this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2025
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Mozilla under fire for Firefox AI "bloat" that blows up CPU and drains battery (www.neowin.net)
submitted 3 months ago by moe90@feddit.nl to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

The pathological need to find something to use LLMs for is so bizzare.

It’s like the opposite of classic ML, relatively tiny special purpose models trained for something critical, out of desperation, because it just can’t be done well conventionally.

But this:

AI-enhanced tab groups. Powered by a local AI model, these groups identify related tabs and suggest names for them. There is even a "Suggest more tabs for group" button that users can click to get recommendations.

Take out the word AI.

Enhanced tab groups. Powered by a local algorithm, these groups identify related tabs and suggest names for them. There is even a "Suggest more tabs for group" button that users can click to get recommendations.

If this feature took, say, a gigabyte of RAM and a bunch of CPU, it would be laughed out. But somehow it ships because it has the word AI in it? That makes no sense.

I am a massive local LLM advocate. I like “generative” ML, within reason and ethics. But this is just stupid.

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

When I'm browsing around with multiple tabs open, the last thing I want is something to start moving them around and messing my flow up. This is a solution looking for a problem.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yup

Auto naming functionality is neat in some cases, like the AI chat UI itself

  • It's convenient to have names when toggling between a few recent chats or searching through 10s or 100s of chats later on
  • I spawn new chats often and it's tedious to name them all
  • I don't have a strong preference for what the title is as long as it's clear what the chat was about

Tab groups don't hit those points at all

  • I'll have a handful of tab groups
  • I don't make them often
  • I have a strong preference for what it's called, and the AI will have trouble figuring out exactly what I'm using those sites for
[–] Godort@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The pathological need to find something to use LLMs for is so bizzare.

Venture capital dumped so much money into the tech without understanding the full scope of what it was capable of. Now they're so in so deep that they desperately NEED to find something profitable it can do, otherwise they'll lose the farm.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Firefox has little financial motivation for this, though?

Other than getting "AI" investor money, if that's the plan... But otherwise it just feels like they're following a meme.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It makes a lot more sense when you realize that the Mozilla corporation is a for profit run by the same techno-fascist aggrandizing bait-and-switch narcissists as the rest of SV.

I've been saying it for years, but I will never donate to Firefox until it is freed from the shackles of a for profit corporation that can use your donation for any profit motive it sees fit; not even related to Firefox.

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[–] Saleh@feddit.org 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I agree with you on almost everything.

It’s like the opposite of classic ML, relatively tiny special purpose models trained for something critical, out of desperation, because it just can’t be done well conventionally.

Here i disagree. ML is using high dimensional statistics. There exist many problems, which are by their nature problems of high dimensional statistics.

If you have for an example an engineering problem, it can make sense to use an ML approach, to find patterns in the relationship between input conditions and output results. Based on this patterns you have an idea, where you need to focus in the physical theory for understanding and optimizing it.

Another example for "generative AI" i have seen is creating models of hearts. So by feeding it the MRI scans of hundreds of real hearts, millions of models for probable heart shapes can be created and the interaction with medical equipment can be studied on them. This isn't a "desperate" approach. It is a smart approach.

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

even without AI, to me tab groups are already feature creep bloat in browsers. do people really put that much effort into organizing tabs?

[–] exu@feditown.com 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I like the tab groups. I use them often at work to group an issue with related tabs and my attempts at solving it. Also makes it easier to pause work on one problem and work on something else because I have the tabs grouper and know exactly where to go back.

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[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Firefox really does seem to have lost the plot... they don't seem to go five minutes without slamming their dick in another drawer. It starts to look like they're in to it.

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[–] Mika@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

TBH despite I don't like this specific idea, nor use Firefox directly, I do like the usage of local inference vs sending your data to thirdparty to do AI.

They just needed to do it OPT IN, not OPT OUT.

[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It is though.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 2 points 3 months ago (11 children)

then why the fuck is this newsworthy? ugh. Why is there such a huge hateboner for firefox lately?

[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

I really don't get it either.

It's not like it's a paid product either.

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[–] 58008@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Literally no one on this green earth asked for this shit. In fact, we've been pretty direct about how much we don't want it.

It's exhausting.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, stupid people want it and they do use it when its shoved in their face. Like how samsung updated and BLATANTLY made their peice of shit AI button TAKE OVER THR POWER BUTTON so when you try to turn off your phone little old granny gets confused that an ai agent pops up and starts recording you. Absolutely infuriating and I wish torture on whoever implemented that shit.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Like how samsung updated and BLATANTLY made their peice of shit AI button TAKE OVER THR POWER BUTTON

Was that part of OneUI 7? I'm so glad I never installed that downgrade.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

Yes, it was forced on me. I have updates disabled too. Pieces of shit.

[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Mozilla has stopped working on developing and improving their products, and is now entirely focused on adding trendy terms and garbage, to feed money to their C*Os.

[–] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

They in the last year or so added built in vertical tabs , much better hardware support for decoding video on Linux, continue to support manifest v2 and high quality ad blocking. Have increased performance and memory usage.

In the last 7 years performance is night and day different as is multiple process performance and switched away from unmaintainable old broken addon system.

They also created one of the premiere programming languages which is making in roads in the Linux kernel.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children) 
browser.ml.chat.enabled   false
[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

You only disable the chat. Overall setting seems to be browser.ml.enable.

[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 months ago

I also see an extensions.ml.enable. Anyone with actual knowledge of the source code know what those are doing?

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[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

about:config
in your address bar

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I hate how many of these you have to do on any new installation of Firefox.

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