Technology

Librewolf and IronFox (android) both work like a charm! Well, in IronFox's case you might have to tweak JIT and WASM to ensure some niche extensions work, but I'm pretty sure it's a me thing.

I also used Fennec (android) for a hot second, and that has extensions too.

also yes for librewolf

Waterfox user here. Yes with waterfox.

Rich people seem to have kind of obsession about the ai. It MUST be stuffed into every single thing for some reason, no matter if its detrimental or not. I wonder if its because if the ai thing fails, it means trillions might evaporate.

What seems really off to me is that Firefox has one standout feature that people really love: extensions. You can customize your browser however you want. So it makes sense that if they wanted to integrate AI into their design that it should be done via extensions. They could produce a mozilla-approved pack of extensions which add whatever AI features they want to offer. That way any AI functionality is opt-in, and transparent in the sense that you have a specific feature set for each extension so you kind-of know what you're buying into, rather than having a built-in set of opt-out features that are ill-defined and constantly changing. Such a radical and unnecessary change of their whole design philosophy seems very suspect to me.

They fear falling behind other browsers and losing users because of it.

They see AI prevalence and see it as an opportunity to profile and position Mozilla as a leader in "ethical ai".

They see AI use cases and success and think they have to integrate it to have additional, useful, significant features.

They just got a new CEO that is likely a tech bro that wants to follow Microsoft into the abyss.

... what Firefox is trying to do.

Milk a bubble.

you can try floorp, librewolf? ironfox breaks some sites you only do in PRIVATE , but majority are just fine.

I use Safari on Mac and can tell you that more and more sites are breaking when I have content blockers and privacy features enabled. It feels like the days when sites were developed for IE and barely functioned on other browsers.

I can relate to multiple sites breaking on classic; having used the main browser for a few years now I can't recall any sites breaking on it (at least all the major sites I use, twitch and banking are the big two I remember not working on classic but both are fine now).

The thing is, Let’s say that there’s a foolproof system in place which makes you press an “ok” button every time is going to take an action on your behalf…how many people are actually going to check everything that it’s going to do every single time it asks? And for those that do, is it actually going to save them any time?

Just look at cookie pop ups. I have Consent-O-Matic and when that fails i manually reject and on those sites where you have to individually untick 100 boxes I just find another site, but i can’t tell you the number of people I’ve seen just accept everything because it’s quicker. That’s exactly how most people would treat a “do you want me to do this?” prompt from an agentic AI without checking what it’s actually asking to do.

If numbers and statistics worked, People would have dropped this AI bullshit 6 months ago.

the vast majority is sitll using FF, i use forks on the phones most of the time.

They only see the telemetry of the windows users that use the AI features everyday.

So around a 100 people.

I think this is just panic from the higher ups at Mozilla who have no idea what in the fuck the company should be doing or is about, even.

There’s another possibility I don’t see anyone talking about. It could just be the higher ups at Mozilla doing the old performative “we’re doing AI” dance for their shareholders and the investment community. Everyone assumes they are 100% sincere about embracing AI but this could simply be them paying the AI tax that all companies seem required to pay right now.

If this is plausible, then we should just wait for it to manifest as actual feature changes and then judge. Right now this is just high level messaging and PR.

I think this is just panic from the higher ups at Mozilla who have no idea what in the fuck the company should be doing or is about, even.

As someone who started their career as a volunteer at Mozilla and was fortunate enough to become an employee (although am no longer), I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this has been their standard operating mode for over a decade. Nothing I’ve seen from them since I was let go has shown me they’re operating any differently.

I still support Firefox because I oppose a browser monoculture owned by Google, and the advocacy work the Foundation is vitally important. The Corporation lost the plot ages ago though, and does more harm to Mozilla’s mission than any other player out there. No amount of re-orgs or pivots can fix this.

I hope, someday, for Firefox to be freed from the Corporation as a sustainable community run project (like Debian), with infrastructure sponsored by the Foundation and others who want to see it continue. Unfortunately the Corporation will never let Firefox go because its existential for them, and will be stuck in this panic cycle for as long as Google keeps them on life support.

Anyway, still using Firefox and pruning all the weeds from it each release, but it’s become exhausting.

The main use for AI that I've seen in my circles is a search engine replacement. Not because AI is a good search engine, but because search engines have largely become useless.

If Mozilla wants to cement their place, create a better search engine. It's how Google came to control a huge portion of the internet, and there's now a huge vacuum waiting for someone to replace what we lost.

I feel stupid for asking but what is an AI agentic browser even supposed to do? Search things based on your query? Well search bars have been a thing since forever. 🤷

How wide of a margin could it possibly be when their market share is in the single digits?

Edit: I looked it up. Their market share is 2.3%.

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share