Firefox dev clarifies that AI features will be 'opt-in' and there will be a 'killswitch' to disable them

try not to be determined that we're going to do the wrong thing here.

There's a lot Mozilla has done right, but there's a lot they haven't done right as well. These days, the cynical view has proven itself to be more reliable in general, so it's hard not to apply it here as well.

That being said, FF has supported AI chatbots for a while and I haven't seen it come up once in my browser beyond when they said "this is a thing now". But this has also been a good opportunity to explore alternatives, so I'm trying out Zen now (ff-based still).

“Can easily turn off” implies that it ships to you on.

Honestly, asking us to assume that every action comes from a place of good will just makes me doubt them even more. You earn that kind of trust, you don’t ask for it; and if they don’t have it they should be asking hard questions about why.

They are a company that used to be about independent choice but are effectively reliant on Google (a privacy nightmare) to be solvent, and they’re now putting their bets into being “a modern AI browser”. Nothing about that tells me I should just trust them.

Something easily turned off is distinctly not opt in. They're still lying to everyone.

Earlier today I found a fucking AI feature automatically turned on... Those idiots need to get their shit straight and fast if they want to remain relevant.