• brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    The pathological need to find something to use LLMs for is so bizzare.

    It’s like the opposite of classic ML, relatively tiny special purpose models trained for something critical, out of desperation, because it just can’t be done well conventionally.

    But this:

    AI-enhanced tab groups. Powered by a local AI model, these groups identify related tabs and suggest names for them. There is even a “Suggest more tabs for group” button that users can click to get recommendations.

    Take out the word AI.

    Enhanced tab groups. Powered by a local algorithm, these groups identify related tabs and suggest names for them. There is even a “Suggest more tabs for group” button that users can click to get recommendations.

    If this feature took, say, a gigabyte of RAM and a bunch of CPU, it would be laughed out. But somehow it ships because it has the word AI in it? That makes no sense.

    I am a massive local LLM advocate. I like “generative” ML, within reason and ethics. But this is just stupid.

    • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      When I’m browsing around with multiple tabs open, the last thing I want is something to start moving them around and messing my flow up. This is a solution looking for a problem.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      even without AI, to me tab groups are already feature creep bloat in browsers. do people really put that much effort into organizing tabs?

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        8 days ago

        No, but I think the idea of a second layer of organization to tabs is a wonderful idea. Maybe not a gig of RAM to sort them, sure.

      • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        It is to some people. My approach though, when I happen to have multiple “work group” to organize, is just to use my OS ability to have multiple windows. No need for any extra bloat, the feature is already there, and it works as I’m used to.

        But apparently, using the tools already available to you is not a common skill these days :(

        • amorpheus@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          But apparently, using the tools already available to you is not a common skill these days :(

          So, are you not understanding that other people work differently, or are you just not using that skill?

          Besides offering different approaches for different preferences, there are clear benefits to the extra level of organization. As an additional exercise, try to picture someone using multiple windows and tab groups.

          Not everyone operates on the basic level. Hell, why even have tabs? The OS can manage multiple windows, and you can use multiple desktops to achieve the same result without that bloat.

          • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            So, are you not understanding that other people work differently, or are you just not using that skill?

            The very first five words of my message was that this was useful to some people.

      • Digitalprimate@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        For work at any given point I have 17-20 tabs open. It’s totally useful for me to sort them into tabs to cut out the “noise” when I’m doing research.

  • 58008@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Literally no one on this green earth asked for this shit. In fact, we’ve been pretty direct about how much we don’t want it.

    It’s exhausting.

    • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      Well, stupid people want it and they do use it when its shoved in their face. Like how samsung updated and BLATANTLY made their peice of shit AI button TAKE OVER THR POWER BUTTON so when you try to turn off your phone little old granny gets confused that an ai agent pops up and starts recording you. Absolutely infuriating and I wish torture on whoever implemented that shit.

      • btaf45@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Like how samsung updated and BLATANTLY made their peice of shit AI button TAKE OVER THR POWER BUTTON

        Was that part of OneUI 7? I’m so glad I never installed that downgrade.

      • somethingsomethingidk@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Holy shit I had no idea until I read your comment. I thought “surely they will have respected all of my opt outs”. I guess this is my last samsung phone lol

      • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
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        8 days ago

        The kinds of people who want that switched to Google Chrome years ago. Only people who care more about software freedom than convenience are still using Firefox today.

        • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          No my s23 has no bixby buttons. Just power and 2 volume. Samsung DELIBERATELY updated so the POWER BUTTON activated their shitty agent. Only software shutdown was avilable until I changed.

          Getting a linux phone when this dies. Fuck samsung.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Literally no one on this green earth asked for this shit.

      This is why I use the version of Firefox that does not update.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    8 days ago

    Firefox really does seem to have lost the plot… they don’t seem to go five minutes without slamming their dick in another drawer. It starts to look like they’re in to it.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I never trusted them. Who would ever set up a nonprofit owned by a for profit company if not to decieve people?

      I do appreciate the Open Sourced GECKO engine, though. I like Waterfox.

  • Pycorax@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    Instead of capitalising on Google pissing off power users with its crusade against adblockers, why the hell is Mozilla fucking up so hard here? Seriously, which chain of command green lit all of this and didn’t even think this would be remotely an issue?

    • not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 days ago

      it might have been Laura Chambers, who is CEO since early 2024.

      It has been less than a week since the new interim CEO took over the reigns from long-time Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. Today news broke that Mozilla is changing its product strategy going forward. The organization plans to focus on bringing “trustworthy AI into Firefox” and to scale back some of its other products and services.

      Breaking: Mozilla changes strategy, focuses on Firefox and AI

      She used to work for McKinsey according to her Wikipedia which explains a lot if you ask me.

    • orclev@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Sadly this is nothing new for Mozilla. It’s easier to count the decisions they’ve made that aren’t terrible than the ones that are. Their history is a long series of fuckups occasionally punctuated by a decent decision.

    • absquatulate@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Even if they wanted to bank on the adblocker thing I imagine they can’t because they have to stay in Google’s good graces. Like 90% of their revenue was google money, and has been for years now.

