alt Hacker NewsEveryone is reacting negatively to the focus on AI, but does Mozilla really have a choice? This is going to be a rehash of the same dynamic that has happened in all the browser wars: Leading browser introduces new feature, websites and extensions start using that feature, runner-up browsers have no choice but to introduce that feature or further lose marketshare.
Chrome and Edge have already integrated LLM capabilities natively, and webpages and extensions will soon start using them widely:
- https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/built-in
- https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2025/05/19/introducing-t...
Soon you will have pages that are "Best viewed in Chrome / Edge" and eventually these APIs will be standardized. Only a small but passionate minority of users will run a non-AI browser. I don't think that's the niche Firefox wants to be in.
I agree that Mozilla should take the charge on being THE privacy-focused browser, but they can also do so in the AI age. As an example, provide a sandbox and security features that prevent your prompts and any conversations with the AI from being exfiltrated for "analytics." Because you know that is coming.
Replies
> Everyone is reacting negatively to the focus on AI, but does Mozilla really have a choice?
Do these type of also-ran strategies actually work for a competitor the size of Mozilla? Is AI integration required for them to grow or at least maintain?
My hunch is this will hurt Firefox more than help it. Even if I were to believe their was a meaningful demand for these kind of features in the browser I doubt Mozilla is capable of competing with the likes of Google & Microsoft in meaningful matter in the AI arena.
I think you're right but there's also an opportunity to sell picks when everyone is digging for gold. Like AI-driven VS Code forks, you have AI companies releasing their own browsers left and right. I wonder if Mozilla could offer a sort of white-labeling and contracting service where they offer the engine and some customization services to whatever AI companies want their own in-house browsers. But continue to offer Firefox itself as the "dumb" (from an AI perspective) reference version. I'm not sure exactly what they could offer over just forking Chromium/Firefox without support but it would be a great way to have their cake and eat it too.
Of course they have a choice. Firefox started going downhill IMO because they kept copying Chrome. Vivaldi decided not to include AI until a good use case was found for it. This announcement was met with a lot of positivity.
I think youre mixing up two seperate concerns: functionality and standards. It seems to me that there could absolutely be a "dumb browser" that sticks to (and develops) web standards and is also relatively popular
What is the use case with these? Even larger models skip details. Small models are terrible at summarizing and writing.
Of course they have a choice. Just don't do it. All you said are predictions of what may or may not happen in the future. The opposite could be true - the audience at large may get sick of AI tools being pushed on them and prefer the browser that doesn't. No one knows. But even if you are right, supporting an hypothetical API that extensions and websites may or may not use and pushing opt-out AI tooling in the browser itself are very different things.