this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Mozilla is in a tricky position. It contains both a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the internet a better place for everyone, and a for-profit arm dedicated to, you know, making money. In the best of times, these things feed each other: The company makes great products that advance its goals for the web, and the nonprofit gets to both advocate for a better web and show people what it looks like. But these are not the best of times. Mozilla has spent the last couple of years implementing layoffs and restructuring, attempting to explain how it can fight for privacy and openness when Google pays most of its bills, while trying to find its place in an increasingly frothy AI landscape.

Fun times to be the new Mozilla CEO, right? But when I put all that to Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, the company’s just-announced chief executive, he swears he sees opportunity in all the upheaval. “I think what’s actually needed now is a technology company that people can trust,” Enzor-DeMeo says. “What I’ve seen with AI is an erosion of trust.”

Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.”

-_-

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[–] heyWhatsay@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

I used to use it exclusively, but it slowly got bloated, so when I got rid of windows, I went to tor browser and librewolf.

Firefox doesn't really need to make money so long as Google has to worry about being broken up by the Fed for antitrust reasons... Obviously so long as there is a national socialist/Trump regime in place that's not really something they have to worry about. Why, Goog even donated $5m to Trump's little Whitehouse evisceration/ballroom project, and will get their very own plaque in the ballroom that all the ballpeople can look at.

Google has donated over $USD 1B to Mozilla. The standard conspiracy fud is so that it can sink its claws into its open source competition, corrupting it with its omniscient googliness, but FIrefox barely blips on the radar of browser use, not even including Tor, Waterfox, Librewolf (which I'm currently using), and other forks. It's just not going to threaten any of the megas any time soon.

The actual motive for giving Mozilla so much money is simply to deflect any accusations that they're a monopoly that hurts market competition.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm going to have to go Amish at this rate.

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[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 525 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] dimjim@sh.itjust.works 120 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is such a fantastic way to put it. I fuckin love the internet, people have amazing ways to say things lol

[–] M137@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

There are two things that the Internet has taught me: the incredible creativity people have about absolutely everything and the unimaginable levels of stupidity that people have about absolutely everything. Sometimes one of those things only exist because of the other, and that's hard to process.

[–] Tonava@sopuli.xyz 40 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Programs are like socks, once they get dirty, you change them. Do these people really not understand how this stuff works? Even giants can fall when enough people switch to other options

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

TIL, people consider Mozilla and Firefox a giant.

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

[–] criss_cross@lemmy.world 80 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

“What I’ve seen with AI is an erosion of trust.”

Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.” Some will be open-source models available to anyone.

This is such an out of touch non-answer here.

People don’t oppose ai changes because they’re locked into a model. In fact most AI products I use for my job let you choose a fucking model.

People hate them because

A) 90% of the time they’re useless and the remaining 10 are detrimental to the product experience

B) Ethical concerns about training off of artists and authors as well as environmental impact. EDIT: or also the general trend of trying to replace humans with AI.

C) Not wanting to play into the fucking arms race the billionaire class are manufacturing

D) The time they could be useful they have a risk of being either hilariously wrong or dangerously wrong. And there’s no amount of training and GPU manufacturing that’s gonna fix that.

Absolutely none of this is addressed by the CEO. I’m sure he has to say this because of the fucking tulip crazy money is in around this but it doesn’t make it any less tone deaf or futile.

[–] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Mozilla is completely detached from its user base. They think their average user is a Microsoft enthusiast when in reality it's a Debian enjoyer.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 9 points 2 days ago (3 children)

They have telemetry to track the number of installations on different systems

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And most debian user disable telemetry. Their numbers probably show its all windows folk heavily using AI because its the default.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Then enable "Send daily usage ping to Mozilla"

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[–] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 207 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I feel like mozilla could switch to making all their decisions by flipping a coin and do better than they're doing in recent years

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 46 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

But how else would the CEO justify her $7 million dollar salary (in ‘22) that’s going up by a million or two every year since she returned, starting at $3 million in 2020.

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[–] flemtone@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Overpaid CEO has more money than actual sense.

