Mozilla's pivot to AI first browsing raises fundamental questions about what a browser should be.
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Waterfox is fantastic! I also self host searxng and have it set as the default search engine in waterfox. private search!
I just switched to it on my android. Set as default. So far so good. Never heard of it until today.
Will they have an android version on f droid ? Prefer not to use Google play…
No https://search.f-droid.org/?q=waterfox and they don’t seem to list it on their official page either. Please show your interest at https://github.com/BrowserWorks/waterfox/issues/4002
Im looking at changing now.
Me also but to what?
male to female
To waterfox instead of Firefox
I wish people would stop talking about “AI browsers” like everyone even knows what that actually means.
At this point nothing will stop me having a visceral negative reaction to AI being added to any product after literally every single other implementation in literally every other product has been annoying fucking dogshit. It could be the best thing ever and I’d still react negatively because I never want to hear the god damn word again.
Every company wants AI even though they have no idea how it helps their business or their company.
My grocery store app does not need AI when they can’t even get search right.
I wish everyone would stop talking about AI…
Waterfox might have just got a new convert here.
They have an interesting take. They’re not against AI per se, they’re against AI they can’t audit. It was an interesting read.
The problem with forks such as Waterfox is that they don’t get fixes as quick as the mainline browser. But, this is also somewhat of a myth. When Mozilla fixes something in Firefox, they don’t push the update out to everyone right away. Some people don’t get it for days. Someone who uses a privacy-centric fork like Waterfox is going to be more apt to stay on top of the updates, so even if it takes a day or two for Waterfox to integrate the fix, Waterfox users are likely updating before a lot of Firefox users. And even then, the chances of the average user being affected by whatever is being fixed is typically low, so it’s better to have for browsing, but it’s not like something that is constantly threatening you — in most cases.
That said, I use Firefox, and I was able to disable the AI stuff. Saw it, said nope, saw the option to disable, did so, and have been happy ever since. I don’t always agree with Mozilla, but, I have been curious about forks and I have used Waterfox in the past. It’s fine. It might be better, especially for “default settings” Firefox users, but for someone with a relatively low threat level and an intermediate to high skill in hardening browsers (my own assessment, subject to bias), I’m not particularly bothered by using regular Firefox. And if you’re subscribed to a Privacy community (or subreddit), you probably shouldn’t be, either, but then again, only you can judge your own threat level. There are certainly situations where something like Waterfox would be preferred.
The new CEO isn’t talking about the AI that’s already in Firefox. He’s talking about more AI with greater integration.
“Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.”
Ah, so speculation. I speculate that AI will decide we’re not useful and go all Skynet/Matrix on us. I sure hope I’m wrong. But if I try to sell you a doomsday bunker, you have every right to laugh in my face.
Who knows what Firefox will look like tomorrow? I do agree it’s important to keep options open, knowing about Waterfox, LibreWolf, IceCat, and maybe some others.
We here at $brand think your car should be more than just a car… that’s why we’re now including a panini maker in all models! And no, you can’t take it out of the trunk. Just don’t use it if you don’t want it, silly!
… Why did I read it as panty (panni?) maker?
I blame panini for being an uncommon word
Disclaimer: very satisfied user of Waterfox talking ;)
I believe that too, but I’m no millionaire CEO either.
Long live Waterfox.
This may sound silly to say, and it probably is, but to me it’s almost impossible to imagine I could one day stop being a Firefox user. I mean, my first Web browser was Mosaic, I followed it when it turned into Netscape, which I then followed as it became Netscape, before morphing into the giant Mozilla T-Rex, and finally becoming Firefox.
Take back the Web, I believe(d) in that. Heck, I still have one of their T-Rex t-shirt dedicated by a few of its devs.
I also have a chromium-based browser (Vivaldi) but Firefox has always been home to me (edit: so seeing it moving away from what I care for is not a great feeling). I’m so glad forks like Waterfox exist because if it was not for them, for the first time ever I would not know what browser I can trust.
I first started on Mosaic and Lynx! That was a lifetime ago.
I am still using lynx, everyday. Not for everything, but for most if my news and blog reading.
It feels great to not being bombarded by the flashy, distracting JavaScript gizmo du-jour. I want to read the content, I don’t care about the AI generated picture at the of the page, or the random picture of something half related to the article.
I believe everybody should build their website to be accessible with lynx.
Accessibility isn’t just following the standards and removing the mess from the modern web, it’s also making your site accessible for the people with eyesight problems for example…
We still need some organisational alternative to Mozilla. None of the privacy forks would survive Firefox going away.
Yes all the derivatives would die if Firefox went away.
