Mozilla is in a tricky position. It contains both a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the internet a better place for everyone, and a for-profit arm dedicated to, you know, making money. In the best of times, these things feed each other: The company makes great products that advance its goals for the web, and the nonprofit gets to both advocate for a better web and show people what it looks like. But these are not the best of times. Mozilla has spent the last couple of years implementing layoffs and restructuring, attempting to explain how it can fight for privacy and openness when Google pays most of its bills, while trying to find its place in an increasingly frothy AI landscape.
Fun times to be the new Mozilla CEO, right? But when I put all that to Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, the company’s just-announced chief executive, he swears he sees opportunity in all the upheaval. “I think what’s actually needed now is a technology company that people can trust,” Enzor-DeMeo says. “What I’ve seen with AI is an erosion of trust.”
Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.”
-_-
“What I’ve seen with AI is an erosion of trust.”
Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there’s still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. “We’re not incentivized to push one model or the other,” he says. “So we’re going to try to go to market with multiple models.” Some will be open-source models available to anyone.
This is such an out of touch non-answer here.
People don’t oppose ai changes because they’re locked into a model. In fact most AI products I use for my job let you choose a fucking model.
People hate them because
A) 90% of the time they’re useless and the remaining 10 are detrimental to the product experience
B) Ethical concerns about training off of artists and authors as well as environmental impact. EDIT: or also the general trend of trying to replace humans with AI.
C) Not wanting to play into the fucking arms race the billionaire class are manufacturing
D) The time they could be useful they have a risk of being either hilariously wrong or dangerously wrong. And there’s no amount of training and GPU manufacturing that’s gonna fix that.
Absolutely none of this is addressed by the CEO. I’m sure he has to say this because of the fucking tulip crazy money is in around this but it doesn’t make it any less tone deaf or futile.
Programs are like socks, once they get dirty, you change them. Do these people really not understand how this stuff works? Even giants can fall when enough people switch to other options
Oh ya? Where u gonna go? Chrome?
Hell no. For now just gonna switch to some firefox fork that won’t include the AI.
Jumping to the dingy tied to the sinking ship.
Thus the “for now”
That was meant as a sarcasm. Point is there are nonalternatives
Can it survive if Firefox goes down?
Ofc No. But waterfax might disable ai by default.
Wouldn’t trust waterfox as far as I could throw a bull elephant.
Librefox or fuck even floorp is better then waterfox.
Why? Just curious
I’m also curious. From what I understand, Waterfox is more secure than Firefox out of the box.
You could always go Safari, at the rate Apple is going with Ai integration you should be good for… well forever really 🤣
Safari is only available on Apple hardware and operating systems though
Ladybird 🤞
Yeah I’ve heard of it but is it even installable?
Ladybird is an open-source web browser developed by the Ladybird Browser Initiative, a nonprofit organization focused on development of the browser.[1] It is licensed under the BSD 2-Clause License.[2] An alpha release is planned in 2026,[3][4] beta release is expected in 2027, and a stable release for general public in 2028.[5] Originally a component of SerenityOS, it is now being developed as a standalone project.[6] The initiative is funded entirely through donations, with Cloudflare, FUTO, Shopify, and 37signals among its sponsors. Ladybird uses a new browser engine called LibWeb that is being created from scratch by the development team. Unlike SerenityOS, it will also use other open source libraries for development.[2] An ad blocking feature is planned.[7] Unlike most new web browsers, Ladybird does not rely on Chromium or Firefox and uses its own rendering engine and JavaScript engine.[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser)
Yeah that’s what I’m saying. I watched some interview awhile back, but when I went to install it it was not available yet. Ok fine 2026 - will check it out
It’s slated for a early 2026 alpha. So it’s actually pretty close.
So no. The answer is no.
Yeah dude I actually saw primeagen video about it and sort of definitely waiting for it.
i want ublock, dark reader. But willing to tolerate issues - I will use it
There are literally dozens of browser options out there.
Most of which are just chrome in a trench coat.
