Firefox Community Forum

Firefox had been a safe haven for anti-AI, and used to be my go-to search engine. If this AI bullshit continues, no one will respect or use the browser. Stop implementing AI garbage that steals data

I've just heard that the new Mozilla CEO plans to move Firefox towards being an "A.I Browser" over the course of the next three years. I am incredibly upset and disappointed by this.

Firefox been my go-to browser for its lack of built-in bloatware and spyware; for a little over a decade I have relied on this browser and felt secure in its future up until now. I am incredibly frustrated by this direction. At this point, I might as well go back to Google Chrome. I am frustrated, disappointed, and angry about this doubling down.

A.I is bloatware. Anything it can do, I can (and would rather) do myself with minimal effort. It offers no features that I find valuable, and should Firefox move forward with this, not only will I no longer be recommending this browser to my friends and family, I will leave it myself and encourage my friends and family to do the same.

This is a disturbing promise from the CEO, and I hope for the sake of the browser that it is left unfulfilled.

I use Firefox for privacy, lack of bloat, and other ethical reasons. For these reasons, I don't want to have the new CEO keep the incorrect idea in his head that the people who use Firefox want AI. Please don't add more AI, if anything--- please remove the AI which has already been added to Firefox which users have to remove themselves. I will dump Firefox if the new CEO continues with this plan.

I saw an article claiming that Firefox/Mozilla's new leadership wants to go the same route as every other browser I've gone out of my way to stop using - to implement unnecessary AI wherever possible.

Is this true? Why?

I do not care if someone else wants to browse without actual search results, if someone wants to have their messages readily typed, or if someone only wants to have guesstimated generated summaries instead of actual snippets from websites. I do not care if someone else wants to have arbitrarily sorted bookmarks or whatever else it might be AI is supposedly good for.

I do not need or want any of these features in a web browser. Why does firefox think it should be the new default?

I have already manually turned off all the AI tools firefox offers this far - and I have been thankful for the option to do so! So now, if even this 'big' optionally somewhat AI free browser is genuinely going the forcefully unintelligent and frankly really pushy and overbearing and bloated way of all the others, I'm kindly asking for suggestions of other browsers to use in the future.

I have strong ethical objections to the current generation of LLMs, and really strongly dislike contributing to Google's massive monopoly on most internet spaces, hence my using Firefox instead of Chrome. I was disheartened by the addition of an AI label to Firefox, and really would love to be able to continue using a good browser that doesn't shove AI slop down my throat. If the integration of LLMs to Firefox is going to continue, I wanted to ensure there will at least be some way to remove it from my browser

I just had a firefox tab with a pop up asking me to try ai features... my options were "yes" or "maybe later". How do I stop the slop sales? I want ZERO pop ups... from Mozilla or anyone else! I didnt see settings that would disable mozilla sales pop ups - is there some way to turn these off permanently? I have already turned off the ai features. Really appreciate any suggestions!

Actually, given that this "feature" made it all the way through to prod, I seriously suggest you just fire absolutely everyone currently working for Mozilla and start over with entirely new people, and ideally have as one of your hiring criteria a sensible understanding that AI has no place in Firefox, or any other Mozilla project. Leaving aside the question of whether it's good or bad, it's simply irrelevant to what we're doing here.

Thanks for enshittifying one of the few parts of the internet that wasn't yet crap. Great job, well done Angus.

I beg of you, please do not go forward with the AI focused policies. AI as it currently stands is a rapidly sinking ship that a LOT of consumers hate, and that group is coincidentally the group that most frequently uses Firefox. By pushing forward AI-first policies, you are alienating your userbase, destroying the privacy and usability that makes Firefox special, and you're upsetting millions of people that love this service. Please, for the love of god, DON'T GO FORWARD WITH AI. Stick to what makes Firefox special, and it will flourish as every other browser becomes more and more unusable.

This browser has been my preferred way to use the internet for years, after Chrome overloaded theirs with unneeded features that slowed the performance. I switched to Mozilla products because of their lightweight and private browsing options. Today, you pushed an "AI Kill Switch" instead of listening to community feedback that largely demanded the removal of all features using generative AI, and this is my final straw. I don't know who in the company is pushing for this, but if there's even the slightest chance of them reading my words; your product is shit and will remain shit for the rest of it's existence. AI features introduce security risks, slow performance noticably, and have such bad political pr attached to them, there's no crawling yourself back from this. You've labeled yourself as another ai company willing to burn all goodwill from your userbase for the percieved chance at acquiring profit. The bubble will pop, and you and your market value will go the way of every other internet browser that was okay for time but got too big for it's britches. You're an idiot for ever believing the ai hype and deciding to bet your entire company on the gamble. Firefox is, at best, only useful for downloading another browser, now. Way to become a direct competitor with Internet Explorer again.

To whoever this new CEO is of firefox,

Stop with the AI garbage. Please.

AI is a notorious waste of space in software and all it does is bog down the experience and make everything harder for everyone. Also it is notorious for collecting information and violating users privacy like the lab rats you apparently take us for.

Stop it.

I loved Firefox because I could use it comfortably without all of this stupid AI crap making my life harder. I've already hacked my browser to make sure this doesn't appear but I'm not satisfied. To any other firefox tech reading this get that Anthony guy out of here. We don't want him, and we don't want AI.

Thank you.

How do I turn off the “suggest AI summary” thing? The popup is annoying the hell out of me while I’m reading articles. I’m not going to use the AI summary feature so I’d like it to just stop. I use the Firefox application on iOS.

Apparently, the new CEO has decided to integrate more AI. I do not like this. The main reason I use FireFox and Mozilla is that it doesn’t add AI bloatware and has better privacy and security. The fact that this company is considering adding even more AI is enough to make me stop using them entirely. When they originally added AI overview, summary, and a chatbot I nearly switched to something else. I know there are not many browsers that aren’t owned by Google or a parent company left, but by god I will find one.

