logoalt Hacker News

AuthAuth • yesterday at 1:49 AM • 4 replies • view on HN

All your complaints can be resolved in a few seconds by using the settings to customize the browser to your liking and not downloading extensions you dont like. And tons of people asked for that sidebar by the way.

We have to put this all in the context. Firefox is trying to diversify their revenue away from google search. They are trying to provide users with a Modern browser. This means adding the features that people expect like AI integration and its a nice bonus if the AI companies are willing to pay for that.

Replies

monegator • yesterday at 6:00 AM

> All your complaints can be resolved in a few seconds by using the settings to customize the browser to your liking and not downloading extensions you dont like

until you can't. Because the option foes from being an entry in the GUI to something in about:config, then is removed from about:config and you have to manually add it and then is removed completely. It's just a matter of time, but i bet that soon we'll se on nightly that browser.ml.enable = false and company do nothing

move-on-by • yesterday at 3:54 AM

For me, the complaint isn’t the AI itself, but the updated privacy policy that was rolled out prior to the AI features. Regardless of me using the AI features or not, I must agree to their updated privacy policy.

According to the privacy policy changes, they are selling data (per the legal definition of selling data) to data partners. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/firefox-deletes-...

➕ show 1 reply
koolala • yesterday at 2:21 AM

Pay for what? It says it's a local AI model so how will AI companies be giving Firefox revenue from this?

➕ show 1 reply
lioeters • yesterday at 11:47 AM

> Firefox is trying to diversify their revenue

Nobody wants a browser that's focused on diversifying its revenue, especially from Mozilla which pretends to be a non-profit "free software community".

Chrome is paid for by ads and privacy violations, and now Firefox is paid for by "AI" companies? That is a sad state of affairs.

Ungoogled Chromium and Waterfox are at best a temporary measure. Perhaps the EU or one of the U.S. billionaires would be willing to fund a truly free (as in libre) browser engine that serves the public interest.