I just switched from Firefox to waterfox. It took less than five minutes, and the installation is quite straightforward on Linux. Move the folder to opt, make a symlink, and create a .desktop. The instructions are on the website. I suggest switching the default search to duckduckgo.
Firefox clones like librewolf and waterfox greatly increase the supply chain attack risk, but they seems more and more attractive every day
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I’m obviously not OP but the first thing that comes to mind are attacks like the one that targeted xz. Open source developers are generally overloaded between demands from the community and their regular lives, and they also lack the means and ability to check the background of everyone contributing code or vying for maintainer status. This creates the risk that somebody with bad intentions works their way into a position of some power over the code that gets merged. Bigger projects with strict governance and an active community of contributors (or funding for dedicated developers to maintain control and check outside contributions) have much smaller risk in this regard.
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Some things are riskier than others. The point is that you understand the risk and make informed choices.
I’m currently in the process of switching to Waterfox while I wait to see what Ladybird can do, and so far I’m pretty happy with my decision.
Don’t get me wrong I hate LLMs being shoved down our throats, but I think the “Mozilla using AI” stuff is overblown. The few LLM features they’ve implemented are useful and non-intrusive. I actually think it’s a rare example of the tech being used intelligently (no pun intended).
These things have been incredibly intrusive. They even added a whole sidebar to take up more space like they were fucking Yahoo and this was IE.
Weird, I don’t have a new AI sidebar and I’m running the latest version.
I’ve been distro hopping lately, and I’ve discovered that if you don’t turn the sidebar off before you log into your Mozilla account, it will turn the sidebar back on on all of your other Firefoxes (as well as other settings like the studies).
I could not disagree more. a browser is a local piece of software to me that I use to connect to a variety of servers. It having an ai server its communicating with all the time and with access outside the add on system is not something I want. I have looked at and was not put off by other firefox “controversies” but this one is making it where it is not simply a browser anymore. which is what I want.
Well you’re in luck because the translation feature is local https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/website-translation
this does not make me happier. I can turn it off but if im going to run a local llm I rather do that as its own piece of software. Its funny because I have mentioned I would like to see a linux operating system using a local llm where its acting a bit like the change from text based to gui based operating systems. I don’t want every piece of software operating a local llm to do its job or a part of its job on my computer. Its great I can turn it off but I don’t want to be downloading an llm model with every piece of software and just turn it off for my browser and my office suite and anything else im running. Its actually worse with the browser that already has taken over so much of the application space as a kind of universal tool.
Bloat is a valid concern but imo a lesser one compared to the potential for centralized data harvesting.
Well the claim is since its being done on your host all good but honestly I don’t want it in it. Not just bloat but because it becomes something that is always going to have to keep an eye for if its talking afield. Its getting like windows. Heck I allowed firefox telemetry before but turning it off now.
I wonder how long before someone says “Having to wait for security patches to be made only when new exploits are discovered is inefficient, we need an AI agent running all the time, inspecting every command, to respond immediately if an exploit is found.” and then they just stop security patches and you need that AI crap consuming ram and energy like hell while sending all your data to the mothership.
Does anyone know about Zen browser, if they stay abstinent as well?
https://floss.social/@zenbrowser/115731119480346990
Thank god (And thank @zenbrowser@floss.social !)
Yes, an explicit No to AI, also LibreWolf said the same, no AI, that means that every fork will have AI disabled
Check out Vivaldi’s Roadmap for 2026 😀
Jokes aside, is Vivaldi good? Is it worth looking into even tho it’s just another chromium browser?
Yes, using it since 10 years as main browser. It’s the most advanced browser out there, good privacy, great ethics to the user by this EU company (employee owned cooperative in Norway), perfect transparency, great community, and yes it isn’t OpenSource, but source available (https://github.com/ric2b/Vivaldi-browser, https://vivaldi.com/source/), the proprietary part (5% of the UI script is 100% auditable and even moddeable by the user, in the forum they show how (naturally at own risk)). It’s Chromium based (de-googled), but not a simple fork like other.
All that is very intriguing. Chromium based browser make me weary, but Im willing to add it to my rotation of browsers. Thanks for the response.
This reply exchange reads like astroturfing.
It’s very good! Honestly, try it. I use it on Android, Linux and Windows. Very customizable and pro-user, nice community.
It’s based on Chromium but they declared they’ll keep supporting Manifest v2 extensions (uBlock Origin etc.) how long it will be virtually possible even though Chrome blocked them.
Yeah, I had heard they are doing a lot to leverage chromium, but also distance themselves from it as much as they reasonably can. I’ll definitely have to give it another try, it just takes a lot for me to swallow the fact that’s chrome based browsers have to rely on google to some extent, but I’m intrigued by their way for doing it.
not AI, and still not open source either
and chromium based