The poll is over, and the result is clear:
#FireFox users have very little interest for Chatbot integration into their browser.
I am very much aware that the people, who voted in this poll are hardly a representative sample, but more than 2.4K people is a better size than many “professional” opinion polls.
@mozilla & @firefox should take people, who actually care about their #browser choice, seriously.
I still seriously believe that #Mozilla’s fate matters,
https://berlin.social/@mina/113102817500429735
1/3
If I want to use a chatbot, I’ll access a website that provides one.
My browser is supposed to be a program that lets me access the internet, and nothing else.Or I’ll have one installed as a separate app, which will have access to data on my system.
So either it’s a separate app, or it’s a website. I don’t see a need for my browser to be that app.
And if I really really really wanted one in my browser (which I don’t but for the sake of argument) I’ll look for an add-on.
Same reason I don’t want my browser to filter or ban my content but I totally use unlock origin.
Couldn’t be more accurate.
What Firefox provides here:
A connector to LLM providers. Accelerators (context menu options).From a coding perspective, this should ideally be a very lightweight functionality.
This feature is very analogous to options to add a search engine, and also to provide accelerators via context menu.
While it can be done via third-party or Official Mozilla add-ons, but (to me) it still makes sense to have it part of the product.
Eventhough I am not pro chatbot, such a poll is unfortunately completely worthless. Only random samples (or at least representative ones) allow to say something about a group.
If we go into an AI fanboy forum and ask the same question, we may find 3000 people saying the exact opposite. It just means nothing whatsoever.
100%. I feel like the broad fediverse community is not a fan of generative AI
Does that mean they are not representative of the general population…?
The general young population uses a fair amount of LLM services, so yes
There’s also the fact that it’s a false dichotomy.
Yes and no.
Obviously, the people questioned here, are not representative for the entire FF user community.
However: The Fediverse at large is a community of mostly tech-savvy people, who do care about independence from major corporations.
These are, in fact, also the people who are the core users and developers of FOSS software.
Whilst the exact percentage means nothing, the tendency is so clear that it should, at least, be taken into consideration.
Did you read part 2 & 3?
https://johnmjennings.com/an-important-lesson-from-bullet-holes-in-planes/
The responses needs to be contain representation at least equally to non Firefox people who no longer care to answer a poll about a product that they don’t use. Why? Only current users are going to answer the poll, not the people with the cuts and pain that forced them back to Chrome or safari. Asking survivors how to reinforce survival actually doesn’t solve for why do many people off board Firefox.
Frankly you should ask people like my 60-70yo parents why chrome not Firefox. You’ll learn more from that than the corrected responses of people who loudly have preferences but at the end of the day would stay either way. My parents tried Firefox, but then left it. Although they only tried from insistence from their son.
PS: I agree with the poll. I don’t want a chat bot either. If I did, I’d install a plugin that integrates once of my own choosing. Given the availability, privacy, and ease of lmstudio I’d rather leave it in its own place outside the browser and network. I don’t know how those like my parents feel about a bot that can probably answer their questions. I also doubt they care. Maybe it would help them ask questions they’re too embarrassed to ask friends and family for. Usually how to questions they’ve asked dozens of times. But that’s super dangerous.
We want lighter and faster browsers that load up less features, block all unnecessary data collection and spying and java scripts, consume less hardware resources, and don’t choke and heat up 8-gb ram laptops just because I openned 1 tab.
I don’t want Siri in my internet. I don’t even like it when it automatically searches and returns suggetions for mere typing anything in address bar. If I wanted a chatbot, I know how to visit chatgpt or any site myself.
Just a minor nit pick but it’s JavaScript, not Java Scripts (javascript and Java are massively different things).
Also blocking JavaScript on the web in 2024 is really not practical. Nothing will really work without it.
You used to be able to run Java in the web, I remember the pain of applets.
It’s just an integration with LLM services and not AI baked-in the browser code. You can even self-host any such service (Ollama) and integrate Firefox with it. That will make sure your query is not leaving your network.
I mean, I don’t have anything against the chatbot feature, but this is coming before the tab group functionality…
Presumably this one’s less work, so even with them being worked on at the same time, no real reason to hold back the one that’s done sooner. But apparently you can try out tab groups already: https://lemmy.ml/post/20000489
Asking mastodon users whether they’d choose AI over Privacy is like asking Elon Musk if he’d rather end poverty or buy another mega yacht.
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As the tech guy
My parents really like it - they like that they can say what they want to say and get it formatted for an email
I don’t think you thought this one through!
To be the guy known for ending poverty for all time, having statues in every park on the planet? Or just another boat to park in your mega-garage of boats?
Easy choice.
Yeah, I dunno about that considering he promised to end world hunger if the UN could show him how the money was used. They did and he essentially told them to fuck off and donated it to himself instead: https://truthout.org/articles/musk-pledged-6b-to-solve-world-hunger-but-gave-it-to-his-own-foundation-instead/
aw man i missed the poll i would have voted “fuck no” to chatbot integration
Would you rather have a AI or have your browser 2x slower?
That is the kind questions that were asked
lol. I’d take a browser that’s 10x slower as long as it has no AI or crypto.
I like having TLS in my browser
Yeah but in that situation wouldn’t you just not use the AI?
I think this is more about wasting development times and what features are actually in the browser.
No that was a different poll. This one asked “do you want ‘enhanced privacy’ or a chatbot in the sidebar” which, of course, is a false dichotomy.
