this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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So why is Mozilla shoving AI garbage nobody asked for into Firefox? I seriously doubt that their severely overpaid execs don't have some kind of profit incentive.
It really should be LibreWolf up there instead
The image says "making", not "rebranding".
They made high quality software...
Until they got a profit incentive.
They actually pay their employees.
???
Of course they do.
I don't see your point.
The Mozilla Foundation is non-profit, but the Mozilla Corporation is for-profit.
Because they also want to entice new users or appeal to users that for some reason do want that feature. More users means more money and despite being non-profit, people do enjoy having more money. They're not immune. Which is why we need to pull the reigns back every now and then.
At least they listened to users and made it easy to turn off. Still not acceptable, but at least something.
Mozilla exec compensation aside (relative to other tech CEOs it is pretty low) the reason they do this is because they are trying to make money in some way that isn't the Google search box.
The other thing to consider is that even though a lot of people around here and AI skeptics loads is the general public are not and use it everyday and don't think twice.
I swear the Firefox users have no perspective whenever this stuff comes up.
It's always "why don't they just work on the browser" or " I would pay for just the browser" ( they won't, and even if they did most won't and it won't be enough)
Web browsers don't make money. It's why only chrome basically exists and that's a cost center to support Google's Internet ad hegemony and they spend billions a year on it.
I am watching ladybird and hoping they manage to coalesce the required amount of support to get something off the ground and keep it there.
Firefox isn't used by the "general public". The general public doesn't give a shit about open-source or which corporate logo is stamped on their copy of Chromium. Many won't even look past Edge, and the rest will likely use Chrome because everyone does already.
No, Firefox is used by the enthusiasts who care about not using Chromium; about actively choosing control over convenience. Now Mozilla Corp is pissing off that same audience by doing what Google does -- shoving AI up everything. To date, every decision regarding AI has met with pushback from their own userbase. Being the lesser evil does not grant them a free pass for every boneheaded decision.
If they need cash, they can fire that fuckwit of a CEO, roll the savings back into their engineers and products, and go on a funding campaign promising to actually improve their products like Mozilla ~~Org~~ Foundation did with Thunderbird.
I guarantee you that most Firefox users do not feel the level of emotions that you do on these issues, either about the AI prompt sidebar or the CEO's salary. They also don't use Firefox to spite Google. They use it because they think it's better than Chromium.
You're unhappy with Firefox? Easy fork. Off you go. Want to convince me to be mad too? Okay, make your case, but don't just assume that I'd just have to be mad if I just knew that there's gasp an AI sidebar that I can use if I want to.
Yep. Well, I don't necessarily agree it started exclusively for the ads, but they definitely wanted to create something that they control. Microsoft Edge and Opera switching to Chromium just means Google has more soft control on how the web operates. (Even saying "soft" there is pretty generous.) A majority of browsers are Chromium forks. Google can control how the web operates because of it.
But to your point though, thwarting ad blocking is a huge part of it now. The manifest V3 changes (which severely limited what sorts of ad blocking extensions could do) came the same year they listed ad blocking as a significant risk to their revenue in their shareholder statement. Which, I just wanna mention for folks who might not be keeping up with this as much, isn't some sort of conspiratorial statement. It's a public document because they're a publicly traded company.
It's so that they get goog money