps showing 1 GB). This helps performance, if the application needs RAM again a short time later it's already reserved and ready to go.
The whole behavior changes when Windows is low on free RAM, then applications are forced to free up their reserved RAM so you don't start swapping too much.
Overall this means: The more RAM your system has the higher the perceived RAM usage of your system. Unused RAM is wasted RAM and it's easy to free up some if you actually hit the limit. As long as your RAM is not full applications will happily use more and hold onto it to be more responsive.
From what I understand, they're divesting resources that aren't in Firefox or at least involved in a trustworthy/open source AI project.
I see a lot of people in this theead are upset at this, but I'm tentatively excited. If they can pull off a good AI engine, especially built into the browser, that would be nice. If it had offline capabilities, that would be amazing.
Even if they can pull off a good AI solution that's not built into Firefox but it's offline, I'd be really excited. I'm not crazy about having especially detailed and intimate information being thrown to some vendor out there, not knowing where it's going. Modern AI can do some amazing things, but a lot of them reserve the right to have a human read whatever you put in them and warn you about that. This is too limiting to me for my preferred use-cases.
One concern I have is that Firefox and its engine are one of the last non-chromium browser platforms that have a household name and are FOSS. So to me, that has to be the first goal to keep healthy. Maybe the AI thing will help in this respect
People read the headline and get angry, then want to tell everyone how angry they are. It's a badge of honour - look guys, I'm also angry.
Reading into their AI plans - it's to be run completely locally using only the data you want to give it, and it doesn't send info back to Mozilla.
Now, personally, my biggest issues with AI is data collection and where the training data comes from. It seems for FF, neither of these will be problematic, so I don't see the issue.
Training data could still be an issue, but if anyone is going to do it right it’s Mozilla.
Though, it's tough to pull from the headline/discussion this pivot is explicitly meant to refocus on the browser.
As far as the AI stuff goes, Mozilla has long been the most ethical player in this space. All of their datasets/models are open source and usually crowdsourced. Not to mention, their existing work is primarily in improving accessibility. It's really hard to see how this is a bad thing.
If they just built a browser and started acting like a foundation, I’d support them in a heart beat. As it happens today, I feel like I’m pouring money into a set of holes that neither I, nor seemingly the whole world, has much interest in.
There is no such thing as a good AI engine… all I really want from any AI engine is the ability to watermark everything it outputs as generated by an AI so it can later be filtered out when it's discovered to be inaccurate or just simply plagiaristic.
Why has opposition to AI become so ideological? I had to show my dad how easy it is to unintentionally induce very confident hallucinations in Google Bard when it was giving him false medical information, but that doesn't make it any more useless than using a search engine in general. The only difference is rather than blindly trusting a "reliable" site, you instead have to think critically and investigate content. I personally find AI most useful in giving me the names of solutions to problems, allowing me to more effectively search for information on them.
as Firefox is the only browser that can't trace its lineage back to Apple and WebKit
What a slap on Konqueror's face.
Unfortunately, KHTML was discontinued in 2023 (according to Wikipedia)
That's quite the bummer. But still. Saying that almost all browsers can trace their lineage to Apple and Webkit is technically correct, but it's just a half-truth. As Apple and Webkit were once based on KHTML.
I mean yes no kinda Konqueror simply accepted a bunch of downstream patches, including a name change.
...more or less. It could for a long time use all three of KHTML, WebKit (fork of KHTML) and QtWebEngine (Blink wrapped for Qt, that is, a fork of WebKit), they recently removed KHTML support because noone was updating it and it hadn't been the default for ages.
If they hadn't implemented multi-engine support in the past they probably would've switched over to "whatever Qt provides" right-out, it's KDE after all. Ultimately they're providing a desktop, not a web browser. Back in the days they did decide to roll their own instead of going with Firefox but it was never a "throw project resources at it" kind of situation, there were simply KDE people who felt like working on it. Web standards were a lot less involved back around the turn of the millennium, and also new and shiny. Back in the days people thought that HTML 4.01 Strict and XHMTL would be a thing that servers actually would start to output instead of the usual tagsoup.
