Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
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@firefoxwebdevs The frame of this question is risible.
I am begging you to just make a web browser.
Make it the best browser for the open web. Make it a browser that empowers individuals. Make it a browser that defends users against threats.
Do not make a search engine. Do not make a translation engine. Do not make a webpage summariser. Do not make a front-end for an LLM. Do not make a client-side LLM.
Just. Make. A. Web. Browser.
Please.
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
Are you measuring the percentage of users engaging witj your AI chat options vs. those ignoring them? What are the numbers?
How many users have you lost since?
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs ...AI & ML should be off by default.
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@davidgerard @theorangetheme @theogrin @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social Such a waste, too. Years of standards fighting, differentiation with Gecko, then Quantum (see? I WAS a follower all along!) and being a model of what Open Source stewardship could mean for the larger Internet.
RIP Mozilla, if you thought you were floundering as a Not for Profit Corp, you're worse than useless as a Marketing Agency.
@Tock @davidgerard @theorangetheme @theogrin (Quick interjection: I love that everybody cares about Firefox enough to be bothered. If we didn’t, we’d be ignoring it completely. Nobody is talking about Opera.)
I get all this. My worry is that everyone just turns their backs on Firefox and abandons it, it’ll just go away. And that leaves us with Chromium ONLY.
I think we need to find productive ways to get what we need and stand firm on that. But killing it is not good for the web ecosystem.
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@davidgerard @mdavis@mastodon.social @firefoxwebdevs “but wait just let me explain the AI kill switch”, Mozilla continues to insist, as they slowly expand and transform into an SBF
@zzt @davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs Mozilla spent 25 years being unable to get the "don't use tabs" preference to work and I'm supposed to believe their "turn off AI" preference will work?
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@davidgerard @mdavis@mastodon.social @firefoxwebdevs “but wait just let me explain the AI kill switch”, Mozilla continues to insist, as they slowly expand and transform into an SBF
@zzt @davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs What Mozilla needs now is an "AI kill switch" that can actually kill.
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@zzt @davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs Mozilla spent 25 years being unable to get the "don't use tabs" preference to work and I'm supposed to believe their "turn off AI" preference will work?
@jwz @zzt @davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs Isn't it Open Source?
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@zzt @davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs What Mozilla needs now is an "AI kill switch" that can actually kill.
@jwz @zzt @firefoxwebdevs we added an extension to send 440 volts through the other guy's chair
1M+ installs first week, 0 users remaining second week
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@jwz @zzt @davidgerard @firefoxwebdevs Isn't it Open Source?
@dejantesicnaarm *plonk*
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@firefoxwebdevs What do you mean "open data"? https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/translations/resources/01_overview.html points to https://browser.mt/ points to https://paracrawl.eu/index.php which says "We do not own any of the text from which these data has been extracted."
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs I want Firefox to be a great web browser. You'll notice that I didn't say LLM, ML, AI or anything like that. I don't want that stuff. I just want FF to be a good web browser without being infected by AI. Why is that difficult to understand?
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@chillicampari @firefoxwebdevs @joepie91
️ But that alone won’t be enough to rebuild trust; I’d like to suggest something that would help with that, but unfortunately that’s far outside my wheelhouse
️@ShadSterling @chillicampari @firefoxwebdevs @joepie91 Rebuilding trust is exactly that - you can't restore or reset trust, you have to build it again, over time and multiple instances, just as you did the first time. Unlike your past self, you've already shown that you will violate trust, so it will take more time and more instances.
Anything less doesn't result in actual trust.
I agree that "AI" isn't going to work as a term to build trust.
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@firefoxwebdevs "Without the user's request" is quite ambiguous, though. I'm reminded here of Google, which put the AI tab before the Web/All tab, displacing it so that people would unintentionally hit the AI button and "request" it. It's a small and plausibly-deniable change that nevertheless violates the user's boundaries, and difficult to call out and stop even internally within a company or team. I've seen many companies and software do the same thing.
A genuine opt-in would, in my opinion, look something like a single "hey do you want such-and-such features? these are the implications" question, presented in a non-misleading way, and if that is not answered affirmatively then the various UI elements for "AI" features should not even appear in the UI unless the user goes and changes this setting. It's much harder for that to get modified in questionable ways down the line, and reduces the 'opportunities for misclick' to a single one instead of "every time someone wants to click a button". It also means users aren't constantly pestered with whatever that week's new "AI" thing is if they've shown no interest.
Such a dialog could still specify something like "if you choose Yes, Firefox will still only download models once you try to use a feature", to make it clear to users that it's not an all-or-nothing, and they can still pick-and-choose after selecting 'Yes'.
