13 ms·

Orbit by Mozilla

498 points by blinky88 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
beretguy 2y ago
I'd rather have tab groups.
- easygenes 2y ago
  Sidebery is my go to for that. https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
  - hodanli 2y ago
    Definitely makes Firefox irreplaceable for me.
- navs 2y ago
  Looks like it's just around the corner. See previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499693
- stuartd 2y ago
  Tab groups are on by default in nightly, and though I haven’t been on the computer much this past week they seem well realised. This article suggests they can be enabled in other versions, but I only really use nightly so I haven’t tried it.. https://www.ghacks.net/2024/12/03/how-to-enable-tab-groups-in-firefox/ https://www.ghacks.net/2024/12/03/how-to-enable-tab-groups-i...
- gorbachev 2y ago
  What's wrong with the multiple Firefox addons that provide this functionality already? I'm not trying to be snarky...I'm genuinely curious. I've been using Simple Tab Groups [1] for many, many years. 1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr...
jsheard 2y ago
For those wondering, this uses cloud-hosted AI models. But it's completely free to use so Mozilla is just paying the cloud bills out of pocket. Maybe not the best idea given their increasingly precarious financial situation?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- janice1999 2y ago
  I never understood why Mozilla doesn't offer paid privacy respecting services (outside basic sync that already exists) like email, cross platform password storage etc.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Because everyone who cares about it is already using some sort of a service like that, and it’s incredibly niche market so it’s not worth the effort to develop and support such projects.
    - kelvinjps10 2y ago
      But imagine if Mozilla would have done this before, like capturing the market now proton has
  - sieabahlpark 2y ago
    It's almost like... They're owned by Google and don't really compete or something... Gee, fucking wow, it's almost as if it's plain a day why they've sucked as a corp, non profit, and culturally for a decade at this point.
  - anyfactor 2y ago
    Mozilla should have been doing what Proton is doing. But considering how far Proton has gone I wouldn't be surprised if Proton spun up their own browser at this point.
  - 2y ago
lordofgibbons 2y ago
Sounds extremely expensive. How is this paid for? Also, does anyone know if we'd be able to point it to our own LLM instance for the guarantee of our data being secure?
- JonChesterfield 2y ago
  Out of the funds that should have been used to improve Firefox of course.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
mhitza 2y ago
> How does Orbit work? > Orbit is a Firefox add on that uses AI to summarize and answer queries about web content such as articles and videos. > When a user asks Orbit to summarize or query content, Orbit gathers the context (eg. text, images, videos, etc.) of the page the user is viewing and provides a summary or answer. Orbit works on websites including Gmail, Wikipedia, NY Times, YouTube, and more. > For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. It's interesting they're going with Mistral 7B. Is anybody else using Mistral 7B in production? And in what role? I've considered using it for general knowledge type questions, and as a way to classify information, but would have never considered it for summarization type tasks due to it's limited context size (8k).
- pilotneko 2y ago
  Mistral 7B has a context window of 32k. I use it in production for medical summarization tasks supporting appeals and physician advisory services.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Why are you confident to use such a tiny model on something so critical? I would never use anything smaller than a 70B model for anything even vaguely medical related!
    - N2yhWNXQN3k9 2y ago
      Its summarisation, who cares if its right as long as you feel confident after reading it? /s. In my experience, even GPT-4o is terrible at revealing information from things longer than a few pages. It might be an issue with dimensionality reduction in general though. If you think about it, you can't really take away much of what is contained within any given amount of text with text, unless the source was produced extremely inefficiently. Producing outlines or maybe a form of abstract, it seems to be okay at, but you would never really know where it fails unless you read the entirety of the source text first to begin with. IMO, its not worth risking unless you plan to read the source anyway or its not really important.
neilv 2y ago
Huge heading: > Commitment to privacy Buried as the last sentence in a collapsed box at the bottom of the page: > For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. And why is it "...Mozilla's GCP instance", not "We quietly send all your data to Google servers, and everyone pinkie-swears that's totally privacy-respecting"?
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Any revelation that Google is siphoning data out of other companies GCP instances would be so earth-shattering I don't think it is happening.
  - rubidium 2y ago
    Dude, the number of times outright lying has been done and brushed off in a 24 hour news cycle means it’s totally what they are doing.
    - BadHumans 2y ago
      I don't know what bit of news you are talking about. Unless you are just talking about the news in general which still doesn't prove anything. Any news that Google is stealing data out of GCP is not something you could just sweep under the rug in 24 hours.
  - neilv 2y ago
    Even on the linked page, Mozilla is arguably being evasive about the fact that they're sending the data out the Internet at all. We don't know whether this is another time that Mozilla execs have sold out users, or shipped something half-baked and vulnerable. I'm not saying they're leaking the data (by agreement, or negligence), but Mozilla has mediocre credibility in recent years, and there's nothing on this page that improves that reputation. Regarding Google, for a long time, their thinking seemed to be "We're Google, so of course anything we do is privacy-respecting", not as guidance, but to justify whatever they wanted to do. Also, every time Google gets caught with their hand in the private information cookie jar, it just mints a new industry standard practice.
todotask 2y ago
Bad marketing header "AI you can trust".
ericra 2y ago
Info from the FAQ: - Currently using Mistral 7B, but ability (by Mozilla) to swap the model used to another open source at any point. - Hosted "by Mozilla" on their GCP instance. - No obvious info about what it will cost them to run this since it is free to use. - No training on user data. Like others here, I'm very curious about the cost for Mozilla to run this service. It may be less than it initially appears given the 7B model they chose. I do wish they would focus their efforts on creating a very long-term endowment to pay devs for continued Firefox development in lieu of projects like this given the tenuous situation with their Google funding. I'm not against this kind of thing in theory, but I hope it's being done in a cost-sustainable way.
