Firefox will have an option to disable all AI features
118 comments
·December 18, 2025999900000999
worldsavior
You're not a normal user of Firefox then.
kotaKat
This. My browser should be a browser and nothing more. If I want more, I should be able to use an add-on. Stop baking everything in out of the box.
samschooler
I'm going to chime in here, I think 1. This is great and Mozilla is listening to it's core fans and 2. I want Firefox to be a competitive browser. Without AI enabled features + agent mode being first class citizens, this will be a non-starter in 2 years.
I want my non-tech family members/friends to install Firefox not because I come over at Christmas, but because they want to. Because it's a browser that "just works." We can't have this if Firefox stays in the pre-ai era.
I know Mozilla doesn't have much good will right now, but hopefully with the exec shakeup, they will right the ship on making FF a great browser. While still staying the best foil to Chrome (both in browser engine, browser chrome, and extension ecosystem).
gigel82
I'd love to live in your world for a bit... I can't imagine any future where having AI in your browser is a net positive for any user. It sounds like an absolute dystopian privacy and security nightmare.
tgsovlerkhgsel
Why?
Imagine you have an AI button. When you click it, the locally running LLM gets a copy of the web site in the context window, and you get to ask it a prompt, e.g. "summarize this".
Imagine the browser asks you at some point, whether you want to hear about new features. The buttons offered to you are "FUCK OFF AND NEVER, EVER BOTHER ME AGAIN", "Please show me a summary once a month", "Show timely, non-modal notifications at appropriate times".
Imagine you choose the second option, and at some point, it offers you a feature described as follows: "On search engine result pages and social media sites, use a local LLM to identify headlines, classify them as clickbait-or-not, and for clickbait headlines, automatically fetch the article in an incognito session, and add a small overlay with a non-clickbait version of the title". Would you enable it?
nemomarx
That last one sounds like a lot of churn and resources for little results? You're not really making them sound compelling compared to just blocking click bait sites with a normal extension somehow. And it could also be an extension users install and configure - why a pop up offering it to me, and why built into the browser that directly?
gigel82
For any mildly useful AI feature, there are hundreds of entirely dangerous ones. Either way I don't want the browser to have any AI features integrated, just like I don't want the OS to have them.
Especially since we know very well that they won't be locally running LLMs, everyone's plan is to siphon your data to their "cloud hybrid AI" to feed into the surveillance models (for ad personalization, and for selling to scammers, law enforcement and anyone else).
I'd prefer to have entirely separate and completely controlled and fire-walled solutions for any useful LLM scenarios.
afavour
Most users are entirely ignorant of privacy and security and will make choices without considering it. I don’t say that to excuse it but it’s absolutely the reality.
e2le
Of all the AI features added recently, local translations is one that I would be OK with being enabled by default. It's useful, and its value proposition is much less dubious.
mhitza
I had to use it a couple times recently in Firefox on Android, and it's a nice thing to have.
The UX is not polished, and not responsive. No indicator that translation is happening, then the interface disappears for the translation to materialize, with multisecond delays. All understandable if the model is churning my mobile CPU, but it needs a clear visual insicator that something happening
ekjhgkejhgk
Mullvad browser doesn't have an option to disable all AI features because it doesn't have any.
(The Mullvad guys took Tor browser for its resistance to fingerprinting and removed the connection the Tor network. You don't need Mullvad VPN to use the browser)
butz
Firefox should release a separate build - "base", "core", "classic" - clearly, I am not a marketing person, but idea behind it, that this is only a browser without any extra features added. No "AI", no studies, no account sync. Only bare minimum browser, that allows user to do their internet things and, if they ever desire, will install all extra bells and whistles as extensions. No need to agree to any EULA either (remember, that it was added to Firefox?). And, the best part, all existing users will still keep using the same old Firefox version, no surprises for them. Now, I assume that someone will tell me, that this version already exists and is called ESR :)
bondarchuk
For example at the moment multi-account containers is a plugin. I needed it and installed the plugin and it's fine.
netule
It kind of sucks that this isn’t a core feature of the browser, but the AI stuff will be. At least Firefox sync is good enough to sync extensions.
yjftsjthsd-h
I'm pretty sure ESR is a different thing, but yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I think it even should be relatively easy, insofar as that a lot of the non-base functionality is in built-in extensions?
driverdan
Firefox should be a browser, period. It should render pages. All other features should be extensions.
runtimepanic
This feels less like an “anti-AI” stance and more like a trust and control issue. For browsers especially, users have very different threat models and performance expectations, and “always on” AI features blur that line quickly. An explicit opt-out makes sense, but I wonder if the more important question is whether these features can be implemented in a way that’s truly local and auditable. If users can’t clearly understand where data goes and what runs on-device, toggles become a necessary safety valve rather than a preference.
ronsor
I haven't paid close attention, but as far as I can tell, Mozilla has mostly invested in local AI for tasks such as translation, summarization, and organization. As long as that's the case, I don't see any particular safety or privacy risks; if it works without an Internet connection, it's probably OK.
forgotpwd16
Summarization is using a chosen cloud-based AI provider.
freehorse
Are you sure? I see a huge spike in CPU when I long-click on a link to see the preview and summary. This is the newest summarization feature, not the older one with the chatbot on the side.
