Firefox should really strip down the browser to the core, make that performant and secure. Maybe even improve extension interfaces and then deliver whatever "AI" nonsense they want through extensions. Would make it so easy to stop having to talk about kill switches and how "hard" those are. Offer people all the slop extensions in the world and see who will download them.
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@tante That's exactly what Firefox was supposed to be - a stripped down alternative to the previous browser/mail client/kitchen sink who's name I don't remember. Just the basics, with non-essential functionality delivered through extensions. It didn't take them long to lose their way.
@tante I have stopped using Firefox. Tired of the nonsense. Will reconsider if they do this.
@tante this sounds great to me as a user. But they’re not doing it for the user. The main problem is that the browser is free. No one’s paying for a browser. They’re doing all this nonsense to earn some money. There’s very little they can do to earn money and not piss off users.
All the extensions you propose assumes that these features appeal to some users and those users would bring money for Mozilla. It’s obviously not true. More likely they hope to sign something similar to default Google search with some AI provider (maybe with multiple). For that to work they need to provide some concrete numbers. They can’t do that with opt-in extensions. They can with “this is how many users we have” even if none of them wants these features.
@tante Absolutely. They lose market share over serious CVEs. IT security at work issued a total ban on it after an issue about 6 months ago. Not a social/rules ban, a complete ban - Traffic, site, programs, even the uninstaller all blocked. Not sure how cross cost-centre it was, but forbidden for potentially tens of thousands of workstations.
@tante this is actually a brilliant idea!
Even if such decisions are usully not technical issues... Depending on how clean the codebase is and how its structured this could be -simply put- just another build or a virtually impossible nightmare.
@tante we need another phoenix
@tante this guy shood be CEO
@tante Wait.. wasn't there a browser that tried something like this about 20 years ago? Strip out everything and push them into plugins so the user could choose their own level of bloat?
What was it called, again?
Oh, right... Firefox.
@tante With this, they could also be the SINGLE, ONLY company in the world with this approach, as opposed to cramming it into everything like everyone else. It could be a selling point. (okay maybe not in the eyes of AI brainwormed investors)
But the powers that be haven't thought of the product in the last 15 years.
@tante @inthehands after 30 years on netscape/ firefox … finally done. :-(
@tante They should make a clean Gecko Engine that we can build a new Netscape and better browsers.
@tante Sadly they are from US, and are touched by this stupid AI cult.
Firefox still miss basic sandbox, that chrome have for a decade, and is still one of the reason security minded peopl tend to avoir it for their personal use.