If you're that kind of person right now I'll point you in the direction of Servo. No, Firefox doesn't use it and it's not a Mozilla project any more, Firefox only incorporated bits and pieces with Quantum, the rest is still old Gecko.
I don't really see it this way it's just marketing. Saying "all other browsers descend from big bad corporate Apple" is scary, saying "all other browsers descend from another open source project" is meh.
"It's all KHTML", I heard.
You have a point. But still, they could have added an "ackshually" footnote or something.
And text only browsers too.
What a sad day to be alive. I want to believe nothing bad will happen but this is scary
I've been trying Arc browser that has a bunch of AI shoved in it and.... It's actually kinda nice. I think Firefox COULD possibly not fuck this up. Before you down vote me, I too believe that Firefox would be better off focusing on the core browser experience. And I really hope they have a good solution to AI being all cloud based right now. Like having a lightweight local model. This is why I was glad Arc was trying it, not Firefox.
I agree, AI can be good for a browser, which is why I still have some hope. We just have to wait and see
but its open source so someone can just fork it
This is a pretty effective ad for LibreWolf
Gonna check it out. Is it foss? Didn't find it on fdroid
Ahh, not available for androidMull is a good one for Android.
Yeah desktop only, as it stands today. As a person that only uses my phone to tide me over between PCs, I didn't really think of mobile.
DuckDuckGo browser is available for android
I hate that they are laying people off. I do however want to use some machine learning powered adblock, for those harder to block ads. otherwise I don't feel like every app needs an AI assistant. It's bad for the Internet generally and for the power grid.
In theory, that sounds amazing.
In practice, it will most likely need to send the contents of your browser to some third-party server. No, thanks.
(Unless it's crowdsourced, like the first person to visit a page gets dinged, but then the next persons just downloads the set of rules instead of uploading content.)
The paradox of tech right now "we are going to build the most complex technology known to man into our product in the next 12 months. Are we hiring record numbers of people to get it done? No. We fired a bunch of people and everyone else will just have to be extremely hardcore."
Been saying the writing is on the wall for their enshittification for months. On lemmy. Every time I end up with 20+ downvotes.
Eat me. Here it comes.
Still using Firefox until it officially sucks, but if you haven't seen it coming you've been willfully ignorant.
I expect a Ubuntu fork packaged with Firefox a la windows 98/IE as a paid OS in the next 5 years to try to undercut Microsoft. Or something. Idk the future.
oh hey it's you! I actually thought about your comments as soon as I saw this headline. I switched from Firefox to brave a few years ago, then recently switched to waterfox as they are again independent of system1 like before. the browser itself removes a lot of unnecessary Mozilla integrations and also reverts the proton UI. maybe forks like this or Librewolf are the future for this browser?
Willfully ignorant until the end. single browser for everything will be worse for sure
That's a very good way of me leaving Firefox behind...
To go where, though? Lynx? Everything else is Chromium and that's not much better.
Am smelling a Firefox fork. Though if AI is anything malicious you can rest assured Debian folks would declaw it.
Librewolf. If all else fails I'll pop my old Emacs config and browse whichever websites I can there
To a Gemini reader. Kristall is nice. Lagrange is ... interesting.
Librewolf is a nice fork of Firefox
If the past is any indication, it'll either be off by default or you can turn it off. So maybe it isnt' all the drama that people make it sound like.
But it's a hellishly expensive thing that seems to not attract enjoyment from current Firefox users, and seems unlikely to bring new users, and (again) seems to be prioritised over other things that could better use the money, like developers, so...
Why.
I hope the folks laid off land on their feet.
I'm starting to think FF is being deliberately run into the ground by the higher ups. It would be good to hear from some of the devs about their thoughts on all this.
