this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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Firefox on Android forcefully disables server side AI services on custom ROMs (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)
submitted 1 week ago by Wispy2891@lemmy.world to c/firefox@lemmy.world
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It's an unintended side effect that the majority of custom ROM users will appreciate.

Firefox being the first and only browser on Android enforcing Google play integrity verification wasn't on my bingo card

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[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't know. This just makes sense. AI can be a major contributor to cost so making sure you generate revenue from the user just seems like the smart move.

[–] d3vnu1l@programming.dev 4 points 6 days ago

You protect your api server side, not client side.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If someone really wants to use their servers to do ai shit, they could spoof being a Linux or Windows client instead of the android one. There's no difference at all.

I'm assuming Linux, windows and MacOS builds verify the signature to make sure the executable isn't tampered. The same can be done on Android without needing to use draconian verification apis

[–] MalMen@masto.pt 2 points 6 days ago

@Wispy2891 @Gladaed in the end is client side verification, it can be spoof anyway

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

An ankle high barrier is enough to reduce traffic to a point where it is no longer an issue.

There are loads of phones and non technical users.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

there are literally zero persons in the world that:

  1. somehow, they really need to use the mozilla ai services api for reasons (??? classify a website for tab grouping?), but don't want to pay
  2. they are skilled enough to recompile/patch/crack the android executable and change it to do their purpose
  3. somehow, they don't have the skills to do the same in the linux/windows/macos executable
  4. are willing to waste days in reverse engineering efforts and perpetually play a cat&mouse game to save $1/month in inference costs