Mozilla's Firefox 145 is heeeeeere: Buffs up privacy, bloats AI Firefox 145 is out, with more privacy, better profile handling, better image search for Google users… and, almost inevitably, more LLM bot integration. Mozilla has released Firefox 145. The release notes in that link make an interesting contrast with the snazzy What's new page which users see on installing the update. Setting …
Provided they don't renable things like about:config browser.ml.chat.enabled [false] then my only problem with the AI infestation of my browser is they could have been spending more time on things users actually want.
I wonder if being bank-rolled by TheBigEvil(tm) is what drives their obsession with LLMs.
¿Why go to WebKit? Apple has it severely behind standards wise, and relaying on a bunch of propiertary TAGs.
Hold on for dear life to FireFox, and jump to Ladybird when is more mature.
It has a really new renderer. A really new security foundation. And license diversity*, as it is BSD, instead of the Majority GPL that is the WebKit/Blink ecosystem.
* Diversity is good, monocultures are bad, this is true for biological entities, OS, Userland software, and FOSS licenses as well. As well as is FOSS compatible... I'm OK. In fact, I tend to gravitate towards (and recomend) BSD/MIT/APACHE licenses whenever possible.
Chrome is arguably a WebKit browser - although google has made many, many changes to webkit.
The only sane choices now seem to be netsurf, lynx, w3m or Emacs web wowser - too bad such HTML engines don't implement functionality where incorrect HTML is fixed up and rendered anyway, meaning many sites won't work.
Many thanks for the pointer to the browser.ml. keys (and to Liam for the pointer to Perplexity showing up the the seach engine list).
Wouldn't it be nice, if ... Mozilla expended some effort on actually documenting the smorgasbord of about:config settings, and published this information somewhere, like, oh I don't know, perhaps on a web site? And then made it a hard rule that developers kept this list up to date, and included a list of changes in the release notes.
Sure, this is irrelevant to at least 95%+ of people who browse the web. (Remind me what is Firefox's current market share, again?)
> Perplexity showing up
I've noticed the unrequested appearance this aptly-named search engine days ago, and was indeed perplexed.
But I immediately trashed it, without even trying to learn what it is, because of the simple rule that something which appears without asking is bound to be harmful (to me) in some way. If it was beneficial to me I would had needed to beg on my knees to get it. Simple.
I think a couple of AI settings are outside of the browser.ml hierarchy.
Time for me to plug yet again my fantastic idea of an AI page in settings with switches for all AI features. If nothing else, it would give the user more sense of control over what AI features exist and the reassurance that they can turn it all off if they want.
That's good to see that Mozilla haven't forgotten about Profiles (firefox --new-instance -P FTW!), I had thought that their scatterbrained attention had seemed to be much more on "container tabs" of late as a (different) way to keep your different web activities separate? (I still prefer the more definite certainty of different instances of Firefox running different profiles, to be absolutely sure that nothing inadvertently leaks between tabs in just one instance.)
They do seem to have a rather jumbled up approach to things sometimes, with it almost seeming that different development teams work on separate approaches without much or any internal communication at all: see also Bookmarks, with (as long-time users will surely have noticed) the Bookmarks toolbar falling out of and back into favour at different times, a Bookmarks menu, a completely bizarre "Other Bookmarks" section, a Bookmarks menu/toolbar-icon-thing coming and going, etc, etc…)
Most non-reg-reading normies use one profile only. Most users of userland software (firefox included) are non-reg-reading normies. Even some Reg-reader-non-normies
(me included) use a single profile.
Container tabs are a good fit for people using one profile only.
Also, using multiple profiles on mobile browser is harder than in desktop UX wise... (yes, I also use FireFox on android. ¡uBlock Origin + m.youtube.com + m.facebook.com for the win! "¡Look ma' , no ads on mobile!")
So, good to have both available.
I've just started using profiles: different ones for me and clients, this is especially useful with different password managers in use. However, them all sharing the same icon and unpredictable behaviour when links are clicked is a major annoyance. The new controls via the account symbol also don't seem to be available on MacOS yet.
Thanks for that, but there are a few problems with that approach:
1) There are at least four harmful AI features that are outside the browser.ml hierarchy, so you may need to set ~8-10 additional about:config entries to 'false'. Examples include the browser.tabs.groups.smart group, browser.translations.automaticallyPopup, and browser.urlbar.quicksuggest.mlEnabled. Given Mozilla’s statements about AI, the number will grow with every update. It’s a game of whack-a-mole.
