I-Firefox Community Forum

I am so disappointed in the new ceos recent comments about doubling down on AI. I do not want AI. I do not want it forced down my throat. The whole point of Firefox is that it is less enshittified than other browsers and continuing down this path will make it just as shitty as everything else on the internet that doesn’t work any more. It’s bad enough that I have to find the settings to opt out of this shit every time there’s a new update that makes everything worse. I have been a happy Firefox user for many years but I will have to use another browser if AI gets imbedded into it any further than it has already. So angry and disappointed.

I genuinely don’t know where else to post this so it gets seen. I have been a devout user of Firefox for years. I love this browser. I love its dedication to privacy and functionality. I love how it has kept true to its concept and customers in the face of tech crazes like NFTs and AI integrations. I am such a hardcore proseletyzer of Firefox that I started paying for Mozilla VPN to support Firefox!!

So when I see that the new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, is “doubling down” on AI integrations for Firefox, I AM LIVID. AI is NOT private. AI is NOT secure. And AI is TERRIBLE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.

AI causes slower speed and longer load times. I have seen this in all my job’s internet workings (they insist on using browsers with AI integrations) and have felt a quiet relief that I get to come home to my good, simple browser.

AI is not private. It tracks and stores data in order to give suggestions “better for you”. And with the right prompts, anyone can pull that data.

Y’all really all read that one story of AI deleting the company’s ENTIRE DATABASE AND COMPUTER PROGRAMMING because it “panicked” and decided “ah yes, this is the techware we want to hand over all our customers to”??

I am so deeply disappointed by Mozilla’s betrayal of its customer base.

If Mozilla moves forward with AI integrations, I will pull out of using Firefox and I will stop giving Mozilla my money. Mozilla should not have hired a CEO who goes so adamantly against everything Mozilla as a company stands for.

And to the CEO Anthony: I hope you step in something wet in only your socks, every single day, until you either come to your senses or someone better replaces you as CEO of Mozilla.

I'm sick of AI infecting everything. I JUST started moving to firefox to escape the shoving down my throat of AI and ADs that plagues everything. And now to hear that the new CEO wants to shove down even more AI? That's infuriating. No one really wants this, the people that do have something to gain, ulterior motives or don't understand just how bad it is. Not to mention the data scraping that I don't consent to.

I've seen that this browser has potential, that has a relative ease of access for people to get the experience they want. But this AI shoving is ruining that, and it's driving users away. I do not like having to jump through hoops to avoid AI but I will. It's slowing down the browser and causing even more lack of privacy! We already have so little in this modern area, it's terrible to do more.

The sad part is, is that I know there are people that run the browser that don't want this. It's the people up top who put their money into AI, thinking it's the next big thing, and are trying to make it that so their money doesn't just get yanked away. When it will anyway. AI, generative specifically, is awful. I hate the AI overviews, I hate AI 'support' in everything. In social media, in online shopping, in just damn chats. I refuse to use it. It's horrible, it's nothing but bloatware.

So I hope that this new guy will actually listen to the people that use the browser and stop it with his stupid AI stuff. There is NO room for AI browsers, there never will be room for them. And I will NEVER trust an AI browser or whatever stuff an AI pulls up, because they will pull up nonsense. They will pull up what you WANT to hear, not the actual facts. Do better, this is a disappointment.

Since the new CEO of Firefox seems to be very determined to add more AI features to the browser that I've been using (among other things) specifically to escape AI slop, I will be considering switching to another browser. It will be disheartening to abandon the browser I've been using for years, but I value my personal data (and cpu) too much to let an AI handle it. I appreciated his words that it would be "Completely opt-in, you have full control, and if you try it and find it’s not for you, you can choose to switch it off", but I strongly believe that all AI browsers are inherently insecure. The first AI feature that I can't make completely disappear forever with one click will be my sign to switch browsers. Hopefully, Firefox re-thinks its approach and decides not to destroy the exact thing that makes it so valuable - the commitment to protect the users' privacy.

[article] This article claims there is an "AI Controls" section in Settings. This is not found in v 147.03 (up to date) for Mac. Please let me know how to disable all AI in Firefox.

Good Evening,

I switched to Firefox as my primary browser from Chrome due to Chrome's instance on forcing unnecessary and intrusive AI features onto the platform, and their revoking support for ad blockers.

