HN Reader

Still, don't forget to install uBlock Origin on Firefox. If you don't have a Pi-hole, considerer installing one. If you use Windows (or android/ios/macos), there is no way MicroDollar won't know what you do or go, even if you have a VPN it still goes around the VPN. But if you use Linux, install OpenSnitch so you can control some other nasty connections.

The Firefox Chat window doesn't allow running a LLM is a different container. At least I couldn't find a way, tried several plugins but failed. Now running my LLM of choice just like the author inside a pined & containerized tab.

Mozilla could have had the no-nonsense, high performance browser backend that everyone uses to build their own browsers (like the recent glut of AI browsers), instead of everyone using Chromium/Blink. In the past, Gecko was really the go-to choice for this. They almost had a second shot with Servo. But they kinda really dropped the ball on the technical capability of the browser while continuing to be distracted by all sorts of random gimmicks like Pocket and then this. Sad!

Personally, I do not mind it if it's on-device, especially small specialised models (e.g. overview generation, audio generation, etc) with no internet access.

"If you’d like to turn these features off, open about:config in the Firefox address bar, search for browser.ml.enable, set it to false, and that should disable everything."

This is nice to know but in future versions of Firefox that single config switch (browser.ml.enable) will both change names and split into multiple sub-switches, most likely appearing in different pages of about:config.

These sub-switches will then not remain consistent.

Bank on it.

Here's the link to the official archives of Firefox browser:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

You're on your own running these in the wild; at least use a few other layers of security protection. Later versions of Firefox will not run unsigned addons unless you're running a development build, without running it from the debugger page. (Maybe someone can chime in with a workaround.)

To my surprise, in Librewolf this was also enabled. To how much effect, I wouldn't know (I hadn't noticed any shenanigans, then again, I just updated my librewolf and don't know if that brought it in).

Gotta say I'm super annoyed by getting spoon-fed AI popups in every piece of software I'm using. How about fixing bugs and optimizing mem and perf? Whatever happened to caring for end users. Empathy is aparently dead in the era of VC capital.

If you want some DNS blocking without running pi-hole or AdGuatd, try something like https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

I found family to do a decent job of not resolving ads and crapware. Other providers are available.

Thank you I was literally trying to disable that when I saw this :)

The article is actually good. The title is a little click-baity even if that is actually what it covers. It is mostly about tweaking the AI options which is actually helpful as I don't mind some of the new features.

Apart from the browser.ml.* config the newest update also adds and activates the @perplexity search shortcut.

Deleted it in my config. I'm solely relying on DuckDuckGo.

Good to know. I tried to find an off switch in the settings for the AI junk when it first popped up and didn't find one. It's mostly unobtrusive, so didn't bother me too much, but it's nice to have a way to get rid of a feature I'm not going to use.

I'm actually not all that opposed to some of these features, but the way it's implemented is so clunky. The UI make it feel like a half baked browser extension.

Why do people care? It's nice, been using it since Nightly. And you have to actually hook it up to a service for it to do anything.

The toggle for the popup is in (as you might expect) the settings hamburger menu in the AI Panel. There's even a remove button! Lots of new things have been added to browsers over the years, and these AI features are becoming incredibly popular as more users recognize the utility (and what they actually are).

This just seems like some more anti-AI hysteria.

Funny, the style sheet breaks the text on mobile and a inserts a hyphen so the setting name appears as

brow-ser.ml.enable

Disable AI, disable targeted ads... What's wrong with you, Firefox ?

It looks like it should be possible to use a local model with a custom prompt.

Selecting text and having a action with a custom prompt/tool without needing a browser extension might be nice. It need not even be a llm.

https://nilsheuman.github.io/TIL/2025-04-17-custom-firefox-a...

I've started using https://mullvad.net/en/browser for exactly that reason. No AI shibboleth.

I like seeing new features in Firefox even though I won't use nearly any of them. It indicates new ideas and investment into software that I very much want to continue to exist, that I use everyday.

I should figure out how to turn off ai in acrobat reader. It offers to summarize my sheet music every time I open it...

Didn't entirely work for me. I still had the little popup when I selected text, even after restarting. However, it did go away and stay away when I selected "hide chatbot..." at the bottom of the popup.

Feels like people making a big deal out of it. You can also just, you know, not use these features. I can't remember the last time I use the "Print" dialog, the "Manage bookmarks" or the "Homepage" button. But these things don't have AI in their name, so people aren't so obsessed with removing them.

IMHO just like many companies are obsessed with adding AI features, some users are obsessed with rejecting them. Both seem mostly senseless to me, especially when it's a local-first AI implementation.

After sticking to Firefox since it first came out, I finally switched to Vivaldi. Not happy it's Chromium based but it's the next best option I could find.

Not using firefox anymore. Uninstalled it few days ago. Switched to qutebrowser. It's not perfect, but hell I love using this browser.

it's easier to change browser

This is the last I pressed the update button (I only allow notification, no automation). And will speed up the study of other browsers (like Brave, Orion). This sneaky delivery of unnecessary but questionable privacy nonsense, also pushing on you enabled, is revolting.

I had to do this in Librewolf too.

It would be nice if there was a one-click "No AI" option, but I appreciate the OP. I have disabled these flags. Firefox is my main browser but AI is my nemesis.

It's time to fork Firefox

I've used Firefox for 15 years and I really don't want to use Chrome. Can Mozilla just, like, make a good browser?