Just the Browser - Just the Browser
justthebrowser.com
Remove AI features, telemetry data reporting, sponsored content, product integrations, and other annoyances from web browsers.
  • AlexLost@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    I learned how to turn off the AI search mode and chrome immediately logged me out and pretended not to know my device. C’mon bro, just give it up already, we do t want your shitty product shoved down our throats. Waterfox it is, and they easily let me transfer all my bookmarks and passwords.

  • guywithoutaname@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    3 days ago

    FYI if you want to edit the Firefox policies directly and save it in /etc/firefox/policies/policies.json, this is the file they are using

      "policies": {
    "DisableFirefoxStudies": true,
    "DisableTelemetry": true,
    "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true,
    "FirefoxHome": {
      "SponsoredStories": false,
      "SponsoredTopSites": false,
      "Stories": false
    },
    "GenerativeAI": {
      "Enabled": false
    },
    "SearchEngines": {
      "Remove": [
        "Perplexity"
      ]
    }
  }
}`
    • flying_sheep@lemmy.mlEnglish
      274·
      3 days ago

      This shows how unhinged the whole recent hate on Firefox is. Turning off GenAI is literally one single setting AND Mozilla is doing things infinitely better than others (e.g. the translation feature is completely local, and having a chatbot in the sidebar is opt-in)

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        72·
        3 days ago

        I get a lot of hate for it but some AI inclusions are genuinely good.

        Firefox’s (local, FOSS) AI translation is infinitely better than scraping all the info and sending it to Google Translate servers, and nobody will convince me otherwise.

        The screen reader improvements that use AI are good as well. Has anybody here used screen readers for web pages? They are awful. It’s good that someone is willing to improve them. My sister is blind so this matters a lot to me.

        The (locally generated) AI assisted link previews aren’t for me as I imagine they’re unnecessarily taxing on older PCs, but they’re not exactly an evil inclusion. I can see it being a useful feature.

        I’m not a fan of the LLM sidebar, but it’s opt-in and you can at least choose open models or even host your own. Plus there’s the unfortunate truth that many people that Firefox is trying to win over (“normies”) now expect features like that.

        The hate is so overblown. Everyone is so negative and absolutist about everything all of the time. It’s exhausting.

      • Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        71·
        3 days ago

        That’s because the people who are fine or happy with firefox aren’t the type of people to talk about it, the vocal ones are the people that have complaints

      • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        This shows how unhinged the whole recent hate on Firefox is. Turning off GenAI is literally one single setting

        We heard of that “kill switch” way, way after the general outrage. Also, other software and services have an “AI killswitch” that conveniently fails to work from time to time, and is fixed only when people notice it.

        It’s not unhinged to point finger at someone doing something that, from experience, as always turned bad. Also, if you think the hate (I use your word, I’d say distrust) for Firefox is only related to the recent “AI” push, you’re severely misinformed.

        • flying_sheep@lemmy.mlEnglish
          21·
          3 days ago

          I literally got banned from the “awfulsystems” Lemmy instance for suggesting that Firefox isn’t horrible. No exaggeration, there was nothing else to my comment than a polite suggestion that Firefox is pretty good actually.

          If that ban isn’t driven by hate, I don’t want to see how real hate looks like.

  • kali_fornication@lemmy.worldEnglish
    391·
    4 days ago

    given what “edge” means among the teens these days, microsoft really should go back to the old browser name…microsoft goon

      • Vince@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        4 days ago

        Marketing sucks, IE was forever tainted. Like now, even if Copilot ran entirely on solar power and cured cancer, solved all hardest math problems, somehow achieved world peace and solved hunger, etc, people would still hate it.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    182·
    3 days ago

    Great move for those that don’t want to migrate, but I’d recommend just switching to Vivaldi if you like chromium browsers, librewolf if you are used to Firefox, and if you use edge you aren’t even reading this so whatever.

    Edit: I guess if you can get this to work on a work computer where edge is your only browser option perhaps, that would be nice.

    • dantheclamman@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      7·
      3 days ago

      If you’re familiar with the controversy around the Honey coupon addon, there are a lot of parallels in terms of privacy, ethics etc.

  • rando@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    4 days ago

    Would anyone know if this would work for all Firefox derivatives as well? Zen browser in my case. Also would it work for flatpak installations as well?

      • rando@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        I see, at least initial read/reviews seem to mention Zen removes Firefox telemetry and AI so that’s good. (I also have waterfox installed but didn’t really use it as main browser)

        Now need to see if flatpak Firefox is supported by this script.