Mozilla recently rolled out a new on-device AI feature in Firefox, but it's already drawing complaints from users reporting high CPU usage and faster battery drain.
This. It costs hundreds of millions per year to develop a web renderer. The security expertise required in particular is immense.
People have made clear they will not pay for browsers. At the same time, Mozilla doesn’t want to hoover up mountains of personally identifiable information like Google and MS do.
People hate Mozilla for doing what they can to make money, and they also hate the idea of paying.
I understand the frustration, but I genuinely don’t know what the community expects.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with or see sense in every Mozilla decision, but people act like they’re satan incarnate and it’s just ridiculous.
Depends what you mean by this AI nonsense. Some of it is great. Offline translation in Firefox is great, as is the enhanced screen reader for blind people.
Chat bot integration less so, but it’s opt-in so I don’t bother getting myself worked up about it.
Developing from scratch yes, but several decent open source renderers exist. I’d love to see someone grab Servo and polish it to a fully usable state (I think it’s something like 75% of the way there).
The issue also isn’t Mozilla trying to make money, it’s Mozilla trying to make money in the stupidest way possible, or even worse actively wasting money like with this AI slop. There’s also the issue of what Mozilla is spending on. It came out a little while back how much their executives are making and it’s completely ridiculous. They could afford multiple full time devs with just the money the CEO makes for making the worst decisions imaginable.
They just want free shit. They claim they would love to pay but look at the percentage of donations things like VLC get, they won’t pay.
Google likely spends over a billion dollars a year developing Chrome and everyone likes to talk about how AI might upset web search forgetting that what is where Mozilla’s money comes from.
This. It costs hundreds of millions per year to develop a web renderer. The security expertise required in particular is immense.
People have made clear they will not pay for browsers. At the same time, Mozilla doesn’t want to hoover up mountains of personally identifiable information like Google and MS do.
People hate Mozilla for doing what they can to make money, and they also hate the idea of paying.
I understand the frustration, but I genuinely don’t know what the community expects.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with or see sense in every Mozilla decision, but people act like they’re satan incarnate and it’s just ridiculous.
Honestly if that is it, it is understandable. This AI nonsense, however, is plainly a waste of money and resources, Mozilla’s and their users’.
Depends what you mean by this AI nonsense. Some of it is great. Offline translation in Firefox is great, as is the enhanced screen reader for blind people.
Chat bot integration less so, but it’s opt-in so I don’t bother getting myself worked up about it.
Developing from scratch yes, but several decent open source renderers exist. I’d love to see someone grab Servo and polish it to a fully usable state (I think it’s something like 75% of the way there).
The issue also isn’t Mozilla trying to make money, it’s Mozilla trying to make money in the stupidest way possible, or even worse actively wasting money like with this AI slop. There’s also the issue of what Mozilla is spending on. It came out a little while back how much their executives are making and it’s completely ridiculous. They could afford multiple full time devs with just the money the CEO makes for making the worst decisions imaginable.
The community are idiots.
They just want free shit. They claim they would love to pay but look at the percentage of donations things like VLC get, they won’t pay.
Google likely spends over a billion dollars a year developing Chrome and everyone likes to talk about how AI might upset web search forgetting that what is where Mozilla’s money comes from.