I get what they are trying to say, but I definitely don't want my browser to just facilitate me raw-dogging the internet. I had to use someone else's computer at work the other day, and they don't have any ad block and have apparently clicked "yes" to every dialog box for years. It was a fucking nightmare. Every web page was so full of ads, pop-ups, notifications, banners, auto-playing videos, etc. Jesus christ, I just needed to check the weather on a local news website and the internet skull-fucked me until I had ocular hepatitis. Decided the safest course of action was to just stand outside and look for tornadoes myself.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Firefox offered me a survey the other day on this exact topic. I said I don't want it in my browser for all questions.
"What if your browser.."
No, just no. Please stop shoving new features in that I won't use.
I'm fine with ai, as long as its off by default
Really looking forward to when Ladybird is stable
Right, except even if you find a browser that returns pure searches, it won't be long before it's just AI slop with extra steps
If i have a question i want an answer not a bunch of links where i might find the answer to my question if i read all the pages and try to connect the dots. So yes, i want all of it.
This is honestly kinda scary to read. You want an intransparent software that can by definition not think to try and check what facts are correct instead of doing it yourself? And that's if we're assuming there's no intentional fact skewing in the software.
I think its fine as long its not forced on users that don't want it
Anyway, this morning I was driving on my browser to work, sipping on some coffee from my browser. Suddenly I realized that I was browsery wearing no browsering browser! So I hit the home button.
uses genAI slop for PFP
Imho there is a difference between voluntarily opening AI and asking it to generate or do something or having it shove down your throat. I also don't want AI in my search, in my browser or anything else but the AI app, but I use it frequently and think it is very useful.
I also think that it isn't 100% good or bad. AI can be helpful and supporting if you human-check the results. It can also be wrong, misleading and copyright infringing. Furthermore, forcing features onto users which they don't like is annoying, especially if their data gets abused for it.
Differentiated thinking is important for this topic.
Nah man get with the times
if you aren't against it, you are for it!!!
Yea that's the first thing I noticed x)
Prompt: please summarize this meme for me
Browser ai bad
Browser go to webpages good
Jarvis, summarise this comment, I ain't reading allat
I want my web browser to actively defend me against tracking/enshittification/exploitation/hostile design, then show me cleaned-up web pages with all the ads and shit removed, then get out of the way.
I want it to show me the information (which is not same thing as the "page" as a whole) that I'm looking for without modifying it or hallucinating some kind of AI summary, but I want it to aggressively get rid of as much of the extraneous crap obfuscating said information as possible.
and ironically, LLMs could be great for this! recognizing what's ads and what's content, what's slop and what's high-effort, wading through the cesspool of feeds and dark patterns to find the stuff that's relevant to you.
unfortunately, the money is in using LLMs to generate more slop and make things even worse, not make it better.
I could believe it for advertising versus content (to an extent), but I think it would not be useful in 'slop' versus content, for the same reason it's output is slop. If an AI approach can detect slop, then a related AI approach can generate better slop that it could no longer detect.
But it could also make advertising more baked into a content that is hard to extricate.
Thank fuck for uBlock origin
yeah, whenever I have to look at someone else's browser and it's an ad-filled hellscape I'm really grateful for uBlock. The internet would be completely unusable for me without it.
Same when people talk about how creepily the ads target them based on circumstantial stuff* it feels like an alien experience bc even if I get targeted despite employing quite a few tracking blockers, I never actually see the ads lol.
(* like that story of the father hearing about the daughter's pregnancy because he got spammed with baby care ads after the daughter googled some medical symptoms)
+ bonus recommendation for those of us who still have to use Facebook: F.B. Purity is great
And Firefox's reader mode, and noscript.
also consent-o-matic and canvas blocker
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A good ~~OS~~ browser gives you the tools you need, then steps out of the way.
Tek Syndicate
Does op not want bookmarks or ubo? These aren't 'just showing the webpage' :)
Tbh the Firefox ai is effectively an addon. Can be disabled even I guess at packaging level (like Firefox-no-ai flatpak).
There's AI in firefox? I'm on the beta version and can't find anything except a "try solo ai" option in the settings that I haven't clicked.
EDIT: Oh, you have to open the side-bar, specifically select the chatbot option, then choose a provider if you even want to use it. and it's not active until you choose. If someone complains about something I actually had to google to find, they're obsessed. Because I still get the "Try our assistant" notifications shoved down my throat regularly on other services.
There's a massive difference between AI being used to help the user, and AI being used as a method to spy on users, collect data, monetize from, and weaponize.
I'm happy with using local AI tools, if needed. For example, using local AI contextual search on my self-hosted IMMICH photos is awesome.
But I absolutely do not need or want AI features that have to connect somewhere. Because that just means I'm being data harvested and profiled for someone else to profit from.
right now AI is mostly used for spying, and stealing data, thats why all the tech bros are pushing it. For spying in general, something like thiels palintir is doing for evil purposes, and probably musks AI too.
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