this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
1045 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

78029 readers
3133 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
L4s@hackingne.ws
1045
Firefox Will Ship with an "AI Kill Switch" to Completely Disable all AI Features - 9to5Linux (9to5linux.com)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by ekZepp@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
347 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.

On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.

In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] BaraCoded@literature.cafe 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They could save time and efforts and just not implement AI features

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

As much as i hate ai, and dont want it in any of my tools and programs, as a business it is a different thing.
I believe it is a bubble and it needs to burst so bad atm, but as a business you do not want to be left behind on the hype train. Its a risk you are taking if you dont, and that if the bubble doesnt burst ( which it might not ) your company is left in the dust and dies.

The more reasons i want it to pop, because businesses are not taking the risk (obviously) and its killing their program for me

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't think there's any evidence that AI needs to be baked into the browser. They have a robust extension ecosystem for this sort of thing.

[–] Zetta@mander.xyz 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

It's the hype thing to do right now for web browsers, and Firefox is already way behind. I know it may be hard to believe if you only browse Lemmy (like myself), but the average person actually likes these so-called "AI" tools or at least a significant amount of them do.

So Firefox needs to try and attract more normies from chrome, a lot of these "normal" people would be more likely to switch for that 'one killer ai feature".

Also imo we should all be ready to switch to Ladybird when the first version comes out, I know I'll be running the Alpha. If you don't know Ladybird is a brand new browser written from the ground up, it's also open source. https://ladybird.org/

[–] Tenderizer@aussie.zone 1 points 5 days ago

Don't swap to Ladybird, it won't be completely secure when (or if) it releases and so far there's nothing going for it other than it not being Firefox or Chrome. If you're gonna swap then use the Servo browser which is already actually out.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I know it may be hard to believe if you only browse Lemmy (like myself), but the average person actually likes these so-called “AI” tools or at least a significant amount of them do.

This is probably true but makes me sad. I tell all my friends not to use the lie machines but a bunch of people at work use them all the time.

[–] Zetta@mander.xyz 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It is what it is. I do personally use LLMs because I recognize it is a tool that is actually good at some things, for instance, cursory research on something I'm working on that can get me a general idea of the knowledge I should be looking into to get the task done. Key aspect being I need to do all the follow up research from real sources to gather more data, and of course verify the assumptions from the LLM.

The problem is people taking the word of the actually incredibly cool (on a math level) next best token generator as the truth of God. Its dumb people doing dumb things, problem is dumb people imo.

Edit: I guess that's sort of harsh. There should also just be some better education from the people making these tools on the problems and correct ways to use them.

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 11 points 6 days ago

"Kill switch" is a bit dramatic. It's an on or off toggle. Would be funny though to call every toggle a kill switch. "Yeah, using the kill switch on GPU acceleration may help with rendering on some systems."

"Use the kill switch for preventing Firefox of starting a new session without restoring the old tabs."

"Kill all of your browser data upon exiting Firefox by enabling the kill switch."

"Make Firefox your default browser by enabling the 'set as default browser kill switch'."

Extended to other UI interaction classes: "You don't like English? Kill it by using the battle royale language selector to choose only the one language you like."

[–] isekaihero@ani.social 8 points 6 days ago

This will be like all those times tech companies promised us they aren't harvesting our data only to find out they were harvesting our data. Years from now we will find out the AI was lurking in the background watching us, learning from us the whole time.

[–] Wooki@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

https://librewolf.net/

[–] Tiger_Man_@szmer.info 9 points 6 days ago

I hope librewolf will have it killed by default

[–] webkitten@piefed.social 3 points 5 days ago

But I don't trust the CEO at all.

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 5 points 6 days ago

CEO : Panik

[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

How about you ship with it off by default and users can choose to turn it on? No? That won't serve your corporate goals, will it?

[–] Doorknob@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is good enough for me. If they have an on boarding step/popup to say "Try our AI crap" and I have an option to say "No and don't ever bother me about this again", then it's fine.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

You don't actually believe that "don't ever bother me about this again" is gonna be in the realm.of possibilities, do you? They'll accidentally "forget" your choice on every second update and pester you again. Fuck mozilla.

[–] el_abuelo@programming.dev 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

What browser do you use?

I'm getting a bit tired of website incompatibility with Firefox but when the alternative is Chrome, I'm sticking with FF.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I am still stuck with Mozilla, but I hate the organisation nonetheless. :( It sucks that the web standards have been made so complicated (extensive) that it takes a major organisation to implement them in a browser.

On the phone I use DDG browser, but not happy with it because ublock origin isn't available.

On computer I am frustrated that debian repos do not yet have a privacy friendly fork, such as (from what I hear) waterfox or LibreWolf.

I am with you that Chrome-derivates are not an alternative at all.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

can you give an example of a website that doesn't work in FF? I've been an exclusive FF user for many years (maybe at least 8), and I can't remember ever encountering a compatibility issue. The worst is when a website lies about needing chrome, but if you change the useragent it works perfectly.

Recently I switched to LibreWolf for better privacy, and that one has a lot of features disabled to combat fingerprinting. This does break a lot of sites, but ut's easy to disable that in settings.

[–] el_abuelo@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago

I cannot, because it's not something I track. It's usually some site ive only ever visited that once, worked around their shit engineering, and moved on with my life. So it's not that specific sites don't work, it's that ive had to use Chrome or edge 6 times this year.

I can't remember a browser ever saying I needed chrome. Even Google Meet works fine...just functionality is reduced. A small price to pay for not giving Google the keys.

[–] Doorknob@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Hasn't been the case so far with sidebar, Firefox view, Pocket or any other stuff I've not wanted in the past. If they did start doing dark patterns bullshit with this AI stuff, then yeah, I'd switch. In the meantime, I'll use FF until it gets worse than the alternatives, or an alternative gets better than FF, whichever comes first.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Well, I can't condemn you, I have only partially made the move myself for lack of options :(

[–] Maiznieks@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Waterfox for android and librewolf for desktop sounds good all of a sudden

[–] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is the Mozilla Foundations version of "we dun goofed"

[–] luciferofastora@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago

Admitting fault is good, offering a way to fix it is better. We should applaud that that recognise, admit and want to remedy their mistake.

load more comments
view more: next ›