Post #1700106

2026-01-07 10:53 UTC

I'm watching people in my feed screaming at each other over Firefox's "AI kill switch" this morning with some trepidation. As far as I'm concerned, Firefox already has an AI kill switch. It's called browser.ml.chat.enabled, I set it to false more or less the day it appeared, it hasn't mysteriously popped back on since, despite angry posts to the contrary, and that's been that for me. It's disabled every "AI" feature I find objectionable. I'd prefer if Mozilla leadership would sync up with reality on occasion and stop deciding to put this paid placement trash into Firefox in the first place, but at least there's a reliable way to get rid of it. Everything else people have been screaming at Mozilla about? I'm not sure I see the problem. The little model you can download to summarise web pages for you? I wouldn't trust it, and so I don't think it's necessarily a productive use of Firefox devs' time, but at least it's opt-in. The other little model you can download to help organise your tab groups? I don't use it much, but this one seems more practical, and it's also opt-in, despite the occasional angry report of it slowing down people's browsers even without having been downloaded. Liek, bro, maybe try closing a Slack tab or two. I don't want ChatGPT in my browser, or Claude, or any kind of world burning data centre LLM pretending to be our new AI god. browser.ml.chat.enabled = false does that for me. It would be even better if it wasn't there in the first place. But tiny, focused ML models doing nominally useful things? I not only do not see the problem there, I'd like some of them to be part of the Web platform rather than just the browser. I've been wishing since they launched them that Mozilla would make an API available to web sites out of those translation models of theirs, for instance. I'm monitoring the situation, as European heads of state like to say, but so far, despite the posturings of their C-suite types, it doesn't seem like any critical Mozilla resources are being diverted away from maintaining the Web platform into AI boosterism. Every new Firefox changelog is delivering on what it should be delivering on, and it's only occasionally that I see a new "AI" feature advertised. Compare that to a product like VSCode, which has been completely consumed by the cancer of slop production with only one in a hundred changelog entries being about building an actual damned code editor, and I'm not feeling all that alarmed about Firefox just yet. I know this is Mastodon, but sometimes I just wish people would entertain having opinions that can have some nuance in between "burn the world down so the AGI can live" and "Butlerian Jihad now," you know?

Replies (20)

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems 2026-01-07 12:53

And speaking of which, it's funny how everyone talks about the Butlerian Jihad as if it isn't just another Torment Nexus. The Butlerian Jihad led to a world where people were regularly shooting up on debilitating smart drugs to do maths for their feudal overlords because their ancestors decided that pocket calculators were the Devil's work. As much as we love to make fun of the tech bros confusing the dystopias of Gibson and Stephenson with utopia, we do so love to have a little blind spot about Herbert when it suits us.

Open ##3186402
@ed_blackburn@hachyderm.io 2026-01-07 10:56

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems Love this take ❤️

Open ##3186403
@Di4na@hachyderm.io 2026-01-07 11:04

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems I got the "Summarising" bit without asking and I had to go disable it, despite having had `browser.ml.chat.enabled` to `false` for months....

Open ##3186404
@icejam@indieweb.social 2026-01-07 11:12

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems I think there's more than that one, unfortunately. I definitely see also browser.ml.enable and extensions.ml.enable that are enabled by default.

Open ##3186412
@devl@hachyderm.io 2026-01-07 11:19

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems To be fair, a little Butlerian Jihad would be refreshing.

Open ##3186413
@hdv@front-end.social 2026-01-07 11:20

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems +1000

Open ##3186414
@dale@toot.cafe 2026-01-07 12:15

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems I made a design update to the urlbar and someone quite publically said that I was to blame for Trump being president because of that. I get and often agree with some of the crititism, however a huge chunk of it is hysterical and quite often nonsensical vitriol from people who have confused activism with online harassment. Honestly had a sigh of relief reading this, its rare to read a reasoned take, even from somewhat respected peers.

