Share your feedback on the AI services experiment in Nightly

[asafko]

Hi folks, 

In the next few days, we will start the Nightly experiment which provides easy access to AI services from the sidebar. This functionality is entirely optional, and it’s there to see if it’s a helpful addition to Firefox. It is not built into any core functionality and needs to be turned on by you to see it. 

If you want to try the experiment, activate it via Nightly Settings > Firefox Labs (please see full instructions here). 

We’d love to hear your feedback once you try out the feature, and we’re open to all your ideas and thoughts, whether it’s small tweaks to the current experience or big, creative suggestions that could boost your productivity and make accessing your favorite tools and services in Firefox even easier.

Thanks so much for helping us improve Firefox!

[Rumorisms]

Or just turn off the setting and keep using it like normal?

[Nobody_of_note]

Doesn't take long until that becomes opt-out, enabled by default.  Later still, it will be integrated and you won't be able to turn it off.

LLMs are an environmental disaster.

[cgromulo]

Just stating the obvious and joining the thread: I don't want firefox to behave like every other browser around. The reason I use (and trust) firefox is exactly because it DOES NOT use my privacy as a business model and getting AI basically turns it into this. We all know what happens when you integrate the product initially as "it won't use your data" and what it evolves to. I'm dropping firefox if this madness continue and you can bet I will fork it or use a forked version with the removed feature.

[hadtoregister]

Seeing that this has been in the pipeline for a while now, and they seem to be walking merrily ahead, that's disappointing. I wonder how much money someone's making off doing this to Firefox.

[Uberprutser]

I wonder the same, is Mozilla getting paid by the "ai" companies?

Personally, I don't mind an easy to disable feature. But what the point for integrating something that can easily be accomplished with and extension. And there are plenty of websites you can goto with Firefox, that have "ai" chatbots.

Luckily, Vivaldi has spoken out against the trend of adding "ai" to their browser.

[Chaosfay]

No such thing as good AI. It is, however, and excellent way to reduce security, increase copyright infringement, and decrease the number of people who will support Firefox/Mozilla.

[luxia]

This, this, this, a hundred times this. Not even counting the water usage and environmental impact.

[nousernames]

Exactly!

[Crypticthree]

Please concentrate on being a good secure web browser. No one wants this. This is a waste of time and resources 

[littles0uls]

This!

[user8008s]

agreed!!

[akiyamka]

Not true, I want

[Typhoon]

Agreed. AI feels antithetical to Firefox.

[Redcanary]

Best and easiest way to sum it up.

[Gugux]

In french it's "grosse merde"

For the rest I totally agree. AI is totally unneeded bull**bleep**. Please stick to doing a great fast and secure browser !

[uneevee]

Who tf does this benefit anyways?!?!

AI is unnecessary af in Firefox

[TheEaterOfBeans]

it keeps the Tumblr/Twitter people out, you can enjoy the feeling of superiority that comes with knowing that you use a browser that they AREN'T using

(and then you can just ignore the AI button because it's going to be useless)

[KiruTheManokit]

this!!!!!!!!

[Taleweaver]

AGREED. I avoid all the other big browsers because I don't want AI. Don't put it in Firefox too!

[lachlan_musicma]

Agree. There are places that ML has a place, but in Firefox isn't one of them - not yet anyway. Please spend your time developing needed - and wanted - fixes and features.

[PurgingSmuggler]

Precisely.

[vesper]

absolutely not i'd change browsers immediately

[bluecrow]

Agreed. Please don't.

[TheEaterOfBeans]

Counterpoint.
Technology good 🙂

[skulltaffy]

Counterpoint: technology is ultimately neutral, but the way you use it and what it affects contributes to whether it's good or evil. And Generative AI is evil with how much it destroys both people's livelihoods and the environment as a whole.

(Edited to rephrase my point in a cleaner fashion.)

[cloony]

No ai please, it is so useless and harms the internet as a whole and the environment. I actively avoid it and want to support systems that DO NOT use ai.

[NutterButter]

I had recently started seeing the little star popup on selection and it was getting in the way of right-clicking. Threw my muscle memory WAY off.

But more importantly; NO. Everything has "AI" now. If I select a phrase on the screen, would a google search be more appropriate to offer than a chat bot?

[NorthStar]

Agreed. So many things Mozilla could be focusing on to make FF better, actively making it a top class browser, and instead they're wasting it on AI, which is morally questionable in its application, violates privacy and copyright, eats huge amounts of resources, and generates garbage at best, and disinformation at worst. I am not anti-technology, I am anti-bad ideas. AI is a bad idea. It needs much more work and much heavier government regulation.

[mozmark]

There are keyboard shortcuts for other sidebars. It would be handy to have one for this.

[aldqtshrkttslyk]

https://aldqtshrkttslykmjaryalsharqt.wordpress.com/

[aldqtshrkttslyk]

https://aldqtshrkttslykmjaryalsharqt.wordpress.com/2024/12/24/%d8%ae%d8%af%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%aa%...

[Mte90]

The announcement is not clear that is not started yet.

Also it isn't clear if it will require a personal token for this services and what settings are available.

[Mardak]

Try checking Nightly for updates. It should be available with 2024-06-25 builds with settings dropdown choices of 4 providers. No personal token is necessary as the chatbot will reuse your usual tab's cookies if any, e.g., ChatGPT doesn't require a login and can reuse your login or subscription for GPT-4o "omni."

 

If you're comfortable with changing about:config, you can set "browser.ml.chat.provider" to any URL to open it in the sidebar, and if that page accepts passing in prompts with ?q=, the context menu functionality will work too. You can create your own prompts by adding a new String pref, e.g., "browser.ml.chat.prompts.a" set to "Tell me more"

 

[Mte90]

I can confirm that works 🙂

[Mte90]

The first thing that I notice that there isn't a way to close the vertical window...

The only way I found is to press Customize Sidebar that has an X so I can close the AI sidebar.

[Mardak]

Thanks for the feedback. You should be able to close it in today's Nightly with the new AI chatbot icon.

[Uberprutser]

I can close it, but I don't see how to get it back. But what the point of this sidebar?
This could be done with an extension. And I suggest you have a look how DDG annomizes chat. Because I prefer not to login with those "ai" companies.

But as long as I can easily disable the bs, and Mozilla gets a ton of money, it's acceptable. But that doesn't make it right!

[gloopsies]

Let me see if I understand this correctly: Firefox will read my browser cookies and take any OpenAI/Hugging face/whatever else tokens to use for the feature I never asked to be added to a "privacy focused" web browser?

[shakyjake]

---

@Mardak wrote:

No personal token is necessary as the chatbot will reuse your usual tab's cookies

---

CSRF as a Service? 😂

[marianoguerra]

will this be exposed for js developers? chrome canary experiments with gemini seem to expose a window.ai object you can use to use the capabilities from code.

if so please try to talk to each other and standardize an MVP 🙂