RE: mastodon.social/@Gargron/11573…
I'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.
I've finally switched to the @Vivaldi browser. I've been using Firefox for as long as I've been on the internet, but the focus on AI means it's no longer the browser for me. Thankfully unlike Chrome, Vivaldi supports the uBlock Origin extension which is the most important extension for being able to browse the web nowadays.
xinit ☕
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •MFierst
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •There are a couple of FF forks with AI disabled or even removed.
I personally like LibreWolf.
Fedor Indutny
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Pheonix
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Hi Eugen, unrelated but if you have time, would like to hear your thoughts on this case study I did.
thatshubham.com/blog/mastodon
Rethinking Mastodon's Post Visibility UX
thatshubham.comKristin (vis.social Admin)
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Me too! I keep hoping they listen to their users, as the have in the past when they announce crazy moved.
I'm planning to switch to @Vivaldi as well. But it will be slow. I've got multi-year research projects that I've coded Firefox extensions for. Ugh.
Would be nice if more of the tech-dudes would just say no. It's so exhausting.
Antifascist Atha Ahuluheluw
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Inertya
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •and once you get used to it, it's really fun.
Nigel Wadsworth 🇦🇺
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Greg
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Of all the tech companies, I'd hoped FF would be in a category where they communicate with their user base to gauge the need and desire for what is a significant technology inflection.
As a UX/UI/Researcher, I dispair of execs who either don't care what users want or treat a small majority as a binary switch, rather than a signal that building the tech should also include a single big one-click and comprehensive opt-out. Or two binaries - one with AI & one without AI and watch the download count. Designing AI to be a modular addition, rather than doing Microsoft's perennial trick of mixing it all up irreversibly would allow this.
Patrick Leavy
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •I switched to Vivaldi last year, and love it.
I still use Librefox, DDG browser and Ironfox for specific things through.
Quincy
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Jeff Atwood
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Michal Bryxí
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •River
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •any idea if there's a way to export you're Mozilla browsing history (and possibly full profile including extensions)? I somewhat rely on the smart suggestions from my history when I start searching up an old article. I also really can't live without the cross device syncing.
Not sure if I'll even decide to switch, but if this is possible (and if another browser actually has server architecture), I'll definitely consider it.
Eugen Rochko
in reply to River • • •haui
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •The pushback on this is:
We are in an AI bubble but we are also in a late stage capitalist nightmare and culture warring helps nobody.
Leaving firefox behind for closed source chromium makes absolutely no sense.
Stable firefox forks like librewolf are great and should be used until an independent browser is stable enough for use.
Prerequisites: fully open source, no controlled opposition like mozilla.
While AI has its uses, it absolutely should not be pushed into browsers.
Petr Tesařík
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •FWIW this is the reason I won't switch to Vivaldi.
Fred Rocha
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •VP9KF
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Vivaldi takes a stand: keep browsing human | Vivaldi Browser
Jon von Tetzchner (Vivaldi Technologies)Ric
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •remember when you weren't happy with the state of social media, so started work on a better one and now here we all are?
Any chance you fancy starting work on Euginet Explorer? 😆
AppleWoi
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Gloopsies
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Stefan Welebny
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Everton Favretto
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •I'm so tired of this AI nonsense. Too much "investiment" being made for stuff that isn't THAT useful and isn't even making financial returns.
And also will probably trigger a major worldwide recession.
The Animal and the Machine
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •AI is in the VC burn cash stage, aggressively looking for lock-in so it can switch to the milking stage, identifiable by enshitification.
It is definitely a bubble as the market is yet to prune out most AI, so all are reflecting an NPV of this potential. The market is quadruple counting the same value. Everyone is wrong and a few will be wrong in a good way.
Ovidi Nawer
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •AI is not going to be sustainable.
The only reason other technologies are sustainable are the miracle of that their basis was made before the 2000s, when people actually cared about efficiency over massification.
Mormegil
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Zen browser (based on firefox) is also a great alternative. I do not believe they have plans to adopt the AI crap.
This definitely feels like a bubble. What kills me is when I hear about people using AI for regular searches they could have looked up on wikipedia, or just a regular search. AI uses so much more energy, and the results are less reliable.
manuelcaeiro ☕
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Absolutely.
"It doesn't matter if I can disable some AI feature in the settings."
Disagree. The time is now, and people must defend... Until some alternative pops up.
I'm using LibreWolf right now. I also use Pale Monn when it's convenient - and sometines it is. And yet I still have to use Firefox sometimes, so it's good that I can at least disble AI on it.
Degoogling is a thing. Check e/os e.foundation.
e Foundation - deGoogled unGoogled smartphone operating systems and online services - your data is your data
e.foundationmilagemayvary
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •🫸
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I'm allegic to Google & closed source. 🤧
Richard Rathe
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •wrote...
"I've finally switched to the @Vivaldi browser. I've been using Firefox for as long as I've been on the internet, but the focus on AI means it's no longer the browser for me. Thankfully unlike Chrome, Vivaldi supports the uBlock Origin extension which is the most important extension for being able to browse the web nowadays."
I've had exactly the same experience! Migrated from #MacOS to #Ubuntu #Linux over the summer. #Firefox was the default browser. In my case FF had/has a huge memory leak that was left to fester for over a month. Looked around and switched to the #Vivaldi browser thinking I'd lose #uBlock--but (pleasant surprise!) there was no limitation on that or any other plug-in I have. 🙂
So far (less than a month) I'm very impressed and happy with Vivaldi. Recommended! 👍
@Vivaldi
Rod
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Mårten Björklund 🇸🇪
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •Vivaldi is a very sensible choice, it's software made by sensible people, just like you and Mastodon!
Thank you Eugen! Frohe Weihnachten!