2) I’ve found that the AI settings often silently reset themselves to 'true' without user interaction. Sometimes on a short timescale (seconds), sometimes on a slow timescale (weeks). The fast resets are probably due to a bug in the Firefox code; I suspect the slow resets are a side effect of updates. One commenter suggested a remedy: locking the settings using either a policies.json file or AutoConfig, see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1530298
And then there’s the big picture: Mozilla’s leadership views browsers as being sooo 1990 – anyone who’s lebenswürdig will soon only interact with the internet through AI. Therefore, the only valid reason for maintaining Firefox is to advertise Mozilla’s AI products (and as antitrust insurance for Mozilla’s main funder, Google). I fear that soon, the only discoverable features in Firefox will be AI products and any remaining browser-related functions will be deeply buried in nested mystery-meat hamburger menus. Already, several useful browser-related functions are randomly distributed among three parallel hamburger menus. Already, the distinction between the URL field and the search field is blurred. And then there’s the weird, counterintuitive detached tabs, which seem to be preparation for the AI “smart” tabs feature.
> your data being hoovered up
While that’s a huge problem in general, in the case of AI in Firefox it’s not the main problem – As far as I’m aware, most of the AI features in Firefox use client-side processing alone, so no user data leaks out. I don’t know of any evidence that Firefox sells user data other than the easily-avoided Google search and of course the Truth Social partner Perplexity AI [1], which brazenly ignores not just ethics, but also the law [2]. Firefox collects general usage data and crash reports, but both are opt-out.
The big problem with AI in Firefox is the enshittification of the user experience. AI features are shoved in the user’s face at every turn, while routine browser functions are degraded to make room for AI. Some AI features add clutter to the user interface. Some AI features actively throw roadblocks in the user’s way. And some AI features are actively harmful to the user. And all AI features waste users’ computing resources if the user doesn’t specifically want AI. If Mozilla had come up with a valid use case for AI in a browser, then OK, include it as an add-on. But as far as I can tell, Mozilla hasn’t been able to come up with a valid use case for AI.
And there’s a much bigger problem with commercial LLMs: They’re thermonuclear weapons aimed at the heart of democracy, no MechaHitler required. Welcome to the Borg! Getting into the reasons why would result in much too lengthy a post.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/business/right-wing-chatbots-gab-arya-chatgpt-gemini.html
[2] https://www.pcmag.com/news/cloudflare-perplexity-ai-acts-like-north-korean-hackers-ignores-scraping
There's one thing in Firefox that I really would like to be implemented.
On an Ubuntu desktop (or any Gnome-made I guess), you're supposed to be able to move any app window to another workspace by right-clicking on its titlebar and chose "move to the left | right workspace". For some reason, this is impossible with FF : right-click would pop a FF context menu, *not* the system one.
Which I find rather boring.
@brainwrong, Liam:
Both solutions works. But Liam's one, although sort of canonical (no pun intended... or is it?), has the inconvenience of eating some vertical space for not much other purpose. So I'll stick with the double-right-clic - a solution an old fart like me wasn't previously aware of (hey, I'm still trying to process center-clic...)
Anyway : big thanks to both!
You have to laugh that they put the customise toolbar on the next page, when you click on the settings hamburger at top right: you must first click on more tools.
The very first thing I always do with a new instance/profile is to get the bloody menu back. Which idiot thought that removing the menu was a good idea? Just coz those numpties at Google did it doesn't mean you have to copy them.
Bloody thing spammed my website something terrible. I blocked it by user agent and it came back with a slightly changed one. Blocked that, and now I'm getting spammed by a user agent that looks like a regular user only following the same behaviour. I don't want their shit in my browser, I want their heads mounted on poles along the Seine.
Icon, because why, of all the automated bullshit spewers, did they chose to align themselves with that one?
> PDF files can do this too, but you could be forgiven for not noticing, as it's an extra feature that many basic PDF viewers don't support. In his late 20-teens, this vulture spent hours a month on PDF comments, and at that time, KDE's Okular was the only Linux PDF viewer we could find that could handle them.
That used to (and to some extent still does) drive me nuts. I'm not sure, but I think that, at least in the past, there was no official standard for PDF comments, so different PDF applications/viewers implemented their own commenting mechanisms and formats - which would likely not work well (or at all) with a different viewer. The situation does seem to have approved somewhat over the years, but I still find myself regularly seeing black blobs, unclickable doodahs, glitchy formatting or... nothing at all, until I find a viewer that works (for that particular document).
Call me old Mr Literacy, but I can't see that as a confession of spyware. They say their browser does an analytics check, uses cookies, offers some sponsored links on the homepage, and that if you use search suggestions it will send those requests to your search engine of choice. "That means it's spyware" is quite a leap. If anything the built-in adblock-by-default means that without any extra configuration Vivaldi is way less spywareish than most other browsers off the shelf.