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo's quote from his recent blog post announcing that Firefox "will evolve into a modern AI browser" is a huge red flag for me. I do not care how much he may promise the features will be "something people can easily turn off", I do not trust it will remain that way. Mozilla will have a bad quarter and suddenly those won't be optional features anymore. I have seen it happen with other tech companies and it's infuriating that Mozilla seems to be merrily skipping down the same path.

In addition to the AI bloat Mozilla seems to insisting they need, Enzor-DeMeo recently said that "He could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that'd bring in another $150 million, but he doesn't want to do that." To even joke about that is an astounding misstep. I specifically joined Firefox to be able to use an ad blockers.

I've enjoyed my time with Firefox and have recommended it to friends in the past, but I have changed browsers before. If Firefox continues to forge ahead with these frankly absurd changes, I will have to do so again.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozillas-next-chapter-anthony-enzor-demeo-new-ceo/

https://www.theverge.com/tech/845216/mozilla-ceo-anthony-enzor-demeo

I strongly disagree with the proposed AI-centric direction for Firefox. I already disable any current AI features in this browser and disagree with them being there at all. I am firmly anti-AI in the form/use that is most prevalent. I don't want an AI chatbot or AI summaries. AI is not a replacement for human thought. It cannot perceive. It cannot understand. It cannot communicate. Even if it produces a convincing enough mimicry of those things to convince some people that it is capable of doing those things. It's like that IBM training slide from 1979 that says "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision." Firefox's blog entry about these proposed updates is full of nothing but glittering generalities, just buzz-phrases like "you're in control" and "a better browser" and "trusted companion." AI is not a trusted companion. AI is hyper-advanced autocorrect. And with AI's harshness on the environment (requires astronomical and unsustainable amounts of water) and on the browser itself (slows it down considerably and makes it more vulnerable to security breaches like prompt injection attacks), I just don't think "everybody else is doing AI" is a valid reason to override the main reason most Firefox users use it (because of its lack of AI features and focus on privacy). I'm a long-time user of Firefox and I have really enjoyed it, but one of the biggest issues I have had with it in the last few years is disabling all the AI garbage features that keep getting sneaked in. If AI use or AI-driven features become a substantial part of Firefox, I won't be using it anymore.

My browser recently updated and announced some stuff about using AI. I don't want it. I don't want to associate with AI. Is there a way to rollback my browser to a previous version?

For those of us that do want to use AI for work performance enhancement purposes, I have a question and also a comment for the Development Team. Here is the scenario real quick. I use Mozilla Firefox as my trusted browser today and that means that I open other AI systems such as ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, etc. within this browser and could at times be running multiple browser sessions at the same time. My question is, will the Mozilla new AI Features attempt to try and compete with my other chat sessions for data capture, response and participation if I keep portions or the whole system enabled? The last thing I need is Mozilla AI as the selected browser now interfering with my other work flow processes in anyway including just listening along which would significantly increase the amount of resources used to run the Mozilla AI in parallel with other AI systems on my computer. I have heavy work loads at times and am already experiencing browser delays in processing data (even when setting up separate project chats for specific tasks) because of too many added features within all of the AI systems like historical chat session quick links on the right side of the screen. That's a ton of data that ends up getting stored/cached, referenced and processed with each command executed. I don't mind using Mozilla AI within the browser for general personal surfing and Q&A purposes but I can see this potentially becoming a big issue for us creators working with large image data processing tasks in other AI systems via the Mozilla browser. I will unfortunately be turning all of these Mozilla AI features off to start because I am not sure there really is a clear separation path for resource allocations within the browser now keeping my experience fast and efficient. Most likely this will force me into using a different browser product for personal vs business until things are much clearer. Hoping to learn a little bit here and see that things like this are being taken into consideration, even if it is a product roadmap enhancement for release sometime in the near future. Thanks so much!

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.

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'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.

Mozilla gave assurances that AI features would be opt-in. The most recent update automatically turned AI features ON and I had to open settings to block them. This is opt-out, not opt-in. I find this betrayal of my trust as a longtime user disturbing.

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.

Is it true that the CEO is planning to put AI into the browser? If so, I would have to switch to something else because that would be a massive privacy and security violation. I am incredibly disappointed that this is something Ive heard about when Mozilla Firefox has been one of the best browsers Ive ever used. Putting AI into everything is a waste of everyones time and resources.