@joepie91 @firefoxwebdevs Mozilla's tortured definition of opt-in seems to predict that Mozilla will invent features to nag you into enabling AI, as they have already done with Link Previews: https://www.quippd.com/writing/2026/01/06/architecting-consent-for-ai-deceptive-patterns-in-firefox-link-previews.html
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@jwz @zzt @firefoxwebdevs we added an extension to send 440 volts through the other guy's chair
1M+ installs first week, 0 users remaining second week
@davidgerard @jwz @zzt @firefoxwebdevs
Finally, someone is getting rich and/or famous by stabbing people over the internet. -
@joepie91 @firefoxwebdevs Mozilla's tortured definition of opt-in seems to predict that Mozilla will invent features to nag you into enabling AI, as they have already done with Link Previews: https://www.quippd.com/writing/2026/01/06/architecting-consent-for-ai-deceptive-patterns-in-firefox-link-previews.html
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The Firefox AI "kill switch" is not "complicated" except insofar as it's incoherent. it's not "undisclosed nuance" except insofar as it's incoherent.
the "kill switch" doesn't exist.
this is important to keep in mind. once you remember that NONE OF THIS EXISTS, you will realise that every one of the dilemmas you posit is an imaginary problem that follows from incoherent postulates.
e.g. "AI kill switch purists" is not a coherent postulation because the "kill switch" does not exist.
the "kill switch" is a hypothetical proposed in this post:
https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782
the "kill switch" is a proposal to satisfy the demand for an opt-in by providing an opt-out. you might think that's a failure to respect the question, and you might even begin to suspect the proposal was in bad faith.
note that Jake, in presenting the kill switch and calling it a kill switch and getting it into all the papers as a kill switch, says he's uncomfortable with the name he's publicised it as. you might think that's oddly incompetent for literally a PR (devrel) person.
the concept as presented imposes multiple false dilemmas.
the LLM stuff should *incredibly obviously* be an extension. this is the purest possible opt-in, despite jake's past attempts to muddy the meaning of "opt-in".
making it an extension is also eminently feasible. There is literally no technical reason it needs to be a browser built-in.
this suggests the reasons are not in any way technical. some person with a name, who has yet to be named, dictated that it would be a built-in. so that's what Mozilla is going with.
why Mozilla went hard AI is entirely unclear. this would have been late 2024? we have no idea who was inspired with this bad idea nor why they were so incredibly keen to force it into the browser.
nor is it clear what Mozilla will do for external LLM services when the AI bubble runs out of venture capital and pops in a year or so, most of the chatbot APIs shut down and whatever remains is 10x the cost at least. but that's a problem for 2027's bonus, not 2026's.
note how the poll provides no option for "no LLM functions built-in to Firefox", in a pathetically transparent attempt to synthesize consent. jake wants to use this poll as evidence of what the user base wants, deliberately leaving out the option he knows directly a lot of them want.
and in conclusion:
1. solve the "kill switch" naming problem by branding it the "brutal and bloody robot murder switch with an option on the executives responsible".
2. make all this shit an extension like they should have a year ago.
3. and your little translator too.@davidgerard @mdavis @firefoxwebdevs where did I say I'm uncomfortable with the name "kill switch"?
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@firefoxwebdevs I really love the local on-device translation, "AI" or not.
I think this question follows a fundamental misunderstanding of the AI toggle. I want I do not want to ship off my browser data to any AI company (including Mozzila), and that would be the toggle I would look for.
If Firefox/Mozilla came out with a on-device local-only LLM I would personally be more receptive. The main issue for a browser is that it should be a browser, and also not ship all my data off for harvesting by AI slop companies.
@soupglasses I agree with your take here, but many people in the replies have a more fundamental dislike of 'AI'.
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Firefox uses on-device downloaded-on-demand ML models for privacy-preserving translation.
They're not LLMs. They're trained on open data.
Should translation be disabled if the AI 'kill switch' is active?
@firefoxwebdevs I voted "no" because I'd agree - this shouldn't be considered the toxic "AI".
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@chillicampari @firefoxwebdevs @joepie91 I’m kindof amazed that Mozilla can’t distinguish which changes led to the backlash. I think that’s why this whole thing feels more like putting on a show than like a genuine attempt at reform.
The timing alone makes it clear that the builtin translation was not the issue. Sure, moving it to a plugin would be an improvement, and requiring user action to enable it would be smaller improvement, but that was the case before.
️@ShadSterling @chillicampari @firefoxwebdevs @joepie91 translation is already opt-in. You're prompted about it, and the model is only downloaded if you say you want it.
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@firefoxwebdevs doing a great job at regaining users' trust there, I see
In other news, you've done such a great job at regaining my trust that I've switched browsers to anything but Firefox. Well done, Mozilla.
@mxjaygrant what was it about this post that made you switch?
