Mozilla’s next chapter: Building the world’s most trusted software company | The Mozilla Blog

Mozilla's new CEO announced that Firefox would become a "modern AI broswer." Its most diehard fans are revolting.

Allow this fresh issue of little bits discovered over the course of December to be my gift to you providing joy, opportunity and fulfilled curiosity.

Starting with Firefox 148 arriving later this month, users will find a new AI controls section within the desktop browser settings.

Mozilla's new CEO announced that Firefox would become a "modern AI broswer." Its most diehard fans are revolting.

Large language models and their associated bots are bad for the indie web in at least three ways: 1) their logistical consequences are bad for bandwidth, 2) their social consequences are bad for guides, and 3) their citational consequences are bad for surfability.

My personal website.

TL;DR: Mozilla has a new CEO and a new mission: transform Firefox into an AI browser. That has run into some snags, as Firefox users don’t seem that interested in AI. Mozilla is forging ahead, utilizing deceptive patterns (previously known as dark patterns) to nag and annoy people into enabling AI features. You can see this in the introduction of Link Previews, an extremely invasive anti-feature that exists solely to push AI into your experience.

TL;DR: As Mozilla moves to make Firefox an AI browser, people are looking at other options. Some people are rediscovering Waterfox, a browser that has been around for a decade from independent developer BrowserWorks. In this post, I interview the founder of Waterfox - Alex Kontos, and we discuss Waterfox’s history and look towards its future. We also talk about how Waterfox thinks about AI in the browser.

TL;DR: Mozilla recently released AI controls for Firefox: a single control panel that lets people disable AI features in the browser or pick and choose which to leave on. On the surface, this sounds like a win for user choice in an era of AI-everything.

Personal website of Jan-Erik Rediger

Can the AI push from Anthony Enzor-DeMeo mesh with the company's goal to be the most trusted software provider?