this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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new tab wallpapers, streamlined menus: Eh, whatever.
vertical tabs, better settings UI: I guess it's probably useful for someone if they do a good job.
AI-generated alt-text for images in PDFs: Oh fuck right off.
Customizable hotkeys: I can't believe you're still not doing it. Wasn't it the number one requested thing on Mozilla Connect? Do it, Mozilla. It's so easy, and so obviously needed. It would serve as a meaningful sign that you've become less user-hostile.
why so negative? this is actually great for accessibility, especially when the majority of people don't care about alt text (especially in pdfs)
Excellent example of good usercase for AI
Yeah, I was kind of taken aback by how genuinely useful this is. So much of this generative AI stuff is marketed for tasks where it is simply inadequate. But in this case, a text that's 90% accurate is a massive improvement from there usually not being alt text at all.
True, my initial reaction was hasty. It took me a good twenty minutes to see why it was right. Mozilla should've spent a few more minutes thinking about it.
Why is this bad?
I kind of resent having a pdf editor in my web browser at all. Putting a giant LLM-based image classifier in there seems inadvisable even if it was going to do something more useful than suggest alt text for images you add to pdfs.
Accessibility tools that can describe images, as well as pdf editing, are fine things for Mozilla to work on but they really shouldn't be done as part of Firefox alone. Image describing has way more uses than just what's found in the web browser, and should be a system-wide thing. There's no point in each application having its own. Doing it only for things inserted into pdfs compounds the absurdity. If the accessibility APIs that exist can't handle it, it's time to propose a better one — and maybe go ahead and implement it on Linux. Solving the problem properly would be a more ambitious goal, but one that seems appropriate for an organization with the stature of Mozilla.
gonna assume it's for the pdf reader, considering that's where alt text in images is needed.
Auto-generated alt-text for all images on the web where it's missing, and an AI that can reliably detect when it's probably worth doing, or do it on request through some kind of api designed for accessibility tools, as an optional extension for people who need it: Now that would be more interesting.
Vertical tabs has quickly become the deal breaker feature for me personally, for any browser. I am on desktop, horizontal tabs are so senseless there in hindsight as most screens are wider than they are tall.