Open ##3186415
@Kerplunk@mastodon.scot 2026-01-07 12:19

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems As far as I'm concerned, Firefox already has an AI kill switch. It's called rm -rf firefox If you wish to disable AI in firefox, ensure the first start is done without an internet connection, after changing the setting clean up pending telemetry in the profile. Better way, use LibreWolf or UngoogledChromium. Mozilla management does not care about user criticism, just money, they can change Your Settings remotely at any time.

Open ##3186418
@R1Rail@pouet.chapril.org 2026-01-07 12:47

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems It is not sufficient to remove ai : from my users.js : browser.ml.enable browser.ml.chat.enabled browser.ml.chat.sidebar browser.ml.chat.menu browser.ml.chat.page extensions.ml.enabled browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled pdfjs.enableAltTextModelDownload pdfjs.enableGuessAltText And all this crap of undocumented registry that about:config is is NOT a correct way to configure

Open ##3186419
@contrasocial@mastodon.social 2026-01-07 13:26

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems I'm anti-AI and really dislike Mozilla's decision making lately, but I'm still never going to see a Chromium browser as the answer. It's like only having dirty water to drink and someone suggests drinking paint thinner instead. We need a new alternative but until then, browsers like Librewolf and Waterfox appear to be the best we've got unfortunately.

Open ##3186422
@duelinmarkers@hachyderm.io 2026-01-07 15:37

I'm not a heavy desktop Firefox user, but AFAIK I've never opted out of anything, and I still haven't noticed any AI crap in #firefox. I'm in the US, so I expect the most enshittified UX available. 🤷

Open ##3186425
@benjamineskola@hachyderm.io 2026-01-07 15:41

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems I do think it would be a worthwhile improvement to have it actually in the settings UI, not about:config, and default to off, etc. Having the setting is a good start but it’s not really obvious to ordinary users (about:config displays warnings by default to discourage casual modification). But maybe the deeper thing is that Firefox seems to have alienated its users to the extent that it’s no longer trusted to add an option that it won’t later water down.

Open ##3186429
@davep@infosec.exchange 2026-01-07 15:43

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems Weirdly, I've done nothing to get rid of it that I'm aware of and FF on both Windows and Android seems to be pleasantly AI-free.

Open ##3186434
@nyquildotorg@gts.nyquil.org 2026-01-07 16:22

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems "It's disabled every "AI" feature I find objectionable." "That I find objectionable..." Could have saved ~500 words 🤷

Open ##3186436
@fabiscafe@mstdn.social 2026-01-07 16:56

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems just use zen.

Open ##3186437
@julienw@pouet.chapril.org 2026-01-07 17:31

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems Thank you

Open ##3186438
@tomayac@toot.cafe 2026-01-07 18:33

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems For the local translation API point, there's a Mozilla Standards Position thread ongoing in https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1015 on the Translator API. Your voice about wanting such an API would be very welcome. Mozilla have an alternative proposal up on https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/blob/main/translation.md, but I think this approach is not meeting the user demands for an imperative translation API, in contrast to the Translator API. (Full disclosure in case it wasn't clear: I work on the Chrome team at Google.)

Open ##3186439
@edbo@mastodon.social 2026-01-07 18:45

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems Honestly I haven't even set that config flag and I couldn't tell you where the LLM integrations in the browser even are

Open ##3186441
@gsalvisberg@mastodontech.de 2026-01-07 21:34

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems Yes, it does (seemingly) have some kind of an AI kill switch, which is hidden from the UI (about:config is not considered as UI). And Mozilla is begging for donations all the time. What are these used for? I don't want them to waste any money and dev time for LLM bullshit.

Open ##3186442
@wookieeboy@hachyderm.io 2026-01-08 14:05

@bodil@social.treehouse.systems The fact that the feature exists is ok, I guess. I turned it off via user.js because it would mysteriously keep reenabling itself. Then I switched to Zen browser. I turned off AI in Duck Duck Go as well, but that also mysteriously keeps getting turned back on. But I don’t know where to go from Duck Duck Go, so I just keep turning it back off. OK, AI is a feature, but why is it being forced on me?

Open ##3186443