And I’m still waiting for them to open source Pocket. Silly me.
I'm still waiting for them to make it an optional extension… oh wait.
This surprises people? Mozilla has always been Mozilla's biggest enemy.
Okay, well I'm ready to write a angry email now who's with me? Anybody know the best address?
they have a mastodon instance, and many official accounts with job titles.
browse mastodon.social
I gotchu fam.
An exclusively locally running, opensource LLM might be a good thing though. In my amazing dreams where that's what they're planning to do.
yeah, CPU vendors will love the increased sales thanks to an even more resource hogging shitty web browser
This is how you lose. I only use FF. I will switch to another browser if they enshittify with AI.
Which browser is not going to have AI?
Netscape Navigator!
Vivaldi recently posted this -vivaldi-wont-allow-a-machine-to-lie-to-you.
See also vivaldi communityUngoogled Chromium
Why though? I’ve pointed out elsewhere, a browser is one of the few places an LLM makes sense. Especially if it’s local.
Too late Firefox already contains neural nets. It's how the inbuilt local machine translation works.
They've said they want to do local AIs though. If that's the case I'm all in.
Honestly, it sucks, but I expected hundreds in line with the other huge layoffs we’ve seen. It being 60 seems more reasonable
It’s remarkable really. They are competing against another browser which users have to actively go out and find, then install.
Some people are used to how chrome looks and that’s powerful glue, of course, but very few normal users (ie almost none of us in here on Lemmy) needs things beyond what both Firefox and Chrome does equally well.
The simple difference in adoption rate is this: Google pushing Chrome through people’s use of Google. Diminish the need for Google, diminish people’s discovery of Chrome.
Also, I cannot understand why they need this many people. If 5% of their workforce is 60 people, they have 1200 people employed. I can almost guarantee that Google’s Chrome team isn’t 1200 people strong.
Maybe Firefox would be better being smaller and more nimble. Maybe they should stop pretending they’re a company and start pretending they’re a foundation (which is what they are). 300 people working on a core browser seems a lot of full time people, still, and that’d be a quarter of what they are today.
Also, Mozilla’s inability to produce a simple interface for embedding Firefox is simply baffling to me. The reason so many other skin-browsers are built on chromium is that it’s a LOT easier to embed.
I speak as someone who’s run Firefox since the day it was born.
Well it was 1200 people at Mozilla, not necessarily directly working on Firefox. They have multiple products and they still need HR and lawyers and all the other support roles any other company needs.
oh fuck off Mozilla....
I double that. I'll go so far as to manually remove it from my fucking OS before I install it. Seriously, major Fuck You, Mozilla.
This world blows
Well guys we had a good run, free and open source software is officially over
Not entirely. There is LibreWolf (Formerly IceWolf) on desktop. https://librewolf.net
Mull is apparently an Android option that's also a fork, but I'm just installing it now, and can also say its only on FDroid.
I know man it's a joke lol. There's a bajillion forks of firefox that are mostly better than vanilla firefox itself. FOSS will never die.
Librewolf will die if Firefox dies. They don't have the resources to maintain a rendering engine
Mull works well on android. Firefox login works too.
that's a bit of an overreaction
Why Mozilla? You had so much good faith
Because money.
A non-profit that begs for donations has become a money making machine netting their ceos over $10m in 3 years.
And they still will. I'm sure most people haven't heard of the projects they're getting rid of (that's why they're getting rid of them) and the anti-AI circlejerk is going to melt away once it rolls out and people are surprised to learn it's actually a really useful technology.
I'm happy I use Librewolf, I get the good parts without the nonsense
Lol when that airbnb fuck took over I knew things were going to go south.
That was my thought too.
oh good firefox. Wonder what other browser i can use, oh wait...
Can someone just make a minimalist browser that isn't chrome/firefox based?
