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Firefox Will Ship with an "AI Kill Switch" to Completely Disable all AI Features - 9to5Linux (9to5linux.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by ekZepp@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.

On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.

In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.

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[-] Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago

Why not just ship it without any of the AI stuff and give users the option to install and use it instead of bloating the application? This also confirms that the stuff is essentially OPT OUT instead of OPT IN

[-] candyman337@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

The bubble is AI and they want some of that bubble investor money is my guess, so they put optional AI

[-] rainwall@piefed.social 8 points 1 month ago

"On by default unless you run down a setting buried in a menu" is the thinnest type of optional in computing.

[-] candyman337@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

That's fair, but also if you search AI in the settings it shows you all the options

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[-] ceenote@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Because they're counting on people who know nothing about technology using the AI stuff when it's placed in front of them.

[-] Tanoh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

In their defense a very tiny percentage of users even open options and of those an even smaller actually change stuff.

Maybe slighlty different for Firefox as probably more power user use it than other random programs. But basically if something is not enabled by default, it doesn't exist.

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[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Does anyone even talk about what the “AI features” are?

Could I, liked recolor webpages? Automate ublock filters? Detect SEO/AI slop? Create a price/feature table out of a shopping page?

See, this would all be neat like auto translate is neat.

But I’m not really interested in the 7 millionth barebones chatbot UI. I’m not interested in loading a whole freaking LLM to auto name my tabs, or in some cutsie auto navigation agent experiment that still only works like 20% of the time with a 600B LLM, or a shopping chatbot that doesn’t do anything like Amazon/Perplexity.

That’s the weird thing about all this. I’m not against neat features, but “AI!” is not a feature, and everyone is right to assume it will be some spam because that’s what 99% of everything AI is. But it’s like every CEO on Earth has caught the same virus and think a product with “AI” in the name is like a holy grail, regardless of functionality.

[-] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You reminded me that one use for AI I'd really like is removing all photos of Trump, Musk and Putin from my screen. Another is filtering the twenty reposts of every event in US politics and the incessant whining about prices. Alas, I need these in phone apps more than the browser.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

You don’t need LLMs for that. An iPhone is plenty powerful enough for image recognition and text classification.

That’s sorta the funny thing about AI. There’s tons of potential, but it’s just unimplemented. Even on PC, you pretty much have to have some Nvidia GPU and fight pip setting up python repos to get anything working.

[-] fodor@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

Right right. If they had real innovation, they would have defined it clearly as you suggested. But they didn't, so they don't. It's all snake oil, again, because that's the entire AI industry.

[-] frank@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

The term snake oil is actually especially fitting for this, due to its origins.

In Britain in the 1700s there was a somewhat common recommendation for using rattlesnake oil from the fat of the snake for skin diseases/rheumatism. The efficacy is debated but it's got some amount of potential for change (if not help).

This turned into people in the US selling mineral oil as "snake oil" as a total panacea. So a product that actually could do stuff being used as the poster child for a completely useless product that can solve every issue ever, buy as much as you can today.

Snake oil indeed.

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[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 month ago

Firefox has had one hidden away in about:config since they started adding AI. Are they going to put it in the settings page now?

[-] Burninator05@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

I don't really know what an 'ai browser' is and at this point I feel like i really need to ask. What makes a browser "AI"?

[-] frank@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

Marketing

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[-] GunnarGrop@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago

IDK guys, do you think a web browser should be a "broader ecosystem of trusted software" or a web browser?

[-] deathbird@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I wouldn't mind a web browser being part of a broader system of trusted software, but shoving an AI chatbot into my web browser does not make me trust it more.

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[-] pirate2377@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago

You can also disable ai via toggling browser.ml.enable to false on about:config. For now at least...

[-] 2910000@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

For the record a quick web search for how to disable AI in firefox gave me this list of items to set to false in about:config :

browser.ml.enable
browser.ml.chat.enabled
browser.ml.chat.sidebar
browser.ml.chat.shortcuts
browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge
browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge
browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled
extensions.ml.enabled

[-] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

I don't think you need to set all to false, all except the first look like granular settings

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[-] tea@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago

What is it actively doing now with AI? There is the ai sidebar, but if you don't use that it isn't used, right?

[-] meejle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There's the slow-and-not-very-capable link preview thing... and I could've sworn the "what's new" page the other day said they were adding an on-device model to improve search results or something, but I can't find the reference to it now.

Maybe they removed it after all the AI backlash. 😬

[-] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 9 points 1 month ago

Is there nobody with sanity left? This has blown up so much the user base clearly does not want it. Focus your efforts elsewhere. You gain marketshare by putting users first. Also fuck markets.

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[-] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 month ago

Repeat after me. "There is no such thing as a non physical kill switch"

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[-] Jhex@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

clearly some damage control strategy here… but good news if true

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[-] termaxima@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 month ago

That's nice but it's not good enough. There needs to be a compile flag so the AI code isn't even included at all.

[-] laranis@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

And disabled by default. You're not consumer friendly until it is opt-in.

[-] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

The reason the "kill-switch" wasn't made clear originally was because it literally didn't exist until users very vocally tool them where to shove their AI crap.

It was added on afterwards.

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[-] puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

Not buying it. Kill switch will migrate further and further into about:config until it eventually too goes away without notice in an update six months from now.

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[-] tryagain@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

Too late - they already lost me.

[-] Dekkia@this.doesnotcut.it 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I hope people don't buy the story that the kill switch was part of the plan all along.

This is clearly the result of mozilla scrambling for a compromise after the backlash to their recent announcement.

Edit: In the blog post that sparked the discussion there's this sentence:

AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off.

They didn't mention a browser-wide kill switch but I agree that that could be what they meant.

https://web.archive.org/web/20251216142601/https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozillas-next-chapter-anthony-enzor-demeo-new-ceo/

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[-] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

In their defense, Mozilla doesn't have their own source of income, they heavily depend on search sponsorships. Jumping onto the AI train is one way to keep afloat for now

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[-] BaraCoded@literature.cafe 3 points 1 month ago

They could save time and efforts and just not implement AI features

[-] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Would be nice if folks stopped calling LLMs AI. If they are true AI, they would be able to learn how a kill switch works and disable it

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[-] justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago

Thats nice mozilla.

Installed and set up Librewolf yesterday. Absolutely recommend to everyone.

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[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago

i wish they would release a second browser instead of whatever this is

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[-] billwashere@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Too late. He’s already shown his true colors.

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[-] tonytins@pawb.social 3 points 1 month ago

I have a better kill switch: Waterfox and LibreWolf. Don't have to worry about of that nonsense right out the gate.

[-] ekZepp@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

👍

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

But that's just saying that instead of using Firefox and not turning on the feature, you'll use a less maintained version of Firefox where they didn't enable the feature. I don't feel like those projects have much value add in the privacy spectrum compared to Firefox, particularly when one of them was owned by an advertising company, and neither of them actually has the resources to maintain or operate a browser in isolation, which is a major concern regarding security and privacy both.

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[-] Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Or they could just ship it without the AI

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this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025

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