PieFedMozilla developing Page Buddy, a chatbot built directly into Firefox
Cevilia (she/they/…)hg-edge.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e7…
cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/1257015
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Can I just have one thing without a fucking chatbot?
PHLAKI just switched to LibreWolf because I was getting tired of the AI bloat creeping into Firefox.
I'm with you. Please let this be something we can opt out of and not have laying dormant on our disks taking up useless space.
So annoying how they can be champions of being a non Chrome-based alternative but miss the mark so fucking hard. They will alienate their active users and fail at attracting new ones at the same time.
IIRC they had 2% of users, which makes it hard to go lower yet they achieve it.
2.26% of users as of August, according to StatCounter. This is the lowest it's ever been, beating the previous low of 2.37% in June.
Meanwhile, Chrome hit 69.26%, the highest I think it's ever gotten.
Onno (VK6FLAB)Remember Internet Exploder?
All it takes is a better product.
Firefox is heading in the opposite direction of "better".
Is Chrome getting better? It disabled adblockers, added AI, tracks everything a user does... And keeps rising.
People needs to start realizing Firefox losing market is 90% Google and Apple maintaining a duopoly. They only allow others to avoid lawyer fees.
Just straying further and further from their core focus. 🙄
Getting paid by google so they can say, "look! We are not a monopoly!"
I am only half joking, I like firefox and use it daily but mozilla really seems intent on destroying everything good about it.
After looking for more information about this, it turns out Mozilla is also working to add Google image search directly into Firefox.
Kevin Steinmetz
Ozzie
TropicalDingdongPre release samples of the avatar:
klu9
Oh wow been using FF for decades, and never quite put a finger on what's missing. Was it the impossibility to use conferencing software?
😀NO I WAS MISSING A PAGE BUDDY! 😀
Whoever is the PO of Firefox, fuck you
Doug HollandI've been using Firefox since it was resurrected from Netscape Navigator, but man... it feels more and more like they don't want me to use it.
Fucking WHY? It's a fucking web browser! Do web browser things! Not shitty customer support things!
HighlandCow
katy ✨Maybe if they actually prioritize wanted/long term features, they can actually raise user share.
I'm no dev but I'm bitter JS apps (as in Electron apps) only run Blink, no Gecko.
DevconsoleToo many Firefox users remember "Bonzai Buddy" for "Browser Buddy" to be a good name
Hal-5700XSafe bet, it's going to be opt-out not opt-in.
No matter what you think of Eich. The Eich era of Firefox/Mozilla was their golden years. I miss them.
I can tell. They’re certainly not working on making the browser faster.
I’ve been a Firefox guy as long as it’s been around, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops about how it’s faster since “quantum” was released. The last few releases have been sluggish and stuttery.
I recently had to switch to Chrome for a site that wouldn’t work correctly in Firefox. Chrome was incredibly snappy.
To be fair, I have a shitload of windows open with a shitload of tabs open in Firefox and I had like 3 tabs open in Chrome, two of which where like the “welcome” and “what’s new” built-ins
But uBlock Origin doesn’t work on Chrome anymore so, they can fuck off
heyWhatsayI like the approach from duckduckgo, it's an option to open up, and keeps you anonymous.
I really like the chat bot built into the DDG browser. It's free, anonymous (proxied) LLM access. I don't see the harm in Firefox adding one.
If you don't want it in Firefox, there will definitely be forks that don't have it.
Fucking Christ the people that run Mozilla have brain worms. They are at the 10 yard line and just need to run it in, but they've tied their shoes together. Chrome enshitification is at light speed, and edge sucks and always sucked. All they have to do is the basics and they will become popular again.
Well stated. I couldn't fuck it up worse if I was doing it on purpose.
...this might just push me onto a different browser. WHY?
Because they allowed AI and ad-revenue lovers into their leadership. This was predicted like 2 years ago.
Just use one of the forks that removes all the bloat from firefox.
I'm starting to feel like, just as the solution isn't to debloat Windows, the solution isn't to debloat Firefox.
I think I need something new.
I havent used windows since version 7, but debloating makes sense when it's fast and effective like it still was with Windows 10. With Windows 11 it's so hard to debloat the OS that it just doesn't make sense anymore.
My point is as long as it's easier to debloat, than to switch completely its valid and installing a debloated firefox is easy af.
On mobile there's a browser that is gecko based but not Firefox based It's called WebLibre but there's no other option for desktop as far as I know
i looked at their readme:
🫠
It's a SLM not a LLM it has existed since a long while in its simple form it has gotten advanced now from spellchecking to understanding what the text means, it doesn't need to crawl every day for data you train it once on a much smaller training set stuff like LanguageTool have used it for a long time, and it uses way less power it's not the bad kind of AI.
JFC no one wants this, stop being shit.
I honestly don't see much of a future for Firefox with all the recent push towards becoming just another corporate slop browser. We already have enough of those.
Hello there! I see you're trying to read a website...
So is there an alternative to Firefox that works across devices and let's me run a decent adblocker?
Librefox
My question precisely. If you find one, please let me know.
librewolf, mullwad browser
They can't help themselves.
Why do they waste resources on AI?
The guys on late night Linux talked about this a while back. I don't think it's necessarily the right strategy for Firefox, but it's helpful context.
Basically, mozilla isn't doing this for us. We're already firefox people. They're don't it for other people, and corporations, who are not already ff users.
I can see how something like this could diminish barriers for non users.
For my own part I hope librewolf or some other fork excludes these features.
Diminish barriers for a Web browser?
Yes. For some users no AI assistant would be a barrier to adoption.
Nobody I know would want that. Just curious, for what kind of person would this be a desired feature?
Again, you and the people you know aren't the market they're trying to attract.
I dont really know who would want it, but obviously mozilla does, presuming they've done some market research.
My guess would be managed corporate infrastructure.
I know some corporates. I don't think anyone wants chat in their browser.
So, you know more about mozilla's target market than mozilla does, without the benefit of whatever market research they've done ?
Sure, mozilla seems to be governed by idiots and has made a never ending series of bad decisions over the last decade, but I'm certain that they have a market for their Gen AI features.
i genuinely don't understand if there's a market for people who want ai features that aren't fine with chrome
That’s kind of my whole point. Mozilla needs to be an option for people who are fine with chrome.