There are plenty of browsers. Dillo, NetSurf, surf, w3m, Lynx, Links, Via, Midori, Pale Moon although it's based on a fork of Gecko, Tunnel, qutebrowser. And there are even options for a search engine, although the only one worth considering that isn't just a layer on top of other search engines is Kagi which costs $10 a month, and I wouldn't exactly call it minimalist.
The problem is that no browser can allow you to escape the horror that is web standards & practices that have been developed over decades and are almost unchangeable, without sacrificing basic web functionality and just making it a worse experience than it needs to be at least. The fact is that practically the entire web is reliant on JavaScript, on top of HTML and CSS which take a lot more resources to utilize/display than it looks, meaning 3 interpreters constantly running that must be sandboxed to each tab you have open with a lot of overhead to manage security.
In an ideal world we'd all just be using provably-safe high-performance compiled WASM-but-stronger (from functional languages or more likely Rust or something less boiler-platey but similar), without having such a complex and fucked dependency situation*, where we wouldn't need to sandbox interpreted languages and slaughter performance. Of course, in an ideal world, we also wouldn't have to be concerned about aggressive tracking, ads, clickbait, SEO abuse, scams, or even malware, so there's not much use in imagining a reality where we actually have quality web browsing.
The actual answer to using the web without the fucked-ness of browsers is to not use a web browser at all for sites you use frequently. Use stuff like this instead.
*seriously, you can write the most basic website with JavaScript and it'll probably rely on tens of thousands of expressions of code which realistically should just be expressable in like a small page or two, you do webdev and you'll probably accidentally be implicitly committing a sacrifice to some Aztec God in order to check if a number is even or odd
Also just imagine if all of web dev was just ML/Scala/Rust/Swift/Erlang without compiling to JavaScript 🤤 That is the definition of a perfect universe
The problem is that no browser can allow you to escape the horror that is web standards & practices that have been developed over decades [...] practically the entire web is reliant on JavaScript, [...]
I've been saying it for a while: continuing to play catch is a losing move for Mozilla or for any independent browser maker.
The real move, is to switch to or at least integrate an alternate internet, something that uses a protocol that is simpler and more limited by design - just get rid of Javascript (or of "remote execution", really) and you instantly get a much leaner, much securer internet design.
I've heard pretty good things about the Gemini protocol, but IMHO they went too far too extremist into the "text internet" philosophy, and as a result is a raw downgrade from Gopher. Gopher could actually be a good option.
I'll definitely have to check out a few of those browsers at some point. It's kind of insane how much tech debt we've accrued over the years.
I think honestly we just need to start waning off half the shit we support. Minimize the amount of support required, and somehow manage to provide a smaller attack window so that way we can stop writing protections for problems that honestly shouldn't even exist to begin with. Bonus points to microsoft for creating security certs that don't do their jobs because hahafunneemalware.exe is signed by fucking oracle of all people, and i guess we should just blindly execute that file because it says it's trustworthy!
Though it would be interesting to have a sort of "web browser" which is actually just an application based on plugins for different frontends, for stuff like yewtube, we do only use a handful of sites from time to time. Plus maybe a basic web fronted for stuff that isn't JS because honestly who wants it anyway.
Unfortunately none. Developing a rendering engine that can handle css, html, javascript, while also rendering a website in the exact same way as Chrome and Firefox is a huge tasks, and not something a hobby programmer can whack out in a few weeks. Thats the reason why even Microsoft abandoned their own rendering engine, because things did always look and work different in IE.
Unfortunately none.
This is not true. Pale Moon, Ice Weasel, Librewolf....
Developing a rendering engine that can handle css, html, javascript, while also rendering a website in the exact same way as Chrome and Firefox is a huge tasks
It doesn't have to be from scratch. Not even Apple did this with Safari (they based in on KHTML, the rendering engine of KDE's Konqueror.)
Its about time i would settle for the bare minimum at first then we can built up on it as a community
honestly, yeah.