I wish Mozilla would just strip all the extraneous junk from Firefox aside from what is truly necessary for web browsing. No crypto, no Pocket, no chatbot integration, nothing AI related, etc. Any and all additional features should be implemented via optional plugins. They could rename the project something like Phoenix or Firebird or something like that.
I bet they wouldn’t be so dependent on that google money if they stopped trying to chase every tech trend that pops up regardless of interest or popularity.
My perception of Firefox users is that most of us use Firefox for a reason, and thats usually some variation of moving away from big tech bullshit. I COULD be wrong but I certainly dont think so lol.
Where would the money come from then? donations? Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people and downscale.
I think it’s too late for them to switch direction, not without a lot of people getting laid off. Though maybe that will ultimately happen if they finally end up bankrupt.
Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people, and downscale
I reckon I do. Google is like 80% of their funding or some shit, which hinders other search products while affecting user experience in other ways as well due to their influence. If they reined in the scope of their product, they could work on a lower budget which might allow them to work towards breaking free of that oversight. As I mentioned, I don’t think most Firefox users want half this crap they’re working on anyway, but they’re caught in the tech “infinite growth” loop where they ““have”” to crank out bs features or else be considered irrelevant.
Just make a solid browser, work in solid mod support so I can make it my own, and maintain it. I have my own tools to use instead of pocket and whatever else, I don’t need Mozilla to do that.
In terms of workers being let go, if they scale back they can at least let people go in a respectful manner instead of them just showing up to a sign on the door lol.
My worry is that the other 20% might actually come from other forms of partnerships and integrations not unlike what they probably had in mind with this, and that dropping Google might actually make them more dependent on seeking this kind of initiatives, not less.
I don’t know how many people you actually need to maintain a browser. But if it’s actually possible to do it without any kind of money from any of those sources in a way that can be sustained, then it would make more sense to make a fork (or alternative, like Ladybird) and just use that.
Like I said, I think it’s too late for Mozilla to shift course, I don’t expect they’ll ever do that. At least not until they are forced by a competing project if it happens to become successful (or a similar huge wake up call that leaves them no alternative).
Why not just PWA to side bar extension support? If users want that side bar to a chatbot. Boom easy. If they don’t or any other option its there too.
If they really want to support local ai specifically focus on the web3 API stuff for it.
Just be a web browser dammit lol
Mozilla is desperate for any cash influx, AI in a browser is a hot sounding thing, right now. Perhaps they also hope they can leverage it for extra income.
I run a Nightly on one of my machines and it was weird seeing the option and I hope it does not make it or that it gets removed.
It’s just a plain integration with 3rd-party or self-hosted LLM service.
I’m not sure if Mozilla will make money from this feature in any way.
Have you read anything about it anywhere?
Maybe they can offer a LLM router and privacy proxy service like they do with VPNs?
Not who you asked speculating.
If you’re using a VPN at the OS or browser level, just like any other traffic, your query to the LLM service will be routed via the VPN. That VPN could be any VPN of your choice - Firefox VPN, Mullvad, or Proton etc.
The only problem is that most LLMs require a profile/login to work with. In such cases, using a VPN will be useless, as the LLM server will know who you are.
why can’t we just have a fast, reliable browser with a clean UI that is fairly customizable with really solid extension support?
Extensions/plugins were supposed to provide the framework if users wanted a bunch of bells and whistles.
and I refuse to believe that a company with the resources of Mozilla cannot do that.
Minecraft is basically that in game form. A powerful voxel engine that has a massive amount of support for mods and plugins.
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Minetest is probably a better comparison
No shit
Its shocking how out of touch they are
Almost none of the people who are excited about AI know anything about computer science. I say this someone who always encounters idiots claiming my computer science degree will soon be obsolete because of AI… lol
A representative 300 sample would give a more accurate result than a biased 2.4k sample. Bigger number doesn’t mean better results.
That said, I’m not sure how to get representation from certain subgroups of the population, like the “never engages with polls” or “lies specifically to fuck with your data” subgroups.
Yes, It was easier to do truly representative polls, when people loved answering questions and everybody had a landline.
I remember a time when the phone or doorbell would ring and I would get excited to know who it was.
Now I seriously consider setting up a series of mirrors so that I can see who is at the door without giving up my ability to pretend like no one is home and my phone ringing causes an emotion somewhere between worry and rage.
computer scientists: we have invented a virtual dumbass who is constantly wrong
tech CEOs: let’s add it to every product
Borrowed from here
as being a prominent and established way of accessing the internet without using a product owned by one of three three tech giants.
No niche browser can play the same role.
To me, hopping onto a running train doesn’t seem to be the way to go when it comes to creating and keeping trust:
People, who think that cars are a terrible way of getting people around in cities, don’t want another Tesla, they want a good bike.
Here we have a problem, common to many non-profits:
2/3
Fake Professionalism!
I don’t believe that CEOs, who demand a 7 digit salary, have the ability to understand the soul and heart of a collective of people (in the case of many #FOSS projects: some of the world’s most skilled and talented programmers), who donate lots of their time and energy for a project they believe in, and hence lack the credibility and skills necessary for making them thrive in the long term.
Firefox’s ever falling market share proves that.
3/3
Can this poll be considered official ? I clicked the link and it looks like a Twitter poll or something.
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This post is confusing because I recently did take an official Firefox poll involving AI features (and others).
I’m sorry.
It was certainly never my intention to impose myself like an official channel or something like that.
I still welcome a debate here.
I didn’t think you were! You’re fine lol. No apology necessary. ❤️
I wish Mozilla would ask the end users what we want.