AuthAuth
I'm glad to see some mozilla employees standing their base in the comments. That guy trying to make the point that Mozilla was wasting resources chasing trend only for an employee to say it was a few people checking it out while 1000 people continued work on the normal stuff is nice to see.
The non mozilla people in that thread are so petty. Maybe it'd be better to have them go use another browser and stop dragging down firefox's reputation.
t1234s
Is there a fork of firefox where you have all the same core functionality and support for extensions but with all the mozilla services (pocket, safe browsing, forced crap on the new tab page, any AI service, etc...) removed?
Saris
Zen, Waterfox, Librewolf, Floorp.. For android there's Fennec, Iceraven.
There are more, those are just the ones I can recall.
Quot
My preference is Zen (https://zen-browser.app/), but there's also LibreWolf (https://librewolf.net/) if you want a less customized fork.
moderation
I moved to Zen but have subsequently moved to Glide [0] which I find to have less UI fluff and the keyboard shortcuts and scriptability are excellent.
Loudergood
Pocket has been gone for awhile now. Is it really that hard to uncheck some boxes to turn this all off?
BeetleB
Could someone summarize the problem with Firefox's AI features?
At least when I last checked (months ago), none of those features that involve communicating with external servers would work unless you configure them to (i.e. provide credentials to an LLM provider).
Was I wrong? Have things changed?
bhhaskin
It should be a plugin. Anything that isn't directly related to the core mission of a web browser should be a plugin.
jamesgill
Why not make them disabled by default, with the option to turn them on?
HelloUsername
> Why not make them disabled by default, with the option to turn them on?
"All AI features will also be opt-in"
jamesgill
He said there would be both an "AI kill switch" but that it's also "opt-in". Taken together, his two statements seem a little...odd.
lawtalkinghuman
They could even make the AI features available as extensions, downloadable from addons.mozilla.org
That way, the users who want them can download them, and the users who don't, don't.
netsharc
I think Facebook did a study that making options opt-in means only a tiny tiny percentage of users will ever activate them. People never look around in settings.
I suppose if - after you click away the popup that says "Thank you for loving Firefox"(1) - a popup shows that says "Hey, hey, look at me, look we have this new feature, it'll blow you away. Do you want to enable it?" would be obnoxious but satisfies the idea of "opt-in".
(1) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1791524 - I still remember how icked I was seeing this popup.
eps
Don't need to run studies to understand that.
If it's off be default it will stay off unless the user is somehow made to try it. Default opt-in is one option to do that, the simplest one, but it's not the only one. The rest require explaining clearly what the user will get out of enabling it ... and that often is difficult to do succinctly, or convincingly. So shovelling it down everyone's throat it is.
bigstrat2003
> making options opt-in means only a tiny tiny percentage of users will ever activate them
Why exactly should I, a user, care about this? I don't want useless crap shoved in my face, period. I don't care that people might not turn on someone's pet feature if they don't enable it by default.
dzikimarian
Because if this browser will have zero appeal to wider public it will die and you will have to pick between Chrome forks.
RegnisGnaw
Because money! Seriously that's the answer to most of these questions.
al_borland
Is there a business model behind actually making profit off this stuff yet? Last I looked, Mozilla is still making almost all their money from Google.
nemomarx
The new CEO said he views it as a monetization source. I'm not really sure how, but he apparently has something in mind I can't think of.
kevin061
Yeah the option is called Waterfox, Palemoon, or even Vivaldi.
reidrac
Vivaldi is not open source. Not quite an option.
kevin061
dntbrsnbl
I think the UI code is not open source (so you can't build the browser yourself).
https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/why-isnt-vivaldi-browser...
butz
Wait, what? Vivaldi is open source? Now I am confused and really not sure what was the reason I ignored it for so long. Was there something iffy with Linux desktop integration?
forgotpwd16
Quite surprised at Vivaldi. Considered that as Opera spiritual successor including any possible feature, will've been one of the first browsers adding AI.
Have it as a stand alone plugin.
I should have to manually install this AI stuff.