this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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I got a copy of the text from the email, and added it below, with personal information and link trackers removed.

Hello [receiver's name],

I’ve long dreamed about working for Mozilla. I learned how to send encrypted e-mail using Mozilla Thunderbird, and I’ve been a Firefox user since almost as long as I can remember. In more recent years, I’ve been an avid follower of Mozilla’s advocacy work, and was lucky enough to partner with Mozilla on investigative journalism in my last job.

In many ways, Mozilla was the dream – and now, as the leader of the Foundation, my job is to make my dreams for Mozilla come true. What that means, though, is making your dreams come true – for a trustworthy and open future of technology; for tech that is a tool for liberation, not limitation; and for tech that values people over profit.

So I’m reaching out to technologists, activists, researchers, engineers, policy experts, and, most importantly, to you – the people who make up the Mozilla community – to ask a simple question.

[receiver's name]. What is your dream for Mozilla? I invite you to take a moment to share your thoughts by completing this brief survey.

Let’s start with this question:

Question 1: What is most important to you right now about technology and the internet?

  • Protecting my privacy online
  • Avoiding scams
  • Choosing products, apps, technology, and services that I can trust
  • Keeping children safe online
  • Responsible use of AI
  • Keeping the internet is open and free
  • Knowing how to spot misinformation
  • Other (please specify)

Take the survey now →

With your help, together we can imagine and create the Internet we want. Thank you for being a part of this.

Always yours,

Nabiha Syed Executive Director Mozilla Foundation

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[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 115 points 1 month ago (5 children)

"We've decided to focus our efforts on AI and advertising. Please tell us why you think that's a good idea!"

[–] 7dev7random7@suppo.fi 18 points 1 month ago

Well, you have the option to elaborate otherwise. Huge effort to normalize this survey.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)

There's nothing wrong with using an LLM for offline private language translation. It literally preserves privacy by not simply sending all that data to a Google translation server.

There's nothing wrong with using offline image recognition to aid in helping blind people know what's on their screen.

As for their "advertising" - you should look up what they actually did. It completely preserves privacy while at the same time not completely destroying the economic model that content creators rely on. It's a good thing. With any luck, regulators will enforce it.

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[–] Dotcom@lemmy.ml 95 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Shame their AI question didn’t have a “my biggest concerns is companies chasing the AI buzzword with no tangible benefit”

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

right? mozilla, you gotta focus on making a good web browser right now. not a more gimmicky web browser

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

I agree that's basically what I out in the text box underneath the AI multi-select options. "We don't want yet another annoying AI search feature or chatbot! We want a focus on useable features and security!"

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[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 76 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just make a better browser… you literally pioneered RUST

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 61 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I want nothing to do with AI, everything is like "I want transparency" I dont want them involved at all, pissing away money buzz words.

What do you want from mozilla? an open source privacy focused browser.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

You're free to send your data to google or deepl instead of using Firefox's included AI translate. You know, privacy, no AI in the browser, choose one.

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

An engine component separable from the UI (which was XUL and thus Firefox initial advantage that gave it popularity), deeply extensible via plugins, tunable (it would be so frigging cool to be able to turn off sections of EDIT: ... what's currently called web standards, say, drop HTML5 or JS).

What it was needed for when it was popular.

Not a Chrome alternative with a different engine.

Somehow every time I mention XUL and XULRunner people mention that one can use PaleMoon or that XUL is incompatible with some security and stability changes and so on.

I know that. I don't mean literally XUL, I mean low-level access to the engine. Allowing it to be used for things like old Conkeror and such, or just customizing Firefox as deeply as it was possible in olden days.

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[–] LPThinker@lemmy.world 46 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The fact that there's no option to express my anger over the environmental cost of AI is infuriating. There is no responsible or positive use of AI when it's accelerating the destruction of our climate.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

~~I see a textbox saying "What do you want to see from Mozilla in the future?" You could add it there, as justification for why you want them to focus less on it~~

There is a text box part way through, I included my more general thoughts there

(my comment was getting rambly)

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[–] Retiring@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The audacity to direct you to a donations page after you fill out their survey 😂

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My brother in Lemmy, how do you think they pay their engineers?

Would you rather them try and get revenue through advertising means? Because that's what it sounds like, no decision is a decision.

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[–] kinkles@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 month ago

You can submit the survey without checking any of the boxes on the AI question, just FYI.

[–] zecg@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I filled it, but there's no avenue there to express my complete disdain for AI and how shit it can make a product. Just make everything AI optional, don't make me download data for shit I'll never use.

[–] SerotoninSwells@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I did the same thing. I just want a product or service that doesn't leverage AI. Mozilla's resources are better spent improving the web.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

It's opt-in already, in fact you have to go out of your way to do it. And it's currently only used for offline, private language translation, to my knowledge.

That is a very good usecase considering the alternative is to send it to a Google translation server.

I feel like people need to actually read beyond the "Mozilla adds AI to Firefox" headlines.

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[–] solrize@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago

Embrace RFC 8890 ("The Internet is for End Users") as a guiding principle for all Mozilla client app design and for the organization as a whole:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8890.html

Specifically, delete item 9 from the Mozilla manifesto and replace it with "follow RFC 8890". That's not supposed to be an anti-business stance, but rather, a recognition that the commercial side of the internet has the resources to look after its own interests, and Mozilla should be on the user side, rather than trying to straddle both sides.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 25 points 1 month ago (9 children)

They seem to have a foregone conclusion that AI is a positive thing, rather than something that should be eradicated like smallpox or syphilis.

[–] TheBlackLounge@lemm.ee 35 points 1 month ago (12 children)

"Responsible use of AI" could mean things like providing small offline models for client-side translation. They're actually building that feature and the preview is already amazing.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Not just building it's shipping by default. That is, language detection and code that displays a popup asking you whether you want to download the actual translation model is shipping by default. About twelve megs per model, so 24 for a language pair.

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[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 4 points 1 month ago

You're going to upset a lot of chess players if you get rid of all AI.

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[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 1 month ago

gecko webview for android, better site isolation

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My dream for Mozilla is that it does not descend into a capitalist marionette full of silent information gathering and black-box AI widgets. If you're going to do AI, I want it open, like training data open. Whitepaper open. I want to be able to trust the company and it's projects and especially it's browser.

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[–] tabular@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Prolong your browser for as long as necessary and explore the possibility of using the internet without any web browsers. Firefox is a last stand of competition, and without choice there might as well not be browsers at all.

Is it wise to have such a complex everything-app with no end in sight? (more like, no end in site)

[–] drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 month ago

I asked them to support JPEGXL by default.

[–] leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl 7 points 1 month ago

good set of questions while trying to be non biased on certain topics.

for me, topics about privacy and misinformation matter more than ai. i would like them to lean more on helping me identify ai generated text and deepfakes as far as ai is concerned.

i also liked that mozilla study about smart cars so more of that is nice.

[–] aluminium@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Make and maintain the best browser. The end.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

So you got this survey in an email. Was the link intended to be shared like this? Can I find the survey link somewhere on Mozilla's own websites?

I guess I'm not totally convinced that this is an official Mozilla survey, or even if it is - I'm not sure who their target survey audience is.

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