This article is dogshit. Not only do they not say what they turned to (betcha its fuckin brave. It always is with these types.)
Its also a two parter, I am not returning for part two I guarantee you.
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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Firefox
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Holy shit, stop crying about the unintrusive and easy to disable AI features or whatever they mean by privacy feature. Are we still spreading FUD about their FAQ changes?
I don't care what happens, you'll take my proper Manifest v2 Adblocker from my dead cold hands
Meh, until there is an actually good alternative to Firefox with a mature extension ecosystem I'll continue to use it and just disable the new features I don't like. I have tried a bunch of the alternatives and they're all either massively lacking in extensions, are chromium-based, or are sketchy in some way. I think the most promising potential replacement is flalkon, but it's not there yet and I'm a GTK Stan anyway.
Any gecko-based fork will have everything good about FF (including the addon store) and none of the Mozilla corporation. Waterfox for a seamless de-mozilla'd fork (and nothing else) or Librewolf for extra hardened privacy and fingerprint resistance (plus daily annoyances that come with that).
I switched from FF to WF about a year ago. Copied over my profile folder in its entirety. Didn't do anything else. Everything worked exactly as if I'd just updated FF.
You know I don't think I ever checked out waterfox. I'll give it a look.
After about a year with the browser, I'll cheerlead it in every thread about Mozilla Corp getting in bed with another ad company or pushing anti-features "that you can toggle off so it's fine!" into the browser. All the benefits of Firefox as a platform and code base, with no corporation that could profit from you in any way involved. No mandatory ToS, no account, no nothin'. Just a tool for browsing the web, with the full ecosystem of extensions made for Firefox.
Can't wait for the followup piece to be a shitty ad for brave.
I just play League: Shadow Legends on my phone through double NordVPN accounts (if you sign up now you get two, so you get double protection) with Incogni. My news? Ground News.
Those are the four internet companies I use for my day to day business. I also buy a lot of tshirts and merch. I got a coffee cup with a cat on it, in a funny pose.
if you sign up now you get two, so you get double protection
Can you please explain how you think that works?
Just like putting the second condom on your balls.
I assume its over-the-top sarcasm
I worry that it isn't
The person is saying that they've replaced web browsing with playing a cash grab mobile game through two VPNs. On Lemmy. Are we really that far gone? Replaced Firefox with Raid Shadow Legends is "worryingly realistic"?
No we are not, but September started early 30 years ago. Look, let's play nice with the kids. They are the ones we are gonna send on beer runs later.
It is, sir. You can rest soundly. Here's a bunch of these if you feel like you need them in the future:
/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s
Yes, you get one account with two accounts, then you route the first through the second account = double protection. Make sure to port forward.
they kinda already had a followup piece here; https://hackaday.com/2025/04/07/which-browser-should-i-use-in-2025/ which points to vivaldi and librewolf
and i kinda agree with them; i hate the chromium monopoly but i've been using vivaldi more precisely because it was european based (aside from the uplink chromium) and the fact they've taken a hardline stance against adding ai features. being able to add filterlists to the build in blocker is nice too.
and this is from someone who has loved mozilla since netscape days and has used firefox since it was firebird.
I have been on Firefox since it was called Mosaic*. I changed to Vivaldi because they actually have a shit of features I use and like. But then Google said, "no ublock for u!", so I said, "fuck u, no customer for u!" and went back to Firefox.
It's literally the one reason I use FF. Because I'm old and get the FUCK off my lawn.
* it had a swirling thing
i have ublock origin but also within vivaldi:settings/privacy, you can click manage sources and add your own tracker and blocking filter lists too.
Hmm.
Mah ninja.
Thanks for the tip!
I've been using various Firefox forks occasionally since before it was cool and that's still a respectable choice in my opinion. I still cling to the faint hope that maybe Google will not be in exclusive control of web standards but it might be pointless if everyone is ready to hop on the hip chromium skin of the month every time Mozilla corp does something stupid and out of touch. Manifest v3 should have been a much bigger wake-up call for the privacy minded chromium user, but I guess people are satisfied as long as Google lets them block most ads if they feel like allowing it.
I don't like Brave's leadership or crypto, but the problem for me is that Brave ticks the most boxes
- Adblocking
- Privacy
- Security
- Multiplatform
- Web Apps
There are browsers that do stuff better, like Vanadium and Trivalent, but those are locked to specific platforms, have poor built in ad blockers, and encourage you to never install extensions for security reasons.
