Thank god we have a photo of the firefox logo instead of an article
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Firefox has actually become less stable for me, which is crazy because it was stable for several years.
It had gotten bloated and unstable when Chrome first came out, too.
Why does Mozilla always trend toward mediocrity?
This is good enough for me. This means the Firefox code base will not get so integrated with AI features that forkers cannot remove them, and that was my primary concern.
Too little too late
That's a contradiction
Lol, lmao. Still deleting firefox, get fucked. Mozilla betrayed its users trust by choosing to follow this slop trend, and they'll suffer the consequences.
& you'll suffer the consequences of monopoly. Wait it out until LadyBird & Servo gets fully tested out
So you'll just not visit websites at all anymore?
Opt-in you say? How about RMB click with AI chatbot that you can disable by clicking "Disable AI bot" there? Wasn't opt-in first. And, how is that in aboug:config .ml. list contains tons of entries set to True, rather than False? How in the fuck is it opt-in? It has been opt-out and in order to opt-out most of it, you would need an intermediate/advanced user. There was no toggle switch on a sidebar for normies to see and click. I call BS on this statement.
“Changes course after backlash” != “clarifies”.
~~Changes course~~ swerves erratically before continuing in the same general direction.
I dunno that seems very compatible with the following that was said in the CEO statement.
AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off.
Also here is a link to the posts https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782
Also, the dev says the following and I think they have a point.
I'm not asking for faith in our direction - the thing I love about the Firefox community is how open, honest, and technical it is.
But I do ask that you don't have the opposite of faith. Like, try not to be determined that we're going to do the wrong thing here.
Something easily turned off is distinctly not opt in. They're still lying to everyone.
Earlier today I found a fucking AI feature automatically turned on... Those idiots need to get their shit straight and fast if they want to remain relevant.
Something easily turned off is distinctly not opt in. They’re still lying to everyone.
It's just that nobody can agree what "opt-in" actually means, apparently.
It means off by default for starters.
try not to be determined that we're going to do the wrong thing here.
There's a lot Mozilla has done right, but there's a lot they haven't done right as well. These days, the cynical view has proven itself to be more reliable in general, so it's hard not to apply it here as well.
That being said, FF has supported AI chatbots for a while and I haven't seen it come up once in my browser beyond when they said "this is a thing now". But this has also been a good opportunity to explore alternatives, so I'm trying out Zen now (ff-based still).
“Can easily turn off” implies that it ships to you on.
Honestly, asking us to assume that every action comes from a place of good will just makes me doubt them even more. You earn that kind of trust, you don’t ask for it; and if they don’t have it they should be asking hard questions about why.
They are a company that used to be about independent choice but are effectively reliant on Google (a privacy nightmare) to be solvent, and they’re now putting their bets into being “a modern AI browser”. Nothing about that tells me I should just trust them.
Maybe but I although critical of some recent firefox actions think its possible given the og statement it is a clarification from a somewhat vague statement that was taken in the worst possible way by some and posted again and again often by people not even reading beyond the headline.
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not sure this is enough for me. Its too late and too large a faux pas to recover from. In my opinion.
For me it's really not. If you don't need to opt out and are proud of your killswitch, just don't put it there for normal people.
Is the killswitch in settings? Because I had to set browser.ml.enable to false in about:config since there was nothing related to it in settings
Yeah, that’d be like the web browser equivalent of going into the Windows registry editor and changing a value in there. Like, it’s there, but unless you already know what you’re looking for, it’s not really an option.
They have said they will make one outside of about:config.
Is anything related to AI even in yet? Or is it that they just placed the flag in there for future use, but no features are in?
The tab grouping has an ai thing that suggests groups for you I think
and the right click summarize is in.
Not sure if it counts but chatbot support in the sidebar has existed for quite some time now.
Yeah. I'm still pissed off dev hours get wasted on this shit instead of, idk, HDR support? Surround sound audio?
They say a switch will be built in. There is no switch yet. Which means the deluge of little popups about AI tab grouping and the "look at Perplexity" messages are not going away until these changes are actually released.
the killswitch is in about:config
browser.ml.enable
browser.ml.chat.enabled
browser.ml.chat.menu
browser.ml.chat.page
browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge
browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge
browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled
browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled
extensions.ml.enabled
browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate
This is 12 switches
That's... Not really a switch. If somebody has to go to a secret place, get past a warning sign, and type in a half dozen secret commands... it sounds more like an espionage movie than the flipping of a switch.
And people have already complained that some of those flags don't affect newer ones, which Mozilla keeps adding. We might as well say Microsoft has a setting to turn off telemetry, never mind it's also hidden and it also keeps getting switched back on.
the killswitch is in
about:config
Ah yes, the easiest place to put a kill switch for the average user, as opposed to the complexity of a toggle in settings.
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Or you could just use Librewolf
FF build with adblock built in and AI/spyware ripped out
they have said they will make an option that is not in about:config
Well they should have done this when the first ai feature was introduced. Bit late now.
then make it an extension.
the fact that they're entertaining ai at all is antithesis to mozilla's mission of an open and environmentally friendly web free from profit.
"You won this round. But we'll try again tomorrow!"
They already said as much two or three months ago...
Get a new CEO and get back to us
Too late, I switched
Link to the article as it doesn't show up on Lemmy: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/12/firefox-dev-clarifies-there-will-be-an-ai-kill-switch/
They really should have come out with a local llm poduct seperate from firefox that is compatible with using it out of box.
For now.
good.
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