Broken record chiming in: it should be opt-in, not opt-out.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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I chose to opt out of having Firefox installed. Gave me an opportunity to use the very satisfying but rarely used apt purge function.
Waterfox or Librewolf or what you trying now?
Librewolf, but also have Floorp and Vivaldi installed. How's Waterfox going these days? Feel like I haven't looked at that in ages.
I havent used it myself but a buddy of mine is really liking it.
I dig their stance. https://www.waterfox.com/blog/no-ai-here-response-to-mozilla/
Waterfox did better consumer advocacy in a single blog post than the entire multimillion-dollar Mozilla Foundation has pumped out over the past two years.
Oh nice, that good to hear.
i liked waterfox until it completely forgot my 2x 50+ tabs windows. yes i know "recently closed windows", they weren't there
Then that was a "private" window
nope, regular tabs. they were fine until they weren't
Broken record 2 chiming in. None of these features do anything unless you use them so they effectively are opt-in. Turning off the settings gets rid of the UI elements that are how you'd use them, which is excellent.
Additionally, a setting to automatically disable future features is a very strong acknowledgement of and empowerment for strongly anti-AI users.
Up until now I have agreed with the crowd upset at how FF as handled AI features, but at this point you are just upset because you want to be.
If Mozilla didn't pester you with notifications about AI tab grouping and AI page summaries, congratulations. It's still sapped limited time and resources away from fixing bugs and implementing features that aren't as controversial.
They've commented on this. The time spent on this did not "take away from time spent on other things". The features were worked on by a few people who wanted to build those features. From a Mozilla employee in a hacker news thread.
So Mozilla did not pay the people that worked on, tested, and approved these features?
I actually couldnt find any public info to back up my comment so maybe a HN comment wasnt enough to go off. But Idk if announcing they partnered with OpenAI to integrate it would even improve things given their current actions.
Can't disagree that I'd rather the time be spent elsewhere, but firefox needs to be a big tent that isn't only targeted to tech savvy or anti AI people. I'll also admit I turned off smart tab group in about:config as soon as I saw it, but rather than "pestering" it was just a button in the tab group UI? I don't even know how to do link previews so it definitely never pestered me there. Local language translation is actively useful and far more desirable that using remote services.
Another point about pulling time away from other development... The same time period these were implemented is also when they finally started doing things people definitely like such as tab groups and vertical tabs so it sure doesn't seem like they're too tight in resources.
Tldr; firefox is for everyone and being mad that they implemented features you don't use is entitled bullshit
The opposite of pro-AI isn't anti-AI. It's non-AI. Mozilla has a community forum to solicit feedback. Nobody used it to ask for AI. Instead, Mozilla repeatedly used it to announce they were going to push AI features on their community.
People aren't converting to Mozilla because it has AI. They were never going to convert to Mozilla because they added a shopping toolbar, either. These are things that should have never been put into the browser. They're certainly alienating their existing users by trying to bleed them dry, though.
Isn't that what add on are for?
I'd like to choose to opt out of Firefox spending donation money on features the community explicitly states that they do NOT want
You also don't use an adblocker I guess?
No idea why you'd think that....
Even a opt-in question during set up would be acceptable
For the other softwares it's opt-go-fuck-yourself, so I'll take an opt-out.
I did that by switching to Librewolf ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wish they's just flip this switch themselves over at Mozilla and simply stop putting AI bullshit in the browser.
I mean, even an opt.in system is better than an opt.out systen
After all the blowback they finally decided they fucked up and put this in. It wasn't the plan, it wasn't the idea. But it's a good reaction.
Yep. It's rare enough that a technology company responds to feedback from their users that I think it deserves to be recognized when it does happen!
I think it was always a plan to try to push AI, and if it fails, give users an option to turn it off. They are not stupid, and they know that refusing to enable an option to turn it off would destroy them.
This was the first thing I did when it popped up. I like how it opens the little submenu and shows every one of them being blocked. And that's how they'll stay.
I wonder what the variable name is so I can add a line to my user.js. Usually stuff like this can be changed with a setting in user.js.
Edit: apparently there are a lot of such variables, and I think I have already turned off a few of them. I don't see what's new then, other than a UI for this. If you have to turn all these off, how can they talk about it this way..?
Mozilla promises that if you flip this switch, they won't keep surprising you with new AI features.
Well the need for all those other settings apparently nullifies that idea. Unless the people recommending that I turn off all those pieces are doing so solely out of paranoia and maybe it's redundant and unnecessary to turn off all but the main one. Which could be the case, maybe but I personally lean toward the paranoid side
Up until this point, the hodgepodge of half-hidden settings was a necessity, because Mozilla hadn't rolled out the setting we had today. Every few months, Mozilla would announce a new AI feature, and onto the pile of things to disable it would go.
Which about:config value maps to this new switch? That's my real question.
You'll probably have to tech back with those incredibly talented (if paranoid) people one more time.
The click is for installing librewolf.
Hey FF devs, nobody wants this bullshit
What are you talking about? I absolutely want a way to block all current and future AI features. Opt in would have been better instead of opt out, but hey, I'll take the wins I can get.
Nobody wants the AI. They mean nobody wants to be auto-opted into AI so that you have to go in and turn it off.
Translations, image alt text, voice to text, text to voice are all AI.
The Firefox "image alt text" feature is a joke.
If you don't believe me, try finding it.
Is this setting on desktop only? I dont see it anywhere in the mobile version.
Blocking means you can't see new or current AI features. Doesn't mean new or current AI features can't see you.