And if I want to avoid the Chromium monopoly, there's Webkit which still manages to have good security and privacy, but there's no Webkit browser on Android and on Linux, Gnome Web feels slow to use and doesn't have a good adblocker.
That being said, I'm still on Firefox right now. Chromium has some weird quirks on the desktop that annoys me to much.
Why not just IronFox and LibreWolf?
I wouldn't consider using IronFox since, from what I hear, Firefox's security is worst on Android. Even Linux has better sandboxing than it. While I'm sure IronFox is better, I'm not sure how much better it can be.
As for Librewolf, I'm considering it. I've actually had it installed for maybe two years at this point but never really used it. It's nice that it removes the annoying popups from Firefox and lacks the crypto of Brave. And it should be more secure due to the hardening and disabling of features. And while the security and sandboxing isn't as strong as it is on Windows/MacOS or Chromium's, at least it should be better than standard Firefox.
Am I blind or on in this weirdly written article they didn't mention the said alternative they found? A Firefox fork?
If it is Brave like someone mentioned in the comments, they probably don't know who Brendan Eich is.
If only there was some way to just not use the ai features and move on with your life.
Enshittification is a process. Right now i don't see any alternatives that do better so I am looking forward to that follow up article.
What are they switching to? Pale Moon?
I still don't understand the hate towards the AI features in Firefox.
Could they focus on other topics? Yes, but to get new users they have to meet them where they are and since Firefox is Foss you can remove what you don't like by joining a project focused on that.
IMHO some of the features are cool, specially, because it's local AI with no dependency on any provider
Could someone explain in a civilised manner why you don't like the AI features?
The effort to put the AI into Firefox harmed the project and unrelated services. My opinion is it was not worth the cost
To me, AI in Firefox is a symbol for why and how Mozilla lost its momentum. I could have used other bone headed and incompetent decisions, but the switch to the AI had such a large burden that it’s literally the poster child for inept management.
Yes, but to get new users they have to meet them where they are
Do you want enshittification? Because that's how you get enshittification.
Provide a solid product, screw the customer. The customer doesn't know what they want, and they are always wrong.
I didn't see anything running locally, just hooks to existing online chatbots. I'm not sure who is asking for that, but it feels like it isn't the users
I don't think the backlash is coming from the features. It's coming from the fact that we're constantly being prompted to please try the "AI" features. Companies installing "AI " on your devices without you asking. Re-installing them when you try to delete them. They don't even ~~tell~~ show you why it's better they just slap "AI" on it.
Anything that this tech does and is actually good, speaks for itself, so it just goes unnoticed. People end up associating it with the worst and now Firefox is also saying: Hey we have "AI" too. Of course people are gonna be mad, especially when they are already fed up with being prompted to try it constantly.
So it's a PR problem?
I hate how everything depends on marketing (manipulation)
Thank you for your input
I don't think that people can... And most don't even know, that they already use algorithms like the one in FF, on a daily basis, in Adobe-programs, in Spotify, in Youtube, on FB, and so forth... And FF is keeping peoples privacy, and the "AI" local... And the others I mentioned don't do that. They profile and sell, every facking one of them...
I have actually been able to "sell" Firefox to some people who wasn't ready to switch before, because they like AI... And they also like privacy...
But there will always be some, that will insist on something being bad - they need to keep their crusade going.
I think some of the answer is expressed in the article:
To service and retain this loyal userbase then, you might imagine that Mozilla would address their needs and concerns with what made Phoenix a great first version back in 2002. A lightweight and versatile standards-compliant and open-source web browser with acceptable privacy standards, and without any other non-browser features attached to it. Just a browser, only a browser, and above all, a fast browser.
Instead, Mozilla appear to be following a course calculated to alarm rather than retain these users. Making themselves an AI-focused organisation, neglecting their once-unbeatable developer network, and trying to sneak data gathering into their products.
Gathering what data?
because most of the ai features they're touting are around chatbots which are just websites, which makes it pointless to build into the browser.
That’s unfortunate
The clickbaitey homeless person tech writeup for pizza rims.
I have been making it a point of trying not to engage with any links with no discussion in the body about the article because of this. This being the rare times I do. I feel like dropping in a link is like my buddy shoving a magazine in my hand instead of stopping and saying. This article here is interesting. It says that.....
Bro, I'm the one who should apologize, I wrote that, then something happened and I got lost in the sentence, I have no idea what I was even trying to say, but I just saw that line I wrote and said fuck it.
Edit: Oh now I get it. Hah. That's funny.
Que the smallest violin in the world...
¿Qué?