Post B1en3EbNLP09zVPN3Y by glyph@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by glyph@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B1Ov1TLAzwatl8O7sm by Gargron@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T08:29:49Z
1 likes, 2 repeats
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115737483111161917I'll elaborate. I believe we're in an AI bubble. AI companies are pushing the overton window on AI discourse. They want the most extreme anti-AI sentiment to be "Sure, it's an overhyped technology right now but there will be reasonable applications down the road". I want to see pushback on this. It doesn't matter if I can disable some AI feature in the settings. The fact that Mozilla is jumping on this bandwagon is deeply disappointing to me.
(DIR) Post #B1SkVorNV2eknCJSKm by indutny@mean.engineer
2025-12-19T08:38:24Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Gargron as much as I’m on the same page with you, I’ll probably be sticking with Firefox just to keep competition to Chrome alive. Until there is a servo-based browser, at least
(DIR) Post #B1SkVqKq0zodMr6UtM by Saorsa@neondystopia.world
2025-12-21T04:57:55.390Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Librewolf has removed any regressions relating to AI. Just be wary that inclusion isn't exactly a priority of theirs.@indutny@mean.engineer @Gargron@mastodon.socialRE: https://neondystopia.world/notes/ag9a6fbbrm7a003w
(DIR) Post #B1en3DAkeu6vYdwav2 by eevee@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T17:10:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Gargron i guess i don't see how contributing to google's browser monopoly is an improvement
(DIR) Post #B1en3EbNLP09zVPN3Y by glyph@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T17:19:25Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@eevee @Gargron I don't disagree with any of that, but how does supporting Firefox, the second browser also funded by Google, help with this? Vivaldi arguably has more practical distance from Google's control (not saying they have a *lot*, but they have some), since they have independent funding and could hypothetically fork. Is the idea that the engine technology itself is the issue, then everyone should be using … Epiphany, I guess?
(DIR) Post #B1en3FqIjOXDq5OnxY by eevee@mastodon.social
2025-12-20T18:33:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@glyph surely there's a bit of a distinction between "google individually employs most of the chrome team" and "google pays mozilla for a service"vivaldi isn't even a rounding error. they have no weight to throw around and certainly not enough manpower to actually hard-fork and maintain a browser engine
(DIR) Post #B1en3GNcjVBpVQzPto by glyph@mastodon.social
2025-12-20T19:14:40Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@eevee Is there? I can’t think of any way in which Firefox has meaningfully acted as a check on Google’s power as a result or any way that it would negatively impact Google if everyone stopped using Chrome and started using Firefox. Chromium is already open source and that seems like the most realistic counterpressure on their own behavior
(DIR) Post #B1en3HobOgMdxOcTaa by eevee@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T17:12:26Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Gargron mozilla's new ceo is an idiot addicted to buzzwords. alas. google, with blink, has the sway to bake LLMs into some web API and make it impossible for **anyone** to make a browser without "AI" deeply built in. and they have a massive financial incentive to do so since they've invested a jillion dollars into training their own models
(DIR) Post #B1en3LAKwKX4LfoNNo by glyph@mastodon.social
2025-12-20T19:14:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@eevee like the only thing I can even think of where the actual browser engine tech was at issue is EME, where firefox folded immediately, and I can’t blame them for doing so because they have no power
(DIR) Post #B1en3QnW05qHodBEe0 by glyph@mastodon.social
2025-12-20T19:22:08Z
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@eevee this is not asked rhetorically as a dunk, I am not an ignoramus in this area but I am not *super* closely following the ins and outs of frontend tech debates. to the extent that I have it seems like there’s a lot of smoke without much fire (I remember digging through the relatively recent privacy-preserving telemetry stuff and not being able to figure out why anyone cared) but if I have missed something I would love to correct my view
(DIR) Post #B1en3WDvpIwae0Zu0u by glyph@mastodon.social
2025-12-20T20:13:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@eevee I guess I should say something about why I think *my* position is worth talking about at all here:Among the possibilities, two outcomes seem likely to me:1. Mozilla's "AI strategy" ends up pissing off their entire user base so much that a large plurality leave for other alternate browsers, finally cementing their irrelevance permanently.2. It works OK and they continue to limp along at … oh. hm. At this point in the toot I looked up where Firefox's marketshare actually is right now
(DIR) Post #B1en3bWY7Vo75CKLE8 by glyph@mastodon.social
2025-12-20T20:14:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@eevee Sorry, I guess it is not actually worth talking about, I didn't realize that they'd fallen below measurement-error thresholds in every major browser survey in 2022. I was thinking that if the AI failure were the proximate cause of their final doom that might serve as a more useful lesson for the industry than whatever hypothetical bulwark they were supposedly providing against chrome, but I didn't know the doom already happened 😬