They have an interesting take. They’re not against AI per se, they’re against AI they can’t audit. It was an interesting read.

The problem with forks such as Waterfox is that they don’t get fixes as quick as the mainline browser. But, this is also somewhat of a myth. When Mozilla fixes something in Firefox, they don’t push the update out to everyone right away. Some people don’t get it for days. Someone who uses a privacy-centric fork like Waterfox is going to be more apt to stay on top of the updates, so even if it takes a day or two for Waterfox to integrate the fix, Waterfox users are likely updating before a lot of Firefox users. And even then, the chances of the average user being affected by whatever is being fixed is typically low, so it’s better to have for browsing, but it’s not like something that is constantly threatening you — in most cases.

That said, I use Firefox, and I was able to disable the AI stuff. Saw it, said nope, saw the option to disable, did so, and have been happy ever since. I don’t always agree with Mozilla, but, I have been curious about forks and I have used Waterfox in the past. It’s fine. It might be better, especially for “default settings” Firefox users, but for someone with a relatively low threat level and an intermediate to high skill in hardening browsers (my own assessment, subject to bias), I’m not particularly bothered by using regular Firefox. And if you’re subscribed to a Privacy community (or subreddit), you probably shouldn’t be, either, but then again, only you can judge your own threat level. There are certainly situations where something like Waterfox would be preferred.

I wish people would stop talking about “AI browsers” like everyone even knows what that actually means.

Im looking at changing now.

I just switched from Firefox to waterfox. It took less than five minutes, and the installation is quite straightforward on Linux. Move the folder to opt, make a symlink, and create a .desktop. The instructions are on the website. I suggest switching the default search to duckduckgo.

Waterfox is fantastic! I also self host searxng and have it set as the default search engine in waterfox. private search!

Waterfox might have just got a new convert here.

Will they have an android version on f droid ? Prefer not to use Google play…

I’m currently in the process of switching to Waterfox while I wait to see what Ladybird can do, and so far I’m pretty happy with my decision.

I just switched to it on my android. Set as default. So far so good. Never heard of it until today.

Don’t get me wrong I hate LLMs being shoved down our throats, but I think the “Mozilla using AI” stuff is overblown. The few LLM features they’ve implemented are useful and non-intrusive. I actually think it’s a rare example of the tech being used intelligently (no pun intended).

i’ve been pretty disallusioned with Mozilla leadership

i’ve jumped back to Chrome for the time being

i’ll be moving to servo/verso as soon as it meets my needs