Last I checked Firefox was sitting at 4% browser market share. If you include Brave you just get to 5%[0].

So truth is that privacy isn't enough to get people to switch. 5% share isn't enough to stay alive and protect privacy.

  > they are blindly implementing things before they are requested

This is the job of every engineer. Your job is to understand the product and where it advances and where it can help the users. The users don't know the technical side. They barely know what they want. Yes, you should listen to users but you also have to read between the lines to actually figure out what they want. Frankly, the truth of the matter is that what people say they want is very different than what they actually want.

Work with customers and you'll experience this first hand... I thought it was a big enough meme that everyone knew this

Speaking about reading between the lines, the privacy community is not very good at advocating for privacy. Look at Signal, it has similar backlash to Mozilla. The community shoots itself in the foot because the products are not perfect. But here's the thing, both Signal and Firefox are not products intended to maximize privacy at all costs. They are products to maximize privacy while being appealing to the masses. Are there more secure and private solutions out there? Hell yeah. But are those tools practical for the masses? Don't fool yourselves.

So stop with this bullshit, you're shooting yourself in the foot. You don't have to use Firefox to root for them. Go use a fork like the Mullvad browser or Waterfox. If you're a power user then just be a fucking power user. I use Arch but that doesn't mean I'm going to piss on Ubuntu every chance I get. I fucking hate Ubuntu but I'm going to root for them because every new Ubuntu user is one less for Microsoft and Apple and every new Ubuntu user is a potential new <literally any other distro is better> user. So why get angry because someone is making a step in the right direction? So what if their legs aren't long enough to get all the way to where you are (which didn't take one step either!).

So let's be very clear about this. I'm not mad at you because I want AI in Firefox (I don't), I'm mad at you because you're attacking our literal last line of defense for a secure and private internet. I'm mad at you for purity testing. Stop with this "no true Scotsman" bullshit. We can have those arguments at a later date when Firefox isn't on its last leg and/or when we have a diverse choice in browsers. But at this point *all you are doing is advocating for Chrome*. Whether you realize it our not. We've been playing this fucking game for a decade now and you can either look at the results or continue to ignore them. But it didn't work, so we need to try something else.

[0] https://radar.cloudflare.com/reports/browser-market-share-20...

▲ protocolture 5 hours ago | parent [-]

>This is the job of every engineer.

No its not. Engineering is about right sizing the product. This is not that. Theres no user story, theres no pressing demand. Every CTO in the world might be racing to force AI into their products regardless of utility but there's no reason to pretend this is being done for good engineering reasons.

>Work with customers and you'll experience this first hand.

Theres no customer benefit to shoving AI in every application at every layer. This is not about the customer. This is about a race to cram the feature in every conceivable space and see where it sticks. This is corporate and has no sense of good engineering. They also don't want it. What a combo. No utility and no demand. If anything its a bit like the story of fish fingers, where the pressing need, was the big warehouse full of unwanted fish bits that they wanted to move, and the innovation was productising it in such a way that people would actually purchase and consume it. In this case we have DC's full of AI cards that desperately want a market. It might be uncharitable, but I do wonder if the Mozilla Foundation has been promised some financial reward if they solve this issue.

There has not been any demonstrable requirements gathering for this change. An executive directed this, and to pretend otherwise is insane.

>Speaking about reading between the lines, the privacy community is not very good at advocating for privacy.

No they aren't very good at it at all, but that's a massive non sequitur.

>So stop with this bullshit, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

No, defending Firefox from valid criticism is the self inflicted injury.

>I use Arch but that doesn't mean I'm going to piss on Ubuntu every chance I get.

Ok, but I would think it fair and reasonable to criticise Ubuntu if they decided to randomly cram an opt out LLM into the distro, and I think your criticism of them also deserves to be heard. You dont need to be the Ubuntu or Firefox internet defense force.

>So why get angry because someone is making a step in the right direction?

I haven't been angry at a single firefox user here, I would ask you to stop making things up just to be angry about. There's not an ounce of "Boycott" or anything in my posts. I am writing this from firefox. I am permitted, to be critical of the browser I am using.

>I'm mad at you because you're attacking our literal last line of defense for a secure and private internet.

"Attacking". Its clearly necessary criticism. The devaluing of the product is coming from inside the house. Their chief rival is, critically, releasing a separate browser to test their AI features in. For Chrome itself Gemini is in the extension store. It is OPT IN, not OPT OUT. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/gemini-for-chrome/a... Their chief rival is respecting end user consent better. If you want them to be a more popular browser, why don't you hold them to a better standard than Chrome, instead of policing the critics?

(Also boo for making me open chrome to check)

>Stop with this "no true Scotsman" bullshit.

I literally cannot identify a no true scotsman argument in my comments. Theres a difference between saying "No TRUE web browser would" and pointing out validly that there's no interest or demand in the feature being rolled out. If anything, the closest thing in this thread to a no true scotsman, while still failing it technically, is the idea that you cant be a true supporter of privacy while being critical of Mozilla.

>We can have those arguments at a later date when Firefox isn't on its last leg and/or when we have a diverse choice in browsers.

No now is a great time.

>But at this point all you are doing is advocating for Chrome.

No I am asking them to be competitive with chrome, and treat users that well or better.

>But it didn't work, so we need to try something else.

Enshittification isnt a plan.

	▲	godelski 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		`> no customer benefit to shoving AI in every application at every layer.` What AI has been shoved down your throat? Translate requires you to download the model for language pairs. That's opt-in. The chatbots aren't chatbots, they're just a fucking shortcut to the 5th most popular website on the internet. I hate to break it to you, but there's also a shortcut to the #1, #2, #4, #6, #7, #9, #10, and #13 most popular websites. It's the literal url bar... You can type "!w hacker news" to search wikipedia for hacker news. Sorry, it is just as laughable to say firefox is shoving Wikipedia down your throat as it is to say they're shoving AI. `> if they decided to randomly cram an opt out LLM into the distro,` Do you realize how big an LLM is? Clearly you don't. The browser isn't going to fit on a lot of people's computers if they shove an LLM in. And hey, if you feel I'm wrong here go jump on a fork that isn't going to add those things like Mullvad or Waterfox. That's still supporting Firefox in the way of standing against Google while also making a clear signal that you don't want those features. Have your cake and eat it too, but I'm saying "Shut up with the talk that makes people switch to Chrome". We have to be honest with ourselves here. All this outrage at Mozilla for not being pure enough is just driving people to Chrome. That's why I'm calling all this fucking idiotic. It's a literal footgun. But don't listen to me look at what's happened in the past. Look at the comments here. Look at the comments in the past. FFS people were equating Mozilla accepting crypto donations with shipping a miner in the browser. It literally takes place in the Mastadon thread we're all talking about. Those things are wildly different and it is wildly a disingenuous interpretation. So yeah, I'm going to keep calling this complaining idiotic and counterproductive. We've been grabbing our pitchforks for years every time Mozilla even slightly steps out of line, or even if we think they might! And for years their browser share has been siphoned off to Chrome or some painted up variant. So forgive me if I don't believe your actions align with the goals you claim. And forgive me if I cannot distinguish complaining from criticism, because as I've stated above, your evidence doesn't appear to be what you claim it is. Saying they're shipping LLMs is just as disingenuous as saying they shipped a crypto miner. It is such a grotesque mischaracterization that it is laughable.