- Too 2y ago
  If you scroll to the bottom of the page it appears like this is made by Fakespot, https://www.fakespot.com/our-mission https://www.fakespot.com/our-mission. They explain that they make money through ads, for their other similar product, wouldn't be far to guess that's the future strategy here as well.
shmerl 2y ago
Is Mistral AI open source?
- benatkin 2y ago
  The one they're using is under the Apache 2 license. Mistral has released Codestral under a new license, but that's not the one used here. https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ai-non-production-license-mnpl/ https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ai-non-production-license-mn...
BadHumans 2y ago
[flagged]
- raincole 2y ago
  I don't know how Mozilla even exists financially. Is it just that Google keeps them alive to avoid antitrust lawsuits against Chrome?
  - jsheard 2y ago
    Pretty much, about 85% of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google in exchange for making them the default search engine. The ongoing antitrust case against Googles search business is threatening to make that deal illegal though, so ironically the attempt to break up one Google monopoly might incidentally kill Firefox and make another Google monopoly stronger than ever.
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      Assuming donations would still be legal they have the funding structure to get around that through their foundation.
      - nickthegreek 2y ago
        They are gonna need to shed a lot of weight (like this project) in order to make donations feasible.
- anyfactor 2y ago
  In a separate comment, I mentioned how Mozilla should have been more like Proton with their cloud storage, VPN, password manager, and cloud office suite. In fact, they should have done that a decade a ago. Mozilla has been around since the late '90s and should have evolved beyond just being a browser company. They launched a VPN service when VPNs were already everywhere, and they did the same with a bookmark manager when others were already offering similar solutions. Mozilla is always catching up, never leading, and that's a common issue with many big open-source and free software companies. They often pretend to be a business that isn't heavily propped up by big tech donations. If I were leading a browser company, my focus would have been aggressively directed towards small business software. I’d create an internet and privacy-focused affordable minimal business software suite that lives within the browser — a combination of Proton and Zoho. And I’d strongly avoid building things that should be browser extensions.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Some more information from when this was launched 3 months ago on the Mozilla connect board: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-orbit-by-mozilla-a-new-ai-productivity-tool/m-p/71853 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-orbit-by-mozi...
Dalewyn 2y ago
Shit like this is why Mozilla deserves to die. They have overstayed their welcome and just drag the rest of us all down.
- sitkack 2y ago
  Firefox needs to be forked and owned by the people. I'd pay $1 a month for a browser run by the people. Management and extension options could be rolled out for government, business, education, etc. There are so many models where the browser thrives, the org that shepherds the browser thrives, and the people thrive. Firefox is like the shitty best option that camps out in its niche, it sucks but it is really hard to push out of the way.
  - askvictor 2y ago
    And who are 'the people'? It's an open source product, developed by a non-profit organisation. You want the government to release a browser? I can tell you how popular that will be...
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      >developed by a non-profit organisation. Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation >The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, >Unlike the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla open source project, ... the Mozilla Corporation is a taxable entity.
      - spencerflem 2y ago
        Right, but its board and owners that it is beholden to is the Non-Profit.
  - dralley 2y ago
    > I'd pay $1 a month for a browser run by the people. You and approximately 5 other people. Paid browsers in 2024 are not a path to mainstream success, especially if you are what Firefox is - a fully independent tech stack down to the browser engine and not a barebones reskin of Chrome. A reskin of Chrome would have very low development costs. Firefox does not.
RadiozRadioz 2y ago
I installed it and it's a giant floating popup that's permanently on your screen. You can enable the "minimal" theme in the settings to turn it into a smaller-but-still-big pill shape. It doesn't look like there's a way to hide it in a context menu, at least not one I can see. I don't fancy having a random floaty object in the way of my webpages, no thank you. Edit: It appears to go away occasionally. This UX is unclear to me.
- TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
  Yeah, I can't imagine what lunatic thought it would be a good idea to have this stupid orb floating inside the page. Heck, it would be fine if you at least had an option to move it into the toolbar where it belongs...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aabiji 2y ago
  If you pin the extension in the toolbar, there's an option to "disable" the extension. The floating popup goes away and using the extension to summarize still works.
  - dbmnt 2y ago
    Wow, that's really not intuitive, but it works. Thanks!
- 93po 2y ago
  Same complaint here, uninstalled immediately
reissbaker 2y ago
Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects? Cloud-hosting an outdated tiny LLM that you can't swap out or run locally, to do basic summarization? This just doesn't feel like an area of strategic focus that makes sense for Mozilla. GPUs are expensive, talent to do inference well is expensive, and the actual product they're shipping seems pretty marginally useful at best. If they shipped vertical tabs I'd probably switch back to Firefox. But that would require focusing on actual browser UX instead of random offshoots. What's their actual product differentiation from Chrome these days?
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  > What's their actual product differentiation from Chrome these days? Not being the progenitor and linchpin of surveillance capitalism.
  - slowmovintarget 2y ago
    That and Firefox can run a full-grown version of uBlock Origin that actually works... at least for now.
    - janfoeh 2y ago
      uBlock Matrix, not Origin, if you actually want fine-grained control.
      - minitech 2y ago
        *uMatrix is unmaintained, and uBlock Origin can do fine-grained control – it just requires the “advanced user” setting for some reason, even if you expand the panels all the way. https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/quick-guide:-popup-user-interface#the-overview-panel https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/quick-guide:-popup-us... (see “I am an advanced user!” expanding section at the bottom)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
jckahn 2y ago
This would be great if users could configure it to use a self-hosted LLM.
DeepYogurt 2y ago
Mozilla please stop.
- JBiserkov 2y ago
  mozilla