this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026

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I tried Firefox’s new AI ‘Smart Window’ in a beta build (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)

submitted 1 week ago by XLE@piefed.social to c/firefox@lemmy.world

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[–] XLE@piefed.social 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Buried in lede: the feature currently sends pre-Smart Window browsing activity to 3rd parties (Google, Alibaba, OpenAI) without warning you that this data was even aggregated and sent.

[–] Doom@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

No no they "fixed" that because people complained.

Supposedly.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world -5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The unconsented 3rd-party sharing is admittedly scandal-worthy.

As for the rest, IMO the author is tilting at windmills. These days Firefox is a trend-taker not a trend-maker. If the other browsers are metamorphosing into AI agents, then Firefox has no choice but to follow while doing it in the most privacy-respecting way possible. Otherwise Firefox will have no users and we will have no Firefox left to complain about.

To think that "We don't want this AI crap" is a serious business proposition in 2026 - it's deluded IMO. There just aren't enough privacy-obsessed 90s-era geeks left to sustain such a product. We will have to compromise.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What demographic says Mozilla must follow Current Big Tech Trend? Where are all the people threatening to leave Firefox if it doesn't have OpenAI? Please, show me these numbers.

There just aren't enough privacy-obsessed 90s-era geeks left to sustain such a product.

I'm glad you care about sustainability, so I have to ask: where's the economic sustainability in throwing money at something that no AI company is profiting off?

[+] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world -6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where are all the people threatening to leave

The implication being that Firefox should not even bother trying to compete and win new users, all it needs to do is please its ever-dwindling userbase of grouchy geeks. I know you'll respond "well without us they'll have no users at all", but that's a pretty depressing argument to have to make, isn't it?

The economics is simple: nobody is going to pay for their product, they have to find an income and this is what they've landed on, presumably after studying the market carefully - their jobs count on it, after all. Have you done that and found an alternative magic solution that keeps everyone happy? If so, tell them.

But this vision of 90s-style nerd-friendly browser which doesn't even try to track the competition and yet somehow manages to remain relevant - I just don't buy it.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The implication being that Firefox should not even bother trying to compete and win new users, all it needs to do is please its ever-dwindling userbase of grouchy geeks.

No implication intended, I just forgot to be exhaustive. Yes, the current userbase is pretty close to what you describe, and Mozilla has been extracting their goodwill like it's an unlimited resource.

But I'll ask outright: what new users is this supposed to attract? Nobody asked Mozilla for AI. I don't see anybody excited that it does AI better than other browsers. The de facto MoltBot browser is Safari, which is AI-free. The AI fans have a glut of AI-first browsers to choose from, so... Who is this going to appeal to?

I say "appeal to" in the active sense too, because Mozilla's own promotional material seems to take an almost apologetic tone to even having AI at all,

Control and choice built in

Customize how AI shows up, or turn it off entirely.

AI, if and when you want it

Firefox approaches AI with intention, not obligation. AI features are optional by design and will remain that way.

[+] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world -7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It would appeal to me. This morning I urgently needed to know the Spanish word for "carabiner". Instead of searching for it, and then having to click thru (because the search results tend to bury the lede), and bat away cookie warnings and social sign-in banners, and scroll past a bunch of nonsense to find the damn word, I clicked on the dreaded AI button in the Firefox sidebar, typed "carabiner in Spanish" and a second later I had the word.

In my opinion it is fast becoming obtuse to claim that AI is useless bloat. The point should be to give users more control over it. Which is exactly what Firefox's comparative advantage could be.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It sounds like your AI needs could be satisfied with a Firefox extension that could be optional to you and not shoved down everyone else's throat. Based on your description of the Web, it sounds like you need to take a trip there and configure a dozen things anyway.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Installing an extension for an occasional use-case like this is not quicker than what I did.

I do of course have extensions installed (including the canonical ad-blocker that you use too). I've been on the web since the 90s and was a full-time frontend developer for a decade until quite recently, so I'm hardly the ignoramus you're making me out to be. From the same facts I just come to different conclusions to you. It happens.

If Firefox offers an off-switch for the features you don't want (it does) then where is the "forcing down throats"? If this amazing project doesn't survive because it refused to move with the world around it, then you won't even have that off-switch and you'll regret being so obstinate.

PS I see the downvotes, maybe it wasn't you but I consider downvoting toxic so that's all I have to say here. You've made your point and I did understand it.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Installing an extension for an occasional use-case like this is not quicker than what I did.

I do of course have extensions installed (including the canonical ad-blocker that you use too).

So you're the target demographic (not a very big one) and even your use case is a one-off?

And apparently you use an ad blocker all the time... but you're pushing for AI to be default and not ad blocking?

PS I see the downvotes, maybe it wasn't you

It's not me... and I can see the names of the people who downvote, and if you try hard enough, you can see it's not me too.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm not "pushing for" anything except more control to the user. Where's the contradiction? I was skeptical about AI chatbots (stochastic parrots etc) but it's got to the point where the utility is impossible to deny. A one-stop-shop answer to any question, which is probably right and shows its sources, that's a pretty amazing innovation. Huntnig for information is a lot of my web usage, so I absolutely see the point of putting that prompt alongside the one for URLs and search terms and even for merging it all one day (the first two were once separate prompts too, let's remember). This is clearly the direction of the web whether we like it or not, and with more voice interface since young people hardly know how to write any more. The role of Mozilla IMO is not to stop this new world singlehandedly, it's to give us more control over it.