AI Controls (formerly 'kill switch') are landing in today's Firefox Nightly, and will land with Firefox 148 later this month.

[fabio@cosocial.ca]

@firefoxwebdevs Great. Make it the default. Listen to the survey.

[trey@indieweb.social]

@firefoxwebdevs Great! Now make AI opt-in, not opt-out!

[madduci@mastodon.social]

@firefoxwebdevs please, set the block as active by default and only set AI features as "opt-in"

[firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social]

@ArneBab "block" was picked deliberately, as it's removing all entry points to the feature, not just disabling the feature (e.g. disabled buttons are still there, but these are BLOCKED).

It was important to show the features individually so you can control them individually. E.g. translation is something people explicitly wanted to be able to re-enable https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115849251057488746

[mkj@social.mkj.earth]

I know you'll likely get a whole bunch of negative feedback on Fedi for not going even further, but at least this appears to *clearly and unambiguously* put the user in control in a way that does not require digging through about:config settings and worrying about what an upgrade will do. So I am cautiously optimistic about this.

Can you say anything about when those of us who are on the ESR update track can expect to see this? Will there be a policy setting to control this?

@firefoxwebdevs

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@firefoxwebdevs
Why not ship a version with ZERO AI?

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@firefoxwebdevs @ArneBab
No, you've lost the plot!

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@firefoxwebdevs
And WHY were these "True" by default?
Why once even re-enabled?

Mozilla isn't trustworthy.

The so-called ML is an invasion of privacy and a waste of computing resource.

Go back to a Classic Firefox that's ONLY a browser and repects OS GUI look & feel instead of copying Google.

[mike@sauropods.win]

@firefoxwebdevs "AI is changing the web, and people want very different things from it. We’ve heard from many who want nothing to do with AI. We’ve also heard from others who want AI tools that are genuinely useful."

Have you? Because I've literally only heard the former. See e.g. virtually every one of the 966 comments on https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/building-ai-the-firefox-way-shaping-what-s-next-together/td-p/109922

[firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social]

@raymaccarthy about:config isn't intended to be for user settings. That's why we've created a dedicated AI controls page, and we're the first to do so.

[rzeta0@mathstodon.xyz]

@firefoxwebdevs

credit where credit is due

I'm still going to use Librewolf as trust on telemetry and ad-partnerships is not yet restored

[firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social]

@mkj I don't know the answer to this off the top of my head, but I'll find out and get back to you.

[tedstechtips@mas.to]

@firefoxwebdevs This is FANTASTIC! Thank you guys for listening to feedback!

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@firefoxwebdevs
You are missing the point!

The features should not exist! So then no need for a master switch in the main settings.

Firefox has got so broken it needs loads of settings changed in About.config and even then is LESS USEABLE than 10 or 15 years ago.

I've been using Websites since 1994. Mosaic, Netscape, Firefox.

Of course I've used most of the others.

[firefoxwebdevs@mastodon.social]

@ArneBab it doesn't just disable all existing feature, it also auto-disables future AI features, or 'blocks' them from even appearing in the UI.

[waxingtonknee@mastodon.org.uk]

@firefoxwebdevs Too little. Too late.

[alahmnat@woof.tech]

@mike @firefoxwebdevs "AI is changing the web" is also certainly one way of describing the unending tide of SEO-optimized slop coating every surface that's made using the web as a source of information and knowledge virtually impossible.

[mike@sauropods.win]

@alahmnat @firefoxwebdevs Precisely.

[signez@mastodon.social]

@firefoxwebdevs That's awesome, but honestly that feature should have landed months ago. It's sad that it took so long to deliver such a 'simple' feature — it eroded trust needlessly

I understand it's hard to ship stuff, but we are talking about a toggle in preferences, so it was really frustrating not to see this shipped earlier.

Also, is that 'scare screen' really necessary? It's the same kind of trick we're always complaining about with FAANG products…

[miller@ruhr.social]

@mkj @firefoxwebdevs policy example:

{
"policies": {
"DisableFirefoxStudies": true,
"DisableTelemetry": true,
"DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true,
"FirefoxHome": {
"SponsoredStories": false,
"SponsoredTopSites": false,
"Stories": false
},
"GenerativeAI": {
"Enabled": false
},
"SearchEngines": {
"Remove": [
"Perplexity"
]
}
}
}