If you integrate AI, I will not be using your browser. It’s bad enough that other companies are doing this already, don’t be a jackass and start doing it too.

I moved to Firefox because it wasn't obsessed with AI like the other browsers. If you continue with this evil plan, you will lose customers and that it both a promise and threat. Your CEO has said it's AI you can trust, ignoring all the other concerns people have with AI, like:

Water Usage Copyright breaches Hallucinations Loss of Quality Privacy breaches Storage and use of personal data, including search results and browsing Influence of racist and misogynist content from the internet on machine learning Environmental impact of the data servers to host AI A severe lack of regulations and protections regarding the above

Do NOT make this an AI browser. Your new CEO knows nothing of your market and audience and it will be your downfall.

I've been using Firefox for years because more popular browsers like Chrome and Edge have anti-features I dislike. In recent years, however, it feels like Mozilla has been more eager to follow trends set up by it's larger competitors even when those trends seem destructive to the principles that used to be at the core of this project. AI is the final straw for me. I don't understand why I would even use Firefox over Chrome if both are full of AI anyways. Even if AI wasn't a deal-breaker for me, I'm worried Firefox will make similar decisions later. I want out.

Is there any good and maintained alternatives to Firefox? Something like how Firefox was just a handful of years ago? Maybe a fork of an old version?

So I've recently seen some stuff on my social media about Mozilla's new CEO talking about pushing AI into Firefox. And WTF?!

Is this some sort of stupid corporate bullshit or just a delayed April Fool's joke?!

There is literally NO CONCEIVABLE REASON for introducing AI into ANY browser, let alone Firefox. I started using Firefox over 15 years ago for the personalisaton features and readily available add ons and to date it's still the best browser I've used.

To my knowledge, a lot of people have recently switched to Firefox in order to avoid the unnecessary/unwanted spyware and bloatware that comes baked into most other browsers and this seems like a massive middle finger to them. The only reason I can see to introduce AI is either because you want to lose users, or are so desperate for cash you're willing to fuck over everything and everyone to get it.

Is there any way I can prevent Mozilla from installing/enabling more AI features on my Firefox browser in the future?

I do not want AI running on my machine. I do not want AI integration in my browser. I understand I will still run into AI in the wilds of the internet, but I especially do not want these features enabled ON MY OWN MACHINE in an update without me specifically opting into them. Installing and enabling this without user opt-in communicates clear disrespect to the users.

I did a cursory search here for similar questions and Mozilla staff appear to be stating there will be no AI in Firefox unless the user specifically enables it, and it is as simple as disabling them via settings if "accidentally" enabled. This was not my experience, and it is alarming to see false information provided to users .

I have found other sources indicating the following must be set to false in about:config in order to disable browser-side AI/AI integration: browser.ml.chat.enabled browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge browser.ml.chat.shortcuts browser.ml.chat.shortcuts.custom browser.ml.chat.sidebar browser.ml.checkForMemory browser.ml.enable browser.ml.linkPreview.shift

Is that all of them, will these disable ALL of the AI in Firefox?

Are there any other settings I need to set to false to ensure no AI is either running on my machine or the browser is not integrating AI functionality from third parties?

Is there any way to ensure Mozilla doesn't force AI features to be enabled without my say-so (again)?

Are there any privacy-minded browsers comparable to Firefox that DO respect their users with regards to forcing AI on them? It may be time to jump ship.

Having heard the news that Firefox's latest CEO wants to turn it into yet another AI-slop browser, I came to this forum to give feedback as an avid Firefox user over the last 4-5 years. I can see I'm not alone either; there are tons of other users who seem to feel the same way I do.

This is a very, VERY bad decision. So far, every "AI update" that has already hit Firefox has done nothing but make the browser worse and more inefficient. A few months ago, Mozilla was getting hit by complaints from desktop users about memory usage skyrocketing due to the implementation of an AI chatbot into Firefox. Now they've added AI search engines among other things. And surprise, surprise--no one seems to actually want to use these features. Why should we, if all it does is make computers run slower, overheat, and doesn't actually answer any useful questions or contribute anything meaningful?

I'm baffled at Mr. Enzor-DeMeo saying he wants to go all-in on making Firefox an "AI browser" with his whole chest in the SAME week that Microsoft has had to lower their growth targets for AI-related sales, some of them up to 50%, because NO ONE seems to actually be buying AI products. You know, on account of (you guessed it) not finding them very useful.

Other people have already mentioned the myriad of other problems with AI too, so I won't touch on those too much, other than to agree that AI is a plagiarism machine that's doing serious environmental damage. What I WILL say is that I personally have been using Firefox all this time specifically because it's avoided the AI craze as much as other browsers, or at the very least, avoided making it "opt-out" instead of "opt-in" to the same degree. But if this changes in the near future and Firefox does become yet another inefficient AI slopfest of a browser, I may seriously rethink my loyalty to Firefox and switch back to Chrome instead. After all, there would be functionally no difference between the two browsers anyway!

Please rethink this decision and consider actually listening to user feedback going forward. If Mozilla actually wants to retain their userbase, I'm sure I'm not the only person thinking about dropping Firefox for Chrome in the future.

if Mozilla continues on its path of adding new AI features into Firefox, i am going to switch browsers. I stopped using chrome, i can stop using Firefox too. Nobody using Firefox needs more AI features. Nobody using Firefox needs a "modern AI browser", as there's already about 10 browsers filled to the brim with AI slopware. this is an extremely disappointing turn for Mozilla to take and I'm hoping they realize their mistakes before it's too late.