It is much more convenient to use Firefox for light editing or fill in forms than to go looking for a PDF editing app. Sure if you're on Windows and editing PDFs is something you need to do regularly and you need perfect document accuracy you're gonna buy Acrobat. That's not available on Linux.
Okular and evince installed on GNU are much more convenient that firefox's slow JS pdf viewer.
acrobat does not give perfect document accuracy - as I've seen it sabotage the output pdf to replace the pages telling the receiver to install "adobe viewer" to view the document (it turns out GNU Ghostscript could remove such sabotage).
I've also seen acrobat fail to add or edit pdf comments, meanwhile okular just worked with the same pdf.
Or even take a closer look at PaleMoon! Among several other interesting features, at least in my opinion, there is the ηMatrix-addon:
https://addons.palemoon.org/addon/ematrix/
Unfortunately though still understandably Raymond Hill had stopped the further development of μMatrix quite some time ago but PaleMoon and / or Mr. Alessio Vanni stepped right into the gap and simply delivered ...! :-) THANKS A LOT! :-)
All Chromium-based browsers will most likely share the same fate as Chrome itself regarding Manifest v.2 vs. Manifest v.3. :-( Of course Brave as well as Vivaldi do offer very interesting features but they both will most likely have to endure this massive cut of features regarding security and privacy. :-(
I really urgently do hope that You will read and hopefully understand too the comment by "Hubert Cumberdale"!
Of course I do not know how long You have been online and "watching the web" and its development. But let me assure You that in the not so long ago earlier days so-called web-designers much too often "optimised" their sites by only testing them against Microsoft's so-called "Internet Explorer" and much too often ignoring standards in HTML, CSS, JS, ..., You name it.
And then Google came and over time their new browser Chrome took over. With all consequences that might possibly have come with it ... :-( And even causing MS to retire its Internet Explorer which was a blessing a lot of people I know did not even expect any more. But in the end "we" just exchanged one "monopolist" with just another ... :-(
And it's a REAL blessing that there are still real alternatives to anything Chromium-derived (to be honest, mostly Chrome itself) like Firefox, LibreWolf, PaleMoon, Waterfox, which mostly try to adhere to and apply real standards!
Such LLM stuff seems to be proprietary software and how firefox pushes it is unacceptable - but at least they take no for an answer...for now.
>KDE's Okular was the only Linux PDF viewer we could find that could handle them.
Help -> About KDE
KDE is a world-wide community of software engineers, artists, writers, translators and creators who are committed to [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html|Free Software] development. KDE produces the Plasma desktop environment, hundreds of applications, and the many software libraries that support them.
Primary browser Tor. If Tor doesn't work then Mullvad. If Mullvad doesn't work then don't bother with the website.
VPN always on. If a website blocks VPN's I don't need to give them my eyeballs nor my business.
DuckDuckGo browser with Duck Player on for any YouTube videos.
Any suggestions welcome!
Japanese (in any of its three scripts) is NOT normally written right-to-left, rather it is usually written left-to-right in horizontal lines, just like English. Historically, it was often written in columns, top-to-bottom, and the columns were ordered right-to-left, but that's pretty uncommon now.
Scripts written right-to-left include the Hebrew script (used to write Hebrew) and Arabic script (used to write not only Arabic, but with the addition of extra characters, to write Urdu, western Punjabi, Pashto, and a number of other languages of that region. (Turkish used to be written in Arabic script, but that went away about a century ago.) Another right-to-left script is Thaana, used to write Maldivian. It's sort of based on the Arabic characters (including the digits), but is definitely not Arabic script per se. The Syriac script is also right-to-left.
I wish Chrome would start working again properly under Linux Mint. I'm sick with Firefox for now, and it's a hideous resource hog. Example: open any subreddit, open the first five threads in new tabs. Chrome does it almost instantly; Firefox can easily take a minute or two if 100% CPU to do the same.
If love to keep FF, but it's crap and now apparently it's AI infested crap. Remind me ... How much does the Mozilla CEO earn?
about:config - set all to false
browser.ml.enable
browser.ml.chat.enabled
browser.ml.chat.page
browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled
browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled
extensions.ml.enabled
sidebar.notification.badge.aichat
I've no idea what Mozilla was thinking. The last Firefox hold-outs are on Firefox because it's supposed to have an old-school philosophy. They're not going to attract new users in a million years by adding slop features, that ship has sailed, they're all on Chrome or at least on a flavour of Chrome.