      At this point I’d honestly even pay for a privacy focused mozilla browser that is clean of all this crap, just to keep them afloat, but fat chance of that happening.

      • Pycorax@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        At this point I’d honestly even pay for a privacy focused mozilla browser that is clean of all this crap, just to keep them afloat, but fat chance of that happening.

        As much as I’d love for something like that I don’t think it’s even remotely possible. I don’t think enough people are willing enough to pay for a browser that respects them, heck the amount of people who remain on Chrome shows that people aren’t even willing to take a small step to stop using a browser that’s actively working against their interests. I’d love to be proven wrong though.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          This. It costs hundreds of millions per year to develop a web renderer. The security expertise required in particular is immense.

          People have made clear they will not pay for browsers. At the same time, Mozilla doesn’t want to hoover up mountains of personally identifiable information like Google and MS do.

          People hate Mozilla for doing what they can to make money, and they also hate the idea of paying.

          I understand the frustration, but I genuinely don’t know what the community expects.

          Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with or see sense in every Mozilla decision, but people act like they’re satan incarnate and it’s just ridiculous.

          • Pycorax@sh.itjust.works
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            8 days ago

            Honestly if that is it, it is understandable. This AI nonsense, however, is plainly a waste of money and resources, Mozilla’s and their users’.

            • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              Depends what you mean by this AI nonsense. Some of it is great. Offline translation in Firefox is great, as is the enhanced screen reader for blind people.

              Chat bot integration less so, but it’s opt-in so I don’t bother getting myself worked up about it.

          • orclev@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            Developing from scratch yes, but several decent open source renderers exist. I’d love to see someone grab Servo and polish it to a fully usable state (I think it’s something like 75% of the way there).

            The issue also isn’t Mozilla trying to make money, it’s Mozilla trying to make money in the stupidest way possible, or even worse actively wasting money like with this AI slop. There’s also the issue of what Mozilla is spending on. It came out a little while back how much their executives are making and it’s completely ridiculous. They could afford multiple full time devs with just the money the CEO makes for making the worst decisions imaginable.

    • xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 days ago

      Make a stable, privacy respecting, robust browser with a powerful extension environment? No let’s try do do chrome 2

      Mozilla could solve all of it’s issuesby just removing all of the executives

      • Dicska@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        I switched to FF after having enough of Chrome’s shenanigans. I don’t make changes easily, and I took the sacrifice of not being able to receive calls over Facebook (desktop browser, and some of my acquaintances wouldn’t leave FB), and I still preferred Firefox after that.

        And now they want to turn it into another Chrome? I could still just use Chrome and have the lost functionality. I mean I won’t, but they will just lose users with that direction.

  • raldone01@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I just wish one could donate to firefox development specifically. Then they could rid it of all the advertisement and tracking stuff.

  • comador @lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    At least they offer a fix for it:

    Head to about:config in a new tab, accept the risk warning, and use the search bar to find the controls.

    To kill the AI chatbot feature, search for browser.ml.chat.enabled and set it to false.

    To stop smart tab grouping, search for browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled and set it to false.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      They offer a fix behind a bunch of barriers? Is it not in settings with an obvious on/off toggle for the thing?

  • Tywèle [she|her]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    Do you have to enable the feature first? Because I’m on v141 and I don’t see this feature. Complaining about a useless and draining feature that you yourself enabled is a special kind of stupid tbh.

    • eyekaytee@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Bro, several users have taken to the Firefox subreddit, this is definitely worthy of being the most upvoted post on Lemmy rn

        • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Just use a fork. I don’t know why I would use vanilla Firefox when there are so many great forks out there that have cool extra features.

        • poke@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          There’s a lot of negativity from certain users/communities on software/services that are mostly good but have imperfections. I rarely if ever see any recommendations for alternatives that actually make sense when this happens.

          Firefox and Proton are two very common targets. Sure, they are both not perfect, but they are both offering a solution that does not enrich the current oppressive market leader and they do a pretty solid job at it.

          Yes, flaws deserve to be criticized, but there’s such a thing as too much.

          It’s tiring.

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Without having much knowledge of AI models beyond surface level stuff I read, but a good understanding on how computers work it seems fairly predictable to me that running an AI model in the browser session locally would be CPU intensive. As such you would think as a developer you would start with adding the feature as off by default, so users that want it can turn it on and you can get some real world metrics on how bad that hit is going to be before bending the entire user base over the AI kitchen table so to speak.

    So both doing it for something as trivial as tab grouping and making it something you have to go into about:config to disable seems really stupid.

  • yarr@feddit.nl
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    7 days ago

    Mozilla is no longer about making a great browser. Mozilla is about making sure their Google bucks come in each year without fail. They don’t work for consumers anymore – they work for Google.

    Throughout the years, the market share of Firefox has shank and shank and their C-Suite has continued giving themselves raises.

    Mozilla Inc. has been very sick for a long time. It’s a shame that one of the last pieces of honest competition for web browsers belongs to them, because I’m not sure how much longer they will be able to shamble on like this.