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[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 108 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Man, I so wish mozilla was a worker owned cooperative. These string of useless CEOs would have already been shown the door

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[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)
[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes. But we will have to see whether it's opt-in or opt-out. This can make quite a significant difference.

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And how much you tryst them

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 1 points 17 hours ago

I do as long as it stays open source.

[–] notreallyhere@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

CEO = bad

every. single. time.

[–] 58008@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Is there like a petition or something we can all sign to show that literally no cunt wants this?

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[–] DigDoug@lemmy.world 94 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Is "must make the dumbest fucking decision possible at all times" in the Mozilla CEO job description or something?

I have no CEO experience, but I'll make stupid fucking decisions for a fifth of the salary you're paying the current guy.

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[–] QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Why do they keep going all in on AI when no one wants it?

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[–] trk@aussie.zone 59 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I've cancelled my monthly donation to Mozilla. What's the point. Every bit of feedback I've provided is to the tune of no goddamn AI, spend my money towards keeping up with the alternatives to make sure there's always an extra player in the field. Instead it's going to some overpaid dickhead who's going to introduce AI.

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[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 days ago

That's what all CEOs do. Double down on AI.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 59 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Mozilla’s new CEO is a dumbass.

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[–] I_Clean_Here@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But why? Be unique! Don't just do what everyone else does!

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Given what Microsoft is smoking these days, no AI would be a selling point, and Mozilla does not seem to realize they are playing with fire. Their userbase chose their product instead of using the system defaults of Chrome, Safari, and Internet Exploder. Their users, just like Lemmy, are tech-litrrate and more socially concious than the masses. If an alternative or fork appears, with sufficent support, and Mozilla does not put the breaks on their AI train, were all just going to jump ship. We do it every time a new OS is installed, there is no Firefox loyalty, only lesser evils.

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[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 64 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (30 children)

Their user base is almost exclusively tech savvy people, the same people who are most opposed to AI.

I think this move signals that they believe we have nowhere else to go, and they're daring us to go fuck ourselves, because fuck you, what are you going to do, use Chrome?

Yes, yes I will, well Chromium forks.

In general, I prefer the look and feel of chromium-based browsers, but I use Firefox and Firefox forks for the reasons that I'm sure everyone here is aware of.

If those reasons go away, I'll just switch to Vivaldi as my primary browser. I won't be happy about it, but if Firefox becomes another AI slop project. I might as well go with the browser whose UX I prefer.

[–] Supervisor194@lemmy.world 43 points 2 days ago

Yes, yes I will, well Chromium forks.

Yeah, I'm not going to switch to a Manifest V3 browser because Firefox puts in access to an optional AI agent. If Firefox makes it so you can't turn it off, which I wouldn't think is likely, I might switch to something like Librewolf, but Chromium? No.

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[–] DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just like I said in another post related to this, I hope this doesn't kill LibreWolf, IceCat, and Waterfox.

[–] ChromaticMan@lemmy.world 46 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Librewolf have put a post out a few days ago that they won’t add any AI stuff.

https://chaos.social/@librewolf/115716906957137196

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[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 53 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is every Mozilla CEO in the last decade:

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[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You either die Old Mozilla or you live to see yourself become Current Mozilla.

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[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 days ago

Of course, this is just what Firefox needs ~~fixing long standing issues, catching up to web standards, process isolation on mobile~~ AI!

[–] witty_username@feddit.nl 48 points 2 days ago (3 children)

EU here is your chance! Fully fund Mozilla on the condition that they move to an EU country

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Who is this a signal for though? They could silently add the AI features and rally their base on aspects people actually like. It's almost like Firefox doesn't want to succeed

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

CEOs have this massive psychosis, they really believe everyone wants this bullshit. I have a theory that it's because they were always surrounded by yesmen, and simultaneously they hate people, so for them the LLM is the best thing ever, all the constant agreeing and affirmation with no pesky humanity, and they can't believe there is anyone who don't want that.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works 41 points 3 days ago (23 children)

Any valid alternative for android phones to firefox with same add-on support? These idiots look like they are speedrunning it to become a shitty company.

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will offer users their choice [...] “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.”

it could be worse

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