When clicking Download
Page not found
Oops! We weren’t able to find your Azure Front Door Service configuration. If it’s a new configuration that you recently created, it might not be ready yet. You should check again in a few minutes. If the problem persists, please contact Azure support…yeah
Seamonkey is barely maintained.
I use SeaMonkey as my usenet client. I prefer it to anything else for that.
It is great that it still exists.
So file a bug report. The link is literally right there
The point is that it does not inspire confidence when that is the introduction… (You can also file the bug report, or I could, but you are the one championing it)
Indeed, that was my point. I am not sure that Mozilla pays someone to work on it, at this point. It’s likely the passion project of a couple of employees.
I’ve cancelled my monthly donation to Mozilla. What’s the point. Every bit of feedback I’ve provided is to the tune of no goddamn AI, spend my money towards keeping up with the alternatives to make sure there’s always an extra player in the field. Instead it’s going to some overpaid dickhead who’s going to introduce AI.
firefox is almostly completely dependant on google through ad revenue, hence thats why the sudden jump into AI, which google is trying to jam into all its services.
Mozilla is completely detached from its user base. They think their average user is a Microsoft enthusiast when in reality it’s a Debian enjoyer.
They have telemetry to track the number of installations on different systems
And most debian user disable telemetry. Their numbers probably show its all windows folk heavily using AI because its the default.
Then enable “Send daily usage ping to Mozilla”
I guess I should turn the telemetry on so they’d see I’m using it on linux. Muh privacy
Yes.
Is there like a petition or something we can all sign to show that literally no cunt wants this?
Uninstall it and pick a different platform. These cunts think you won’t and THATS why they don’t give a fuck. Enough people swap and oh, hey, maybe we should rethink this mistake. If not - not your problem… You already bounced.
If anyone has any suggestions for browsers hook me up, I’m running out of browsers with thier own engines to try. I don’t see much point in using, say, LibreWolf if the engine is still the same as Firefox (Gecko in this case). Maybe I’ll give NetSurf a try and pretend like it’s 1996 again.
edit i don’t see much point because doing some about:config shenanigans is nearly the same amount of work to me as switching browsers.
If all of the web engines enshittify, you can always
curlthe HTML/CSS/JS and hand-parse it. Might have suboptimal performance however.lol if it ever gets to that point i’m just gonna go straight Lynx.
The Lynx browser is surprisingly nice.
It’s actually incredible for getting real reading done without my ADHD taking over and opening up 30 tabs of “ooh whats this?”
getting real reading done without my ADHD taking over
Maybe that’s the appeal.
“Might” is doing some awfully heaving lifting there 🤣
Gonna get my news one pixel at a time just like grandpappy did on his 9600 baud.
I’m afraid that not using Gecko or Blink may expose me to any sort of malware while visiting the web tbh
That’s still a fork of Firefox, isn’t it? I was hoping to find a reasonably modern browser that doesn’t rely on gecko or blink. I’d be okay with a WebKit browser but I don’t have a Mac.
Servo is the one I follow in that space
Oh good, more rust! (j/k i don’t have the feverish hatred of rust that some people seem to)
You really don’t understand what a browser engine is, do you?
I do, in fact. I get that they are typically open-source, and I also understand how ridiculously difficult it is to create one from scratch. If LibreWolf or whoever want to make privacy focused browsers based on mozilla foundation or google’s work then that’s fine and I support it, but I’m personally curious if there are any mainstream browsers that don’t have any (or minimal) reliance on google and mozilla foundation. Someone pointed me towards an engine in development Servo which looks quite interesting! Hopefully there will be a browser based on it soon.
https://www.spacebar.news/servo-undercover-web-browser-engine/
At the start of the millennium, Internet Explorer used its own Trident engine on Windows and Tasman on Mac, Opera used Presto, some embedded devices used NetFront, Netscape had Gecko, and KDE made KHTML for its Konqueror browser. Those browsers eventually faded away or adopted a competing engine to simplify development. KHTML was the basis for Safari’s WebKit, which in turn became Chromium’s Blink engine, and Netscape’s Gecko engine became the foundation for Firefox. Opera ditched its custom Presto engine in 2013 and switched to Chromium, and Microsoft Edge made the same move in 2020.