Servo in future, LibreWolf for now imo
Looks like I'll need to switch to one of those browsers that only take and show characters I can type on a keyboard. Like F and U.
Long time FF user, things really aren't looking good for Mozilla as a whole.
Yeesh people here are salty.
Honestly, if they make it optional and/or give the option to run it locally, I could see this being a good thing.
Lord knows the competition is going full bore on AI, and if FF wants to stay relevant with the mass market they'll need to keep up.
It depends on what they mean by AI. I can think of oodles of great uses:
- An AI-powered adblock that removes all trackers, cookie confirmation popups, those annoying “please subscribe” popups, etc. would be badass. It would be virtually invisible but it would make the internet usable again.
- A content filter that magically extracts the recipe you’re looking for out of the stupid blog post they write for SEO
- Or to expand on that, an AI that goes through the page of search engine results and removes the ones that are SEO spam instead of actually useful content
- An AI that can review at a page or email and determine if it’s a scam would save a TON of people by pointing out suspicious features.
- Basically anything that requires you to copy data from one context to another is a good use of AI. You could probably have a nice resume-filling feature, for example.
But yeah, Mozilla will probably just go for a “chat with your browser” feature. Total waste of space.
All of those could be terrible to be honest, because AI is a data tracking vacuum. An AI adblocker or content filter sounds cool at first, but it would mean it reads and analyzes your data, just like the shit you do with chatbots too. Reading your mails? That's basically what Google does for years with gmail, that's why they have such a good spam filter. I agree that a chatbot would be kinda useless though, even if privacy friendly, which in of itself would be great but I just don't see the use. This could simply be outsourced to a website.
There's no way it would be running locally.
In their defense, Mozilla did create the easiest way to run and integrate an LLM locally, so if anyone could do it, I imagine it would be them.
Tell me you don't understand your userbase without telling me you don't understand your userbase
Plz not you mozilla, you are one of the last good guys that remains from the early days
hard to tell what your objection is. i think layoffs are sad, and i hope it wasn't a matter of corporate greed. but i'm excited for the AI thing
i thought mozilla new CEO would be better but heck no, sounds like i'll be hoping around in webkit browsers
Oh god dammit
So frustrated to see how this conversation is playing out. This is exactly what people have been asking for but all anybody can seem to see is "AI" in the headline.
This pivot is about refocusing on:- The Browser
- Privacy
- Ethical AI
This seems like a much better position for Mozilla to operate from, particularly because they've excelled at producing ethical SOTA ML for YEARS before ChatGPT. In all, this seems far more forward looking than the previous strategy of "make weird little web tools to make money maybe" and it's an absolutely massive untapped niche, that they already have the talent to tap into. If we punish the players best positioned to shift the industry standard away from extreme and exploitative data collection, we will end up in exactly the Orwellian AI hellscape that we're all so afraid of.
It is a better position and FF is going to be even better because of it. We need more options than just chromium. Open web standards dont stay open when everyone congregates.
FF no !
I get that people are upset, because this fucking buzzword is haunting us. I'm just hoping that they don't jump on that BS-bandwaggon and create something actually useful. But we'll see I guess ...
Yeah, it's a hate-train for AI, I definitely get it, but Mozilla seems to be using it for actually useful things. Offline translation and fake reviewing checking for Amazon are pretty cool, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not brand loyal, and I'm ready to jump ship to a FLOSS alternative as soon as they do something stupid. I'll just keep using Firefox until they do.
Yep, thats my impression too. Let's hope for some actual useful ai
It's only a buzzword to people who've already decided it's a buzzword and are refusing to consider its actual good uses, of which there are plenty.
Being part of angry mobs is fun.
Sure is, but doesn't mostly lead anywhere
Firefox on Android doesn't support keyboard shortcuts - for the last 12 years. Sooo - let's add the bloody AI, that is going to help
- They're not adding ai to Firefox, at least that's not what the memo said, the memo said they were refocusing on Firefox (firing people who worked on their metaverse thing for example), and doing so on the side.
