alt Hacker NewsI love Mozilla but this feels like marketing imo.
From the article: "AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off" and "Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser". I highly doubt you will be able to turn of the transformer tech features in an AI browser imo. And they won't make a separate browser for this.
This really feels like the beginning of the end for Mozilla, sadly.
Are there any true alternatives (not dependent on financing or any engines from third parties) to Google, if you wish to use the web in 2025?
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This is why I'm hopeful that at least one of Ladybird, Flow, and Servo emerge as a viable alternative to the current crop.
This is why I've been using Firefox forks like Zen or LibreWolf. These forks will disable/strip out the AI stuff, so I never have to see it.
Kagi's Orion browser is 1.0 on Mac and working on the first full Linux release - it's built on WebKit. That WebKit is a "third party" dependency but it's still a break from the browser monoculture and it doesn't seem like Mozilla has as much interest in pushing the browser engine space forward after pulling back from Servo.
The beginning of the end was a long time ago. We are well past the middle of the end of Mozilla.
I switched to Brave. Even with its cryptocurrency stuff bundled, it's easily disabled and not in your face at all. And their adblock tech is an amazing uBlock successor.
> This really feels like the beginning of the end for Mozilla, sadly.
I really feel like every time Mozilla announces something, someone gets paid to leave comments like this around. I've seen many "beginning of the end" comments like this, and so far, it hasn't happened.
What I do see is a lot of bashing, and hypocrisy, and excuses for why its OK that you don't personally try to do better...
> Are there any true alternatives (not dependent on financing or any engines from third parties)
Servo is still a work in progress, but their current positions give a great deal of hope.
The beginning of the end was getting rid Brendan Eich for wrongthink. This is the middle of the end.
I still use Firefox, however it has been away from our browser matrix since 2019, very few customers worry with browsers under 5% market share.
> This really feels like the beginning of the end for Mozilla, sadly.
This has been said numerous times over the decades anytime Mozilla has done something. Thankfully (at least for me), it hasn’t come true so far.
> It will evolve into a modern AI browser
OMG, please, no! What are they thinking and who wants an "AI browser"?
> Are there any true alternatives
Firefox with blocked updates works pretty well.
> This really feels like the beginning of the end for Mozilla, sadly.
The moment Mozilla failed to stop being dependent on Google's money whilst being true to their own mission in being a 'privacy first browser' it already was the end and the damage in trust was done.
In 2007, the CEO at the time said they could live without Google's money - Now, their entire survival was tied to Google funding them [0] and got rewarded for failure whilst laying off hundreds of engineers working on Firefox.
Other than the change in leadership after 17 years of mis-direction, the financial situation has still not changed.
Do you still trust them now?
> Are there any true alternatives (not dependent on financing or any engines from third parties) to Google, if you wish to use the web in 2025?
After thinking about it, the only viable browser that is not funded by Google (Firefox 75%, Safari (>20%) and Chrome) is Ladybird. [1]
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
"Anchor" is interesting. Because it could mean cornerstone or it could mean the thing weighing the company down.
I'm excited about what Kagi is doing:
I have no illusions that they will turn into google the first chance they get, all companies do. But for now they seem pretty good.
What even is an "AI browser"? It's a browser, it's mainly supposed to render web pages / web apps. There is no obvious reason why it would need any AI features.