By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
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@Vivaldi
Do you strip out any of the "AI" code, to make sure it's nonfunctional and can't be re-enabled by some malicious hacker, or to you just make it "off by default", pat yourselves on the back, and consider your job done?I am interested in a browser that *removes* "AI", as opposed to merely "disabling" it.
@pteryx @Vivaldi
We add ifdefs and additionally disable building of files and remove build target dependencies so that the Gemini/Glic code is not compiled into the browser. Other parts are disabled in various ways at run time.Actually deleting code is too much work, not just when removing it, but every time we update the code base we would have to re-delete the files or the code all over again whenever upstream changes a single character in the deleted code. (And it already takes a week, or longer, to do those update in Git). Deleting it over and over again would make it far more likely that we would sometimes make mistakes, and accidentally leave parts in. It is more reliable to do it the way we do it.
Additionally. what we have disabled compile-time (Gemini/Glic) is just about the only part we can remove that way. I recently tried to remove more of the code around, rather than disable it runtime, and it turned out that what I had to patch didn't just include the proverbial Kitchen sink, it included a bathtub the size of the Pacific Ocean.
Incidentally, since you mentioned a hacker re-enabling things; if you have a hacker on your system who is able to edit executable files, then they could just add their own AI, or replace the browser with their own. No browser can prevent that, no matter what they do.
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi Loved Opera back in time_t now - ¼ century. Then contributed to moz://lla cut the recompilation time_t from 2 hours to 40 minutes by the one liner adding compiler cache. P1$$€D 0ff by https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=460703
https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=reporter:peter.kovar@gmail.com -
@pteryx @Vivaldi
We add ifdefs and additionally disable building of files and remove build target dependencies so that the Gemini/Glic code is not compiled into the browser. Other parts are disabled in various ways at run time.Actually deleting code is too much work, not just when removing it, but every time we update the code base we would have to re-delete the files or the code all over again whenever upstream changes a single character in the deleted code. (And it already takes a week, or longer, to do those update in Git). Deleting it over and over again would make it far more likely that we would sometimes make mistakes, and accidentally leave parts in. It is more reliable to do it the way we do it.
Additionally. what we have disabled compile-time (Gemini/Glic) is just about the only part we can remove that way. I recently tried to remove more of the code around, rather than disable it runtime, and it turned out that what I had to patch didn't just include the proverbial Kitchen sink, it included a bathtub the size of the Pacific Ocean.
Incidentally, since you mentioned a hacker re-enabling things; if you have a hacker on your system who is able to edit executable files, then they could just add their own AI, or replace the browser with their own. No browser can prevent that, no matter what they do.
@TechieNotNetie @Vivaldi
Thank you for clearing that up. I have definitely seen other browser fork projects, when they say they "disabled AI", mean by this that they simply made the default of a toggle in the preferences "off" instead of "on". -
By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi so this is why my 2014 laptop cries in pain when I start chromium
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@Vivaldi At least firefox is up-front about and gives you the option to outright disable it all at will.
The only one thing I keep enabled, is the website translation - that's it (doesn't rely on google).You believe in the "killswitch"?!
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi And this is why Vivaldi is my browser of choice.
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That's crazy
I understand like bigotry but I didn't think the mods had such a line on AI
But I don't know. Maybe sealioning directly at Vivaldi crossed a line. The mods may react to big account complaints or just trolling such accounts on their own
Really bizarre
@benroyce @AlexTheStampede FYI (I was curious.. I wonder if it was a one of his posts somewhere in this thread) https://bsky.app/profile/lazza.bsky.social/post/3ml77cpr7wk2g
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@benroyce @AlexTheStampede FYI (I was curious.. I wonder if it was a one of his posts somewhere in this thread) https://bsky.app/profile/lazza.bsky.social/post/3ml77cpr7wk2g
interesting!
now i'm really curious about what really happened
i want to speculate but we can't see his history
i wrote "I understand like bigotry but I didn't think the mods had such a line on AI"
because the subject matter higher in the thread is not directly related to bigotry. but then it seems bigotry really is the issue!
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interesting!
now i'm really curious about what really happened
i want to speculate but we can't see his history
i wrote "I understand like bigotry but I didn't think the mods had such a line on AI"
because the subject matter higher in the thread is not directly related to bigotry. but then it seems bigotry really is the issue!
@benroyce @AlexTheStampede I glanced over his profile the other day and his posts looked fine to me.
If it was about the post in this comment section (as far as i remember it fits his description), while it was an awkward comparison, it's a pretty stupid reason to ban him, in my view. That's also why I'm curious..
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@benroyce @AlexTheStampede I glanced over his profile the other day and his posts looked fine to me.
If it was about the post in this comment section (as far as i remember it fits his description), while it was an awkward comparison, it's a pretty stupid reason to ban him, in my view. That's also why I'm curious..
interesting. i have no recollection of a post here with "migrants and LGBT people" as lazza mentions. which makes sense, they blocked me. is the comment still in your cache?
sometimes the mod team freezes an account and asks them to edit their comment. some do. some get angry and don't
so not a ban per se
it could be mod overreach. or it could be reasonable in this light (not a ban, just an ask to edit)
but i don't know what they said so i can't say
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interesting. i have no recollection of a post here with "migrants and LGBT people" as lazza mentions. which makes sense, they blocked me. is the comment still in your cache?
sometimes the mod team freezes an account and asks them to edit their comment. some do. some get angry and don't
so not a ban per se
it could be mod overreach. or it could be reasonable in this light (not a ban, just an ask to edit)
but i don't know what they said so i can't say
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always some drama!
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You believe in the "killswitch"?!
@kimcrawley @Vivaldi It's handy!
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@thibaultmol @Vivaldi I agree. That’s why I use Startpage.com as my default search engine, but sometimes I just have to use Google. Whenever that happens, this AI summary pops up, and it always gets on my nerves.
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