This is a danger to the open web in more ways than one. If there is only one functioning implementation of a standard, the implementation becomes the standard. The web becomes to Google what Java is to Oracle. It also means the limitations and security flaws in Chromium affect most other browsers, which became a topic of conversation with Google’s recent Manifest V3 transition.
It would have been nice if Opera had released the source code of Presto
I figured you did. It’s the guy you were replying to that seems confused.
Oh shit my bad! Leaving the info up anyway, in case anyone else is wondering why only two major engines is a bad thing for the open internet.
I’m going to have to go Amish at this rate.
Off grid is an easier transition :)
Yah but I like the pies.
Overpaid CEO has more money than actual sense.
They all just do the same exact predictable thing. It’s always the shittiest thing for everyone but the “share holders”. Just automate them away and call it a day at this point.
Just like I said in another post related to this, I hope this doesn’t kill LibreWolf, IceCat, and Waterfox.
Librewolf have put a post out a few days ago that they won’t add any AI stuff.
Waterfox is on the same page. As long as the browser doesn’t outright require it to functio0n, I think the privacy-focused forks will remain. Of course, it’s extra work to maintain divergent code, but this is worth it, IMO.
If brave is able to have their own adblock integrated into the browser by default despite Google being behind much of Chrome I think Firefox forks should be fine. Sucks everything seems to have AI these days shoved in, so it’s hard to escape whether it is Chrome forks or chromium alternatives.
i download UBLOCK origin anyways for brave, since the brave doesnt entirely block what the ublock can do.
Thank goodness.
CEO = bad
every. single. time.
That’s what all CEOs do. Double down on AI.
Why do they keep going all in on AI when no one wants it?
Power users don’t want it.
Regular users say they don’t want it but actions don’t lie. They love AI. They love the slop. They just don’t want to be reminded that that’s what it is.
Google threatens to rip their funding if they don’t advocate for AI
Is that actually on record somewhere, or just speculation?
You either die Old Mozilla or you live to see yourself become Current Mozilla.
AIMOZILLA, brought to you by the GOOGLE foundation, who also owns chrome
AIMOZILLA
Sounds like a kaiju with a sniper rifle.
Of course, this is just what Firefox needs
fixing long standing issues, catching up to web standards, process isolation on mobileAI!It’s almost as if they are out of touch with their users. I don’t get it. CEOs are just normal people like us.
/s
But why? Be unique! Don’t just do what everyone else does!
Given what Microsoft is smoking these days, no AI would be a selling point, and Mozilla does not seem to realize they are playing with fire. Their userbase chose their product instead of using the system defaults of Chrome, Safari, and Internet Exploder. Their users, just like Lemmy, are tech-litrrate and more socially concious than the masses. If an alternative or fork appears, with sufficent support, and Mozilla does not put the breaks on their AI train, were all just going to jump ship. We do it every time a new OS is installed, there is no Firefox loyalty, only lesser evils.
It’s hard to imagine being so butthurt at a piece of now-defunct, 20-year-old software that you pretend it still is the default just so you can call it a dumb name.
I was in the trenches for that nonsense fixing stuff daily because of them. Oracles wacky tacky shit that kept their users locked to Java 7.21 for a decade past the support date. Bloated language packs and not being able to keep up with basic HTML tags… You dont know how good yall have it today.
I dont care how much MS dresses up Edge, we know its just Chrome in a poorly fitted suit. The old addage still holds true, Microsofts default browser (formerly IE, currently Edge) is the best browser to use to go download another browser.
[This concludes grumpy old tech speech]
I can absolutely get behind hating oracle. Not only was oracle always evil, they also prop java which is terrible. And now the family has gotten into MAGA propaganda. It’s an awful family and company and product.
IE hasn’t been a thing for like a decade though. The war is over. You won. You’re safe now.
I disagree with your description of edge though. It’s more like the evil version of inspector gadget. Like if he was corrupted by the oracle corporation and every gadget was turned nefarious. This kinda breaks down because chrome is also evil but whatever I still think it works.
I like that reference, im stealing it.
