AI Controls are available in Firefox Nightly preferences!

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@firefoxnightly I really don't want to download a web browser that has "AI" components in it. My goal is to have zero "AI" software on my computer. "Present, but turned off" is not good enough; "present, but turned off" is basically a looming threat to turn it on.

VS Code has an off switch for "Copilot". And yet every couple months a Copilot feature slips in by default, somehow. Sometimes they fix this and the off switch gets honored again in the next release, a month later. But only sometimes.

[ranx@mastodon.social]

@firefoxnightly why don't you conduct a survey to see who wants AI and who doesn't?

[jplebreton@mastodon.social]

@firefoxnightly Will this setting get synced when I install Firefox on a new device and set up Sync to get my preferences etc on it? That's one of the main ways I've seen "AI" features get turned back on in existing <=147 versions.

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@jplebreton Currently, AI controls are not synced with your Mozilla Account

[jplebreton@mastodon.social]

@firefoxnightly That seems worth fixing. In practice this feature is about restoring trust and if power users have to turn it back on every time they set up a new machine that works directly against that.

[h0w25@hachyderm.io]

@firefoxnightly Can you make a fork and put AI on another fork renamed FirefoxAi or something like that? Let us keep away from that, I don't want to start using Vivaldi.

[jardo@townwizard.net]

@firefoxnightly okay now do text-box-trim plz

[ragectl@hachyderm.io]

@jplebreton @firefoxnightly that would be a costly oversight to have missing

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@H0W25 Given that we give you full control on AI in the browser, I don't see why you would have to switch…

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@jplebreton This is a work in progress, the Syncing part is not done yet but is in the works by a different team of developers. Rome wasn’t built in a day

[h0w25@hachyderm.io]

@firefoxnightly Because I need to find about:config everything about AI... every time I install a new Firefox I already need to disable a bunch of featureus that I don't use, AI will make it harder to configure it and I normally setup new browser on servers or low resource systems I don't need AI for, just make an extension or something enabled by demand, not forcing us to check the about:config for a new feature to disable.

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@H0W25 You won't have to go to about:config to disable AI features since there is a panel now to do it in about:preferences with a single click, that's the whole point of this new feature.

[gunchleoc@ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net]

@firefoxnightly There should be a separate option to block all new enhancements. People might want to use the translation feature (which is generally useful) or image descriptions (which is an accessibility feature) but want to avoid any anything else by AI.

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@gunchleoc You can suggest improvements or alternate designs on our Connect platform in this thread: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-out-ai-controls-in-firefox-nightly/td-p/117177

[h0w25@hachyderm.io]

@firefoxnightly Okay, got it, another panel to check then... I will still go to about:config to disable some other features anyways, feels weird other features aren't easy as one click to disable, or maybe I'm just lost on preferences and too used to about:config.

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@H0W25 Maybe you should see if using enterprise policies would not be worth it in your case: https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/

[gunchleoc@ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net]

@firefoxnightly Thanks, done

[h0w25@hachyderm.io]

@firefoxnightly I really like about:config and that's probably the reason I always use Firefox, I see many features I used to disable aren't anymore there like pocket, I use a lot of virtual machines and it's stressful to setup it on every boot. Thanks for sharing, I will propose this on my work.

[firefoxnightly@mastodon.social]

@jardo This is planned (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/1816038)