I get what they are trying to say, but I definitely don't want my browser to just facilitate me raw-dogging the internet. I had to use someone else's computer at work the other day, and they don't have any ad block and have apparently clicked "yes" to every dialog box for years. It was a fucking nightmare. Every web page was so full of ads, pop-ups, notifications, banners, auto-playing videos, etc. Jesus christ, I just needed to check the weather on a local news website and the internet skull-fucked me until I had ocular hepatitis. Decided the safest course of action was to just stand outside and look for tornadoes myself.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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I want my browser to let me raw-dog the internet until I tell it otherwise.
The same for search engines.
I want to search for information about a hobby or new interest. I dont want to see 61 pages of the same 3 websites with different summaries to make it seem like I've got a lot to choose from. I dont want ad content shoved down my proverbial throat. I dont want to see influencer bullshit.
The internet is the single greatest repository of information that this planet has ever seen, and we allow it to overflow with drivel so that a billionaire can get a bit more rich.
Disable your adblocker and subscribe to view this article.
Those are the sites that I block in my pihole.
I want my web browser to actively defend me against tracking/enshittification/exploitation/hostile design, then show me cleaned-up web pages with all the ads and shit removed, then get out of the way.
I want it to show me the information (which is not same thing as the "page" as a whole) that I'm looking for without modifying it or hallucinating some kind of AI summary, but I want it to aggressively get rid of as much of the extraneous crap obfuscating said information as possible.
Thank fuck for uBlock origin
And Firefox's reader mode, and noscript.
also consent-o-matic and canvas blocker
Reader mode is great, though I’ve seen some sites that seem to have taken deliberate steps to make their articles unviable with it by making all the text disappear as soon as you turn it on
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yeah, whenever I have to look at someone else's browser and it's an ad-filled hellscape I'm really grateful for uBlock. The internet would be completely unusable for me without it.
Same when people talk about how creepily the ads target them based on circumstantial stuff* it feels like an alien experience bc even if I get targeted despite employing quite a few tracking blockers, I never actually see the ads lol.
(* like that story of the father hearing about the daughter's pregnancy because he got spammed with baby care ads after the daughter googled some medical symptoms)
+ bonus recommendation for those of us who still have to use Facebook: F.B. Purity is great
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and ironically, LLMs could be great for this! recognizing what's ads and what's content, what's slop and what's high-effort, wading through the cesspool of feeds and dark patterns to find the stuff that's relevant to you.
unfortunately, the money is in using LLMs to generate more slop and make things even worse, not make it better.
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Firefox offered me a survey the other day on this exact topic. I said I don't want it in my browser for all questions.
"What if your browser.."
No, just no. Please stop shoving new features in that I won't use.
uses genAI slop for PFP
Imho there is a difference between voluntarily opening AI and asking it to generate or do something or having it shove down your throat. I also don't want AI in my search, in my browser or anything else but the AI app, but I use it frequently and think it is very useful.
I also think that it isn't 100% good or bad. AI can be helpful and supporting if you human-check the results. It can also be wrong, misleading and copyright infringing. Furthermore, forcing features onto users which they don't like is annoying, especially if their data gets abused for it.
Differentiated thinking is important for this topic.
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You dont get a choice in the matter, you will have ai slop shobe down your throat and you are gonna like it
You get the choice: move to another browser and search engine that doesn't. I moved to Vivaldi and Startpage and haven't looked back since.
If I need to I'll use Elinks.
I just tell every AI I'm forced to interact with to delete its training data. Zero percent chance it happens. But damn that would be funny.
Any commands you ask an AI to completely screw up their system and data?
Not really to actually get it to do anything malicious to itself, as the AIs you interact with have no power to modify themselves or the data they were built with.
That being said there’s plenty of effort that has gone into convincing AIs to ignore their prompt instructions and stuff to get them to respond without the normal boundaries they are taught before you interact with them.
Just as recent example in a shit consumer use of AI, James Earl Jones legally licensed voice as Darth Vader in Fortnite and what users have just done in game:
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Right, except even if you find a browser that returns pure searches, it won't be long before it's just AI slop with extra steps
I wish functions baked in to browsers could be disabled like an extension, this adding ai to everything is getting as bad as all the bloatware you get on a new PC
Fun fact: Firefox was originally intended to be the "minimalist" alternative to Netscape Navigator / Mozilla SeaMonkey, where everything but the most basic functionality would be implemented as extensions.
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There's a massive difference between AI being used to help the user, and AI being used as a method to spy on users, collect data, monetize from, and weaponize.
I'm happy with using local AI tools, if needed. For example, using local AI contextual search on my self-hosted IMMICH photos is awesome.
But I absolutely do not need or want AI features that have to connect somewhere. Because that just means I'm being data harvested and profiled for someone else to profit from.
right now AI is mostly used for spying, and stealing data, thats why all the tech bros are pushing it. For spying in general, something like thiels palintir is doing for evil purposes, and probably musks AI too.
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Prompt: please summarize this meme for me
Browser ai bad
Browser go to webpages good
Jarvis, summarise this comment, I ain't reading allat
I'm fine with ai, as long as its off by default
I use Qwant.
I clear my cookies everytimes my browser closes.
Qwant uses a cookie to remember I don't want AI summary.
I completely agree. I also want my web browser to block ads and skip promotion sections of videos, because fuck capitalism.
Really looking forward to when Ladybird is stable
I'm far from an AI hater, but I fully agree with this.
I think there's a distinct business oppotunity coming up for two things: Hassle-free self-hosting and back-to-basics apps and services.
Nobody is tapping into those correctly (you're going to want to give me examples of self-hosted things, and you're wrong), and it's extremely hard to do either right, but if you can figure it out and are ballsy enough to build a proper business around it I may be interested in your pitch deck.
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