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Mistral and Mozilla are bringing open, private and multilingual AI to your web browser: a partnership to bring privacy, control and choice to people using AI to browse online. (mistral.ai)
submitted 1 month ago* by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 46 points 1 month ago (31 children)

I don't really mind AI features where it makes sense. That being said, as someone else commented, this should have been a plugin.

I'll add on top of that: this should have been a plugin wholly developed by Mistral. Mozilla should stop spending time and money on side features and focus on the browser and its engine. It still is way slower than any chromium based browser, lacks features that have been standard on chromium for years (eg. HDR video playback) and it's way less efficient on battery than the competition.

Complaining about Firefox doing this and groveling on "I'm good, I'm on " is spitting upwards: even the most modified forks like Zen still rely on Mozilla's aging engine.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

    Exactly. The Blender foundation has stated that it is a tool by humans and for humans, so no AI functionality is planned. However, there are still MCP extensions and the like. There’s nothing stopping anyone from using AI with Blender, but the Blender Foundation funding goes to core development. Not sure why Mozilla isn’t doing the same. If I really want a LLM controlling a browser, playwright-cli works fine anyway.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 weeks ago*

    It still is way slower than any chromium based browser, lacks features that have been standard on chromium for years

    I don't think its slower at all. Most of the time same if not faster. Maybe it depends on where you go?

    Features in chromium are often there because they are going their own way and not being standard, is that Mozillas fault?

    HDR video is in Firefox, HDR images is experimental. Personally I don't care, why would I watch videos in a browser that I think should have HDR?

    I will agree that Mistral should have done the lifting, and Firefox need not be working so hard on adding AI. However, if they don't people on the other side of the fence will complain that Chrome gets all the AI, why is Firefox so lazy?

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  • [+] -1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago (3 children)

    I am on the latest version of FF on Linux and I don't have HDR working, not on YouTube, nor on standalone players like Jellyfin. Yes my display is HDR and Wayland+gnome is exposing HDR properly to games and Helium (chromium fork).

    Since some govt and utilities sites only work on "chrome" (borked even with user agent switcher set to chrome+win on FF) I had to get this other browser, and the speed difference is noticeable on most sites, even tho theoretically FF should be faster since its stripping a lot of crap with uBlock Origin.

    Tried flatpak'd Brave and also runs snappier than FF.

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  • [+] -29 points 4 weeks ago (23 children)

    IMO the browser wars have been lost, and Mozilla isn't a competent web browser anymore. 30% of sites I visit, straight up don't function at all on Firefox. They don't even satisfy their original mission statement of privacy focus.

    I switched to Vivaldi and didn't look back. I don't want some LLM "assistant" scanning every webpage I visit.

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  • [–] 39 points 4 weeks ago (21 children)

    I’m sorry, I call bullshit.

    I’ve been using Firefox for many many years, and the only sites that haven’t worked were M$ sites explicitly coded to break on Firefox, or were using a technology that Firefox simply doesn’t implement like web serial api, which is admittedly more than one, but it’s an extreme minority.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)
    1. Web Serial is available now. Recently flashed an esp32
    2. Another site not supported is business.apple.com.
    • Buuut if you switch the user-agent everything I found neccessary suddebly works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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  • [–] 7 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

    Yeah I wondering if I was just lucky because I never have problems on Firefox or librewolf (which is Firefox).

    Usually when I'm asked for computer help by friends or family, I can often save us both a lot of time by just asking, "you're using chrome again aren't you?" Or edge?

    But sometimes in a great while Firefox is the "culprit" because it doesn't let abusive sites spy on them and collect so much telemetry.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

    There are plenty of over-designed, heavy "Web apps" which don't work correctly in Firefox. My college's Web portal is one.

    If you create a support ticket, they tell you to use a supported browser

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 child)

    Well, there is (edit:are idiot) issues on the mobile ff (which I still use), but the desktop version has no issues (if you don't block scripts).

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  • [–] -2 points 4 weeks ago (9 children)

    Apology rejected. I'm glad you still enjoy Firefox, but I'm not lying about my experience. So many websites kept breaking constantly, and in extremely bad ways.

    Things like, the final step of a 40 page government form failing, and I then need to call them and wait on hold for 90 minutes for them to fix it. Or, payments being charged, but not receiving the product; again having to call support. Or more subtle things, like specific features on websites not working, weird canvas glitches, you get the idea.

    In comparison, the amount of problems I've had in Vivaldi is zero, compared to daily. I cannot recommend Firefox to average users anymore. I think using Firefox is admirable, but it's increasingly similar to trying to play games on Linux without Proton. Good luck.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    I have not ever had any of those issues you're describing, but it sucks that that happened to you. (If it actually did and you're not just some paid troll to poison public opinion)

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  • [–] -1 points 4 weeks ago

    You got me. My code of honour dictates that if someone correctly calls me out, I must acknowledge it. I was paid A$10,000.00 by Vivaldi themselves to spread discord and lies on Lemmy, the most popular social media platform; for maximum outreach.

    I had to take the money, though. I deeply wanted to reject it, but I had to. My pet unicorn needs rainbow replacement surgery, and my magical beasts insurance wouldn't cover it. I can't go on in a world without Captain Sparkles.

    I can only hope the community will forgive me one day. I'll build my renowned reputation back up, brick by brick.

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  • [+] 0 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)
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  • [–] 0 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

    I don't appreciate being called a liar

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  • [+] 0 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)
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  • [+] 0 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 13 points 4 weeks ago*

    I'm glad you found a browser that you love, but you're still stuck with chromium base and Manifest v3 with Vivaldi, and any further upstream abuses.

    I have run ironwolf, waterfox, fennec, floorp. And several other variants of mozilla's Firefox browser over the past two and a half years of deGoogling, and I would say that less than 2% of the sites I visit give me trouble , less than 1% actually have me falling back to using Safari if I'm on a mac, or spinning up a VM that has Vivaldi installed on it for use with a PC. .

    Privacy costs. I'm now paying for my email services and self hosting several others. It's taking me literally years to do Google 90% of my life, but it would have been I impossible if Mozilla is tech stack wasn't mature and extremely available

    Again, Vivaldi is a very sexy browser and I'm glad that you are satisfied with it, but it's not going to meet the needs of those of us that want to be free to use full fat third party ad blockers and tracker privacy solutions.

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