this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025

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1103

Firefox Will Ship with an "AI Kill Switch" to Completely Disable all AI Features - 9to5Linux (9to5linux.com)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by ekZepp@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

369 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After the controversial news shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that Firefox will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser.

On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser.

In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users completely disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser.

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[–] teft@piefed.social 15 points 2 months ago (3 children)

They must've noticed people fleeing in droves to librewolf or floorp.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Too late. He’s already shown his true colors.

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Can it also cause the AI pain when you flip the switch?

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[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 2 months ago

Firefox has had one hidden away in about:config since they started adding AI. Are they going to put it in the settings page now?

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

only shipped it because of the backlash, they will quitely remove it eventually.

[–] flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago (10 children)

No, why would they?

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[–] pirate2377@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 months ago (11 children)

You can also disable ai via toggling browser.ml.enable to false on about:config. For now at least...

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[–] veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It has to be opt-in or they can go fuck themselves

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[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (4 children)

This made me switch to waterfox

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I switched to LibreWolf when the privacy policy fiasco happened a while ago. It's funny how every few weeks Mozilla manages to demonstrate why I won't switch back.

The new CEO has also already lost me with this gem:

He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission.

Even taking the statement at face value, it's unacceptable for it to just "feel off-mission". It should be a clear "no, never" instead of some wishy-washy answer.

But reading between the lines, such a statement is not just an off-the-cuff remark, but at best a threat to their users, and at worst a way to gauge the blowback of such a decision. They must have already taken it seriously enough to come up with the $150 million.

If I had to put up a number, I'd guess there's a 25+% chance that Firefox will drop Manifest V2 in the next few years.

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[–] eli@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

I'm already trying out LibreWolf on desktop and IronFox on mobile.

So far everything is working, probably another week of testing/using and then I'll just uninstall Firefox.

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (14 children)

clearly some damage control strategy here… but good news if true

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[–] tryagain@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

Too late - they already lost me.

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 11 points 2 months ago

"Kill switch" is a bit dramatic. It's an on or off toggle. Would be funny though to call every toggle a kill switch. "Yeah, using the kill switch on GPU acceleration may help with rendering on some systems."

"Use the kill switch for preventing Firefox of starting a new session without restoring the old tabs."

"Kill all of your browser data upon exiting Firefox by enabling the kill switch."

"Make Firefox your default browser by enabling the 'set as default browser kill switch'."

Extended to other UI interaction classes: "You don't like English? Kill it by using the battle royale language selector to choose only the one language you like."

[–] Wooki@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

https://librewolf.net/

[–] nostrauxendar@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Just don't add the surveillance and spam features in the first place. 👍 Fuck off, Mozilla.

[–] Tiger_Man_@szmer.info 9 points 2 months ago

I hope librewolf will have it killed by default

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 9 points 2 months ago (7 children)

But Lemmy told me Firefox was over and AI would be forced upon every single text field, and that we should migrate to Chrome forks maintained by 15 year old children!

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[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The trust was lost when they said nonsense like "AI browser" as if that means anything concrete.

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