Maybe I just love downvotes, but the Firefox AI sidebar is incredibly useful and I make use of it nearly every day.

Good for you. The point is that a lot of Firefox users actively didn't want these sorts of features enabled and pushed on them. That was clear and obvious to anyone paying attention to general reactions to unsolicited AI helper tools, going back decades. For Mozilla to turn this on without any respect for those users’ preferences was a huge mistake that they keep making over and over again.

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crote 5 hours ago | parent [-]

More specifically: they chose Firebox because it doesn't have those kind of features. If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium.

Using Firefox is a political choice. People use it because it's one of the few remaining traditional browsers which isn't a tentacle of Big Tech. Chasing the competition and adding the stuff your users are actively trying to avoid isn't going to work.

	▲	yndoendo 10 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The main reason for using Firefox is because they support Manifest v2 / Ad-Blockers. This increases security while also harming Google's business model. Win-Win.
	▲	cassianoleal 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium. I don't mind features existing, especially if I can switch them off if I don't want them. I definitely mind Chrom(ium\|e). I don't see how the existence of the Firefox AI sidebar gives Google effective control over web specs.