this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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Firefox’s AI Kill Switch is a Trap: How Mozilla Made AI Your Problem (media.fedia.io)
submitted 2 days ago by yoasif@fedia.io to c/linux@programming.dev
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

TL;DR: Mozilla recently released AI controls for Firefox: a single control panel that lets people disable AI features in the browser or pick and choose which to leave on. On the surface, this sounds like a win for user choice in an era of AI-everything.

If we dig deeper, you can start to see that the kill switch isn’t the whole story. This feature acts like an accountability sink. By giving you an off-switch, Mozilla’s leadership shifts the ethical burden of AI onto the user - turning their design choices into your responsibility.

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

LibreWolf FTW?

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 7 points 2 days ago

Pretty much, or any other fork that didn't add this garbage in the first place.

[–] BrilliantBadger@piefed.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Absolutely. My loyal friend keeping me safe foir years. The Wolf is the way.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago

That was what I installed on a Windows VM last week. Such a nice installer, too!

[–] refalo@programming.dev 10 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I swear people will never be happy no matter what.

No AI features? Get with the times man.

AI features? High treason.

Opt-out? Not good enough.

Opt-in? Nobody will use it.

Can't please everyone I guess.

[–] luciole@beehaw.org 9 points 1 day ago

I have yet to spot anybody complaining about Firefox not having enough AI features, or hoping for opt-out instead of opt-in.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 8 points 1 day ago

If most people don't want it enough to opt in, then it belongs in an extension, not the base browser. Then it's still there for the ones who actually do want it, but won't bother anyone else.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io -2 points 2 days ago

It'd be nice if they even pleased the open AI enthusiasts, but they can't even manage that.

[–] scott@lem.free.as 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

@yoasif@fedia.io, you spammed this story everywhere.

Not cool, man.

[–] lambalicious 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It raises awareness of an important issue. Not everyone is suscribed everywhere, some communities can be blocked or defederated, etc.

[–] Neptr@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It was posted in like 5 different communities, some not even close to related (for example 3 Linux communities), some posted twice (eg. the Linux previously mentioned communities). They could have just crossposted it using the feature. Either way it is still a lot of spam. It isnt even that important of news because anyone who cares about this (anti or pro LLM) has already made up their mind and would already have formed an opinion on this feature without a random article.

[–] yoasif@fedia.io 1 points 2 days ago

Just letting the voting happen. I'm sharing.

[–] aichan@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I only happened to see it here, mind sharing other commuties where they posted? I may want to join some^^

[–] Neptr@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago

Here are some, though they def spammed more communities:

!foss@beehaw.org !privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com !linux@lemmy.world !linux@lemmy.ml

[–] BrilliantBadger@piefed.ca 2 points 1 day ago

"Whoopsies! Sorry folks, turns out the opt-out of our baked in AI dung didn't quite funciton poperly, and you've been feeding literally everything you've done over the past months to BigTech & your favorite government. Our bad."

Not if, but how soon. Read: MS Copilot & emails