- cross-posted to:
- technology
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- firefox
- cross-posted to:
- technology
- [email protected]
- firefox
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If AI object/scene recognition is done locally, wouldn’t it increase the memory footprint of the browser process. Also how many objects can it identify if its run on a modest 4-8 GB RAM system? One more question is would they ever introduce anonymised telemetry for these generations?
If it works anything like Firefox Translations does, the model is only downloaded on-demand, so it wouldn’t affect your browser usage if you don’t use the feature.
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The state of the art for small models is improving quite dramatically quite quickly. Microsoft just released the phi-3 model family under the MIT license, I haven’t played with them myself yet but the comments are very positive.
Alternately, just turn that feature off.
If Firefox uses even more memory it’ll bend the memory-time continuum so much it becomes a memory singularity.
The concept of memory ceases to exist at the boundary to the Firefox process. What happens beyond it is unknown, except that no matter how much memory you throw at it, none ever gets out.
It is said that, Nolan was using Firefox when he got the idea for interstellar.
to be faiiiiiiiir, the way they’re going about it is very reasonable. i’d rather have no AI but, if i had to have it, i’d rather have that than anything else.
Sugar, salt & nicety, gestalt. Such was the formula for to produce the paragon of prepubescence!
The use case they mention (generating alt text for images in PDFs) is something that couldn’t work otherwise and, even if it isn’t perfect, can be a big help to people with visual impairments, while at the same time doesn’t get in the way of the users that don’t need it.
If they keep focusing on these kinds of features instead of going fully Clippy like Google and Microsoft are doing, I think it’s fine.
honestly, you’re right. I still worry that it could encourage an attitude of abled people not caring about alt text, because “oh well AI’s gonna do it anyway, who cares!”, but, really, abled people already don’t care about alt text, so…
In the specific case of PDF most users wouldn’t even know where to add an alt text. Depending on how you generate the PDF it might even be impossible. So I think Mozilla has the same concern as you, and that’s why they aren’t adding this to images in HTML (yet).
Tab Grouping, Vertical Tabs, and our handy Sidebar will help you stay organized no matter how many tabs you have open – whether it’s 7 or 7,500.
I hate the corpo talk as usual but hope they can squeeze out a really good tab manager. Container tabs and proper adblock is the best thing Firefox has, and would be nice with a third Ace in their hand.
Could we have HDR support instead of AI? Does anyone even want all this AI stuff companies keep pushing?
For context, the part where they talk about AI:
We are approaching the use of AI in Firefox – which many, many of you have been asking about – in the same way. We’re focused on giving you AI features that solve tangible problems, respect your privacy, and give you real choice.
We’re looking at how we can use local, on-device AI models – i.e., more private – to enhance your browsing experience further. One feature we’re starting with next quarter is AI-generated alt-text for images inserted into PDFs, which makes it more accessible to visually impaired users and people with learning disabilities.
I mean, this is not “slapping an LLM on top of the software and calling it AI”, it’s integrating it into the browser in usable ways.
One usage of a local model is the local translation feature which was … kinda nice? Not having to go online to translate? Pretty cool right?
This is similar here with the alt text, seems like a force for good?
Feels like they’re fulfilling what they said in the first paragraph of the quote.
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new tab wallpapers, streamlined menus: Eh, whatever.
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vertical tabs, better settings UI: I guess it’s probably useful for someone if they do a good job.
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AI-generated alt-text for images in PDFs: Oh fuck right off.
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Customizable hotkeys: I can’t believe you’re still not doing it. Wasn’t it the number one requested thing on Mozilla Connect? Do it, Mozilla. It’s so easy, and so obviously needed. It would serve as a meaningful sign that you’ve become less user-hostile.
AI-generated alt-text for images in PDFs: Oh fuck right off.
why so negative? this is actually great for accessibility, especially when the majority of people don’t care about alt text (especially in pdfs)
Excellent example of good usercase for AI
Yeah, I was kind of taken aback by how genuinely useful this is. So much of this generative AI stuff is marketed for tasks where it is simply inadequate. But in this case, a text that’s 90% accurate is a massive improvement from there usually not being alt text at all.
True, my initial reaction was hasty. It took me a good twenty minutes to see why it was right. Mozilla should’ve spent a few more minutes thinking about it.
AI-generated alt-text for images in PDFs: Oh fuck right off.
Why is this bad?
I kind of resent having a pdf editor in my web browser at all. Putting a giant LLM-based image classifier in there seems inadvisable even if it was going to do something more useful than suggest alt text for images you add to pdfs.
Accessibility tools that can describe images, as well as pdf editing, are fine things for Mozilla to work on but they really shouldn’t be done as part of Firefox alone. Image describing has way more uses than just what’s found in the web browser, and should be a system-wide thing. There’s no point in each application having its own. Doing it only for things inserted into pdfs compounds the absurdity. If the accessibility APIs that exist can’t handle it, it’s time to propose a better one — and maybe go ahead and implement it on Linux. Solving the problem properly would be a more ambitious goal, but one that seems appropriate for an organization with the stature of Mozilla.
I kind of resent having a pdf editor in my web browser at all.
gonna assume it’s for the pdf reader, considering that’s where alt text in images is needed.
Auto-generated alt-text for all images on the web where it’s missing, and an AI that can reliably detect when it’s probably worth doing, or do it on request through some kind of api designed for accessibility tools, as an optional extension for people who need it: Now that would be more interesting.
Vertical tabs has quickly become the deal breaker feature for me personally, for any browser. I am on desktop, horizontal tabs are so senseless there in hindsight as most screens are wider than they are tall.
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So I read that line about it being things we requested and people are not requesting wallpaper stuff 😂
It’s thousands for tab grouping and less than a hundred for wallpapers. Seems like when they tried to rebrand bookmarks as collections and were determined to push them.
It has 374 thumb ups here:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/wallpaper-in-new-tab/idi-p/172
And was suggested here multiple times:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/let-s-chat-about-the-firefox-new-tab-page/m-p/7632#U7632
Thanks for the correction. Still troubling that Progressive Web Apps has five times as many votes and not a word about it.
Well, one of these is something a trainee can dish out to learn the ropes and the other isn’t…
Meh, I’m biased. I’ve never seen the point of tab wallpapers. Just seems like a waste of memory to me.
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The moment Firefox adds back tab stacking, I’ll go back to it so fast my pc won’t even finish booting
Is there a difference between tab stacking and something like tree style tabs?
Yes, completely different to me
You could make the title more compelling than “a thing we’re doing”
I kind of love that they are not click-baity.
I guess basically skipping putting anything in the title definitely falls under that description 😅
I’d really like container tabs to be a thing. It’s a UX nightmare, but I’d really like to keep social media crap at bay.
All i want is a better inbuilt android downloader .
Tab groups? Fucking finally!!
they also posted on threads that they’re working on tab grouping and native profile management too (ala edge and chrome):
Any browser which only offers an AI inclusive release, I won’t use.
If any company that produces browsers really, truly, cared about their customer base, they would offer an AI release and a non-AI release.
Edit: It’s unfortunate to see that we have reached a stage as consumers that even daring to suggest an option be provided results in such responses. Good luck to all of you when you decide you want an option when a business does something you don’t like with a product because clearly you’ll have no one interested in listening to you.
At this point, AI is pretty much any line of code that the marketing team thinks sounds smart. It’s really not a hill worth dying on.
What if the AI doesn’t activate unless you explicitly choose to do so?
If it provably disabled all functionality and features of the AI, then I would find that acceptable.
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