Firefox will get AI controls to turn it all off

How about you disable them by default, Mozilla, and have people unleash AI at their own peril -_-

This is dumb. So dumb.

These are great additions. I like that it's easy to turn off them all, I also like that you can pick and chose. All except the chatbot (🤮) are on-device. Haters gonna hate but this is a good direction by Mozilla.

I wish this stuff was just made available through extensions so people who don't want them don't have to deal with them, and people who do want them can still use them (even if I personally wish that Mozilla weren't investing into AI at all). But at least they're making good on this. As much as I'm critical of Mozilla's direction, Firefox remains the best browser for my own personal needs and use case.

Great but late (at least for me, I'm writing from LibreWolf).

Install libreWolf, a privacy focused firefox fork, and leave all that bs behind.

Quoting: hardpenguinHow about you disable them by default, Mozilla, and have people unleash AI at their own peril -_-

This is dumb. So dumb.

What's dumb about translations and OCR?

Blind hatred for anything labeled with “AI” is as pointless as hatred for anything that uses linked lists.

ML translations have been around for a long time, and works. It however is not an LLM. Due to marketing "AI" is confused with "LLM". Due to corporations pushing this unethically and trying to not give us a choice, people are very anti "AI", hence long-standing "AI" like vector-spaces are now painted with the same brush.

Don't attack the person for getting the minutiae wrong, especially when corporations spend money to confuse and misdirect.

Did Mozilla do the right thing here? Arguably, yes. Is it perfect? No.

I would love to turn off "AI" features by default and then only turn the ones I need on manually. Instead it's either "all OFF", or "ON by default".
Can I live with it? Yes.

Good deal, should have been like this from the beginning.

Quoting: grigiI would love to turn off "AI" features by default and then only turn the ones I need on manually.

I believe this will be possible with what they are offering. You can set the global AI toggle to off which will make all current and future AI features turned off and then you can manually override per AI feature the ones you want on.

If you don’t want to use AI features at all, the Block AI enhancements toggle disables current and future AI features and suppresses prompts. You can always re-enable individual features if you want.

Source: [https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-out-ai-controls-in-firefox-nightly/td-p/117177](https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-out-ai-controls-in-firefox-nightly/td-p/117177)

Quoting: Nic264What's dumb about translations and OCR?

Blind hatred for anything labeled with “AI” is as pointless as hatred for anything that uses linked lists.

...Until you are the one shopping for a pair of DIMMs.

Surely all they need is new tab / pop-up on a browser update to say: " would you like new AI features enabled?" (yes or no)
Enabled by default is tone def and why I moved to Vivaldi years ago

Quoting: hardpenguinHow about you disable them by default, Mozilla, and have people unleash AI at their own peril -_-

This is dumb. So dumb.

They're providing the controls to turn it off, or turn it back on. What does it matter whether AI is already enabled by default?

I'm sorry, this just sounds a little silly to me. People, myself included, wanted the option to turn the AI features off. Alright, that's what they're doing. Now you insist it's off by default. Let's say they did that too, would you just turn around and say, "Well, there shouldn't be any AI to begin with!"

Quoting: CyborgZeta

Quoting: hardpenguinHow about you disable them by default, Mozilla, and have people unleash AI at their own peril -_-

This is dumb. So dumb.

They're providing the controls to turn it off, or turn it back on. What does it matter whether AI is already enabled by default?

I'm sorry, this just sounds a little silly to me. People, myself included, wanted the option to turn the AI features off. Alright, that's what they're doing. Now you insist it's off by default. Let's say they did that too, would you just turn around and say, "Well, there shouldn't be any AI to begin with!"

Absolutely, it's absurd to suppose they are going to develop new features and then make them all disabled by default for everyone.

They are providing a feature for those who want to disable all current and future AI features to do so with one click. It ought to be welcomed. I'd be surprised if any other mainstream browser follows their lead on this. It shows they know AI is a divisive issue and want to accommodate all users.

After ~20 years of using Firefox, this incessant AI bull$h¡t was the final straw for me. A couple months ago I moved to LibreWolf and I'm much happier with piece of mind while I keep waiting for Servo.

Quoting: syylk

Quoting: Nic264What's dumb about translations and OCR?

Blind hatred for anything labeled with “AI” is as pointless as hatred for anything that uses linked lists.

...Until you are the one shopping for a pair of DIMMs.

Well, as Nic264 and grigi mentioned, we've had ML features for a long time and they don't affect RAM prices. Our cameras being able to roughly detect where a face is and auto-focus on that region, is the same tech as the on-device features Firefox now has, and has been for about a decade.
I agree, the real issue is that (apart from the chat "feature" - which I will never understand the purpose of) everything is now labeled "AI", despite being different from the "AI" crap that's wrecking both the environment and the economy right now.
That it's not related to actual "Artificial Intelligence" also makes it a terrible buzzword to use in general.

What we should be rallying against, is the rise of "AI" data centres, the sudden artificial scarcity and caste system of hardware, off-site handling of data, and training on stolen data.

Quoting: questioner9

Quoting: CyborgZeta

Quoting: hardpenguinHow about you disable them by default, Mozilla, and have people unleash AI at their own peril -_-

This is dumb. So dumb.

They're providing the controls to turn it off, or turn it back on. What does it matter whether AI is already enabled by default?

I'm sorry, this just sounds a little silly to me. People, myself included, wanted the option to turn the AI features off. Alright, that's what they're doing. Now you insist it's off by default. Let's say they did that too, would you just turn around and say, "Well, there shouldn't be any AI to begin with!"

Absolutely, it's absurd to suppose they are going to develop new features and then make them all disabled by default for everyone.

They are providing a feature for those who want to disable all current and future AI features to do so with one click. It ought to be welcomed. I'd be surprised if any other mainstream browser follows their lead on this. It shows they know AI is a divisive issue and want to accommodate all users.

It shows they caved to an immediate and vocal response from a good chunk of their core audience, that is. From their own statements, it's clear they hadn't even considered that anyone would *want* to turn off the "AI" "features" they shoved in there for no good reason (Microsoft telling them they'd donate more if they did it is not a good reason).

A lot of people *have* been saying there shouldn't be any AI to begin with, by the way. It's a waste of resources and the very definition of bloat. Even if "AI" worked as heavily advertised (it doesn't), it's extra material stuffed into the browser for little practical purpose. At most, they could make a framework for "AI" extensions if people really want them, and leave it to the user to add if they really want it. I guarantee most wouldn't.

I know! Firefox, with each update should present a new-tab-page forcing users selecting all new additions. You know - some may not want new JS api! Or CSS adding animations! /s

haters gonna hate, mozilla/firefox addressed the issue and now they can move on. sadly tiny but super vocal butt-hurt minority will spam everywhere their "dissatisfaction"

Quoting: _wojteksadly tiny but super vocal butt-hurt minority

[Duckduckgo did a survey](https://voteyesornoai.com/) asking their userbase if they wanted AI features. They closed the poll after a week or so, 175K votes counted, and 90% said no, they don't want AI.

Yes, it's very skewed - DDG's userbase is privacy-focused. But "tiny but super vocal butt-hurt minority" is a shitty and antagonistic way to describes people's perfectly valid dislike of this planet-burning technology.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: _wojteksadly tiny but super vocal butt-hurt minority

[Duckduckgo did a survey](https://voteyesornoai.com/) asking their userbase if they wanted AI features. They closed the poll after a week or so, 175K votes counted, and 90% said no, they don't want AI.

Yes, it's very skewed - DDG's userbase is privacy-focused. But "tiny but super vocal butt-hurt minority" is a shitty and antagonistic way to describes people's perfectly valid dislike of this planet-burning technology.

_wojtek spoke about those that still spread hate even with being able to easily turn it off. I don't think this can be associated with all people not wanting AI active in their browsers.

Yes, there's still reasons to dislike it. But hey, if nearly nobody wants AI, nearly nobody's gonna use it, right?

Last edited by Eike on 3 Feb 2026 at 5:04 pm UTC

It is a good thing many people complained about the AI additions. If we didn't complain, then the disable feature would never have been implemented or if it was you would never find it. They would add it to some config file.

Last edited by TightRope on 3 Feb 2026 at 5:32 pm UTC