Meh, until there is an actually good alternative to Firefox with a mature extension ecosystem I’ll continue to use it and just disable the new features I don’t like. I have tried a bunch of the alternatives and they’re all either massively lacking in extensions, are chromium-based, or are sketchy in some way. I think the most promising potential replacement is flalkon, but it’s not there yet and I’m a GTK Stan anyway.
Any gecko-based fork will have everything good about FF (including the addon store) and none of the Mozilla corporation. Waterfox for a seamless de-mozilla’d fork (and nothing else) or Librewolf for extra hardened privacy and fingerprint resistance (plus daily annoyances that come with that).
I switched from FF to WF about a year ago. Copied over my profile folder in its entirety. Didn’t do anything else. Everything worked exactly as if I’d just updated FF.
You know I don’t think I ever checked out waterfox. I’ll give it a look.
After about a year with the browser, I’ll cheerlead it in every thread about Mozilla Corp getting in bed with another ad company or pushing anti-features “that you can toggle off so it’s fine!” into the browser. All the benefits of Firefox as a platform and code base, with no corporation that could profit from you in any way involved. No mandatory ToS, no account, no nothin’. Just a tool for browsing the web, with the full ecosystem of extensions made for Firefox.
I myself will stick to stock Firefox until a credible alternative to Mozilla’s development work on Gecko arises (emphasis on the “work”).
I see this take a lot, usually revolving around “doing your part” to keep that tiny sliver of Firefox usage up in siteside metrics. Decide what’s right for your case, but know that Waterfox and Firefox broadcast the same browser user agent so using WF doesn’t take away “market share” from FF. The only thing using FF instead of WF does to “support firefox” is giving Mozilla Corp your data to “not sell, california just calls it selling” and your clicks on its built-in ads - if you’re turning all that stuff off by hand it’s the same as running WF.
I still don’t understand the hate towards the AI features in Firefox.
Could they focus on other topics? Yes, but to get new users they have to meet them where they are and since Firefox is Foss you can remove what you don’t like by joining a project focused on that.
IMHO some of the features are cool, specially, because it’s local AI with no dependency on any provider
Could someone explain in a civilised manner why you don’t like the AI features?
Yes, but to get new users they have to meet them where they are
Do you want enshittification? Because that’s how you get enshittification.
Provide a solid product, screw the customer. The customer doesn’t know what they want, and they are always wrong.
The customer doesn’t know what they want, and they are always wrong.
Do you want enshittification? Because that’s what the authors of all the enshittification have said in the last decade
Providing a solid product and trying new things (specially things that can be toggled off in the settings, although it could be easier) is not incompatible and might uncover new useful use cases. I don’t love all the recent developments but all the hate is overblown
Look, I was just being cynical and snarky. For real, man.
I don’t know what to do about it.
What is your suggestion?
I mean, are you happy with where things are headed?
I don’t think the backlash is coming from the features. It’s coming from the fact that we’re constantly being prompted to please try the “AI” features. Companies installing “AI <something>” on your devices without you asking. Re-installing them when you try to delete them. They don’t even
tellshow you why it’s better they just slap “AI” on it.Anything that this tech does and is actually good, speaks for itself, so it just goes unnoticed. People end up associating it with the worst and now Firefox is also saying: Hey we have “AI” too. Of course people are gonna be mad, especially when they are already fed up with being prompted to try it constantly.
So it’s a PR problem?
I hate how everything depends on marketing (manipulation)
Thank you for your input
I don’t think that people can… And most don’t even know, that they already use algorithms like the one in FF, on a daily basis, in Adobe-programs, in Spotify, in Youtube, on FB, and so forth… And FF is keeping peoples privacy, and the “AI” local… And the others I mentioned don’t do that. They profile and sell, every facking one of them…
I have actually been able to “sell” Firefox to some people who wasn’t ready to switch before, because they like AI… And they also like privacy…
But there will always be some, that will insist on something being bad - they need to keep their crusade going.
I think some of the answer is expressed in the article:
To service and retain this loyal userbase then, you might imagine that Mozilla would address their needs and concerns with what made Phoenix a great first version back in 2002. A lightweight and versatile standards-compliant and open-source web browser with acceptable privacy standards, and without any other non-browser features attached to it. Just a browser, only a browser, and above all, a fast browser.
Instead, Mozilla appear to be following a course calculated to alarm rather than retain these users. Making themselves an AI-focused organisation, neglecting their once-unbeatable developer network, and trying to sneak data gathering into their products.
Gathering what data?
because most of the ai features they’re touting are around chatbots which are just websites, which makes it pointless to build into the browser.
I personally found it a somewhat interesting use case, although rarely needed it and they have also implemented other “AI” stuff like the website translation tool which allowed me to avoid Google translate (and is fully local)
I didn’t see anything running locally, just hooks to existing online chatbots. I’m not sure who is asking for that, but it feels like it isn’t the users
Check the website translation tool great use of local “AI”
I don’t care what happens, you’ll take my proper Manifest v2 Adblocker from my dead cold hands
This article is dogshit. Not only do they not say what they turned to (betcha its fuckin brave. It always is with these types.)
Its also a two parter, I am not returning for part two I guarantee you.
Enshittification is a process. Right now i don’t see any alternatives that do better so I am looking forward to that follow up article.
That’s unfortunate
The clickbaitey homeless person tech writeup for pizza rims.
I have been making it a point of trying not to engage with any links with no discussion in the body about the article because of this. This being the rare times I do. I feel like dropping in a link is like my buddy shoving a magazine in my hand instead of stopping and saying. This article here is interesting. It says that…
Bro, I’m the one who should apologize, I wrote that, then something happened and I got lost in the sentence, I have no idea what I was even trying to say, but I just saw that line I wrote and said fuck it.
Edit: Oh now I get it. Hah. That’s funny.
Holy shit, stop crying about the unintrusive and easy to disable AI features or whatever they mean by privacy feature. Are we still spreading FUD about their FAQ changes?
Am I blind on in this weirdly written article they didn’t mention the said alternative they found? A Firefox fork?
If it is Brave like someone mentioned in the comments, they probably don’t know who Brendan Eich is.
What are they switching to? Pale Moon?
If only there was some way to just not use the ai features and move on with your life.
Que the smallest violin in the world…
¿Qué?