- They specifically stated that Firefox mobile is a big focus moving fowards
to be fair, most people aren't using physical keyboards with their phones, this mostly applies to tablets (which are much less popular) and android tv (where firefox isn't even officially supported anymore)
anyway, even without that issue, the android version of firefox is kinda janky and regularly gets stuck while loading websites
bt keyboards can be absolutelly critical for some users with disabilities. most of the developing world can't afford to own several devices like a computer and a phone.
Why are u using a keyboard on a smart phone? Is that a thing?
I would fucking rather pay not to have AI in my browser, FFS…
Guess it's time to get off the internet.
There's always trusty Lynx!
ew.
Could we just have the AI part separately? I want an AI that can help me around the house by learning all my books and documents in case someone needs a specific photo of the babies or maybe needs to know a derivation of greens theorem or a recipe for kombucha.
That’s much more than an LLM. I get where you’re going, and I legitimately want it as well, assuming it’s local of course. But we aren’t there yet.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A TechCrunch report has a company memo that followed these layoffs, detailing one product shutdown and a "scaling back" of a few others.
reads the very top of the page; it then goes on to detail a lot of projects that aren't in line with Mozilla's core work of making a browser.
These non-browser projects could be seen as a search for a less vulnerable revenue stream, but none have put a huge dent in the bottom line.
TechCrunch managed to get an internal company memo that details a few "strategic corrections" for the myriad Mozilla products.
Mozilla seized an opportunity to bring trustworthy AI into Firefox, largely driven by the Fakespot acquisition and the product integration work that followed.
Mozilla paid an undisclosed sum in 2023 to buy a company called Fakespot, which uses AI to identify fake product reviews.
The original article contains 731 words, the summary contains 140 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Well it'll be fun trying to find a replacement that doesn't small use anything made by Google, like Opera does.
Librewolf, Pale Moon and Iceweasel.
LoL, and I had been contemplating switching to Firefox on my phone. Fucking nope! Not gonna board a ship that has decided to follow the pack into the ice...
To be fair, I'll take the ship at the back of the ice-kamakaze-pack over the one at the front. More time to jump ship when something better comes by.
I'm using chrome on phone, because it's basically part of the operating system, but I did like Fennec. It's a fork of Firefox mobile with a few more privacy features (or so they advertise)
So instead you're using a browser by companies already in the ice?
Jumping ship means trying to go in a different direction. I'm not gonna upheave my entire online presence just to get onboard with a company who is not only going the same way, but is woefully behind in the race to go that way.
So, what is else out there? Can the guys making adblocker just make a browser or so?
Making a browser from scratch would be very difficult. SerenityOS has one, but idk how usable it is.
Besides Firefox, I guess the least evil options would be something webkit-based. There are a few of those.
Apple didn't even build a browser from scratch. They took Konqueror's KHTML engine, then built Webkit with it.
We could do the same with Firefox. As the matter of fact, there are already forks out there, like IceWeasel, Librewolf, Pale Moon, etc.
What's going to happen is that one of those will start raising to the top. That's exactly what happened with Firefox. Mozilla had the Netscape suite, open sourced it, then fucked it up. When it fucked it up, I decided to try one of the alternatives, Phoenix in this case. Then Mozilla decided to drop the Netscape Suite and adopted Phoenix, which eventually became Mozilla Firebird, and finally Firefox.
I guess the cycle shall soon repeat.
For me chrome just worked better (Mac) but since adblock is mandatory for me I switched. Afraid that if ff will implement AI my experience will be even worse.
fuck firefox! it's been full of bloat for almost 10 years now. Use Librewolf instead.
And the fanboys will still eat this up. "BECAUSE IT'S NOT CHROME!1!" - their reason.
Not Chrome is an important reason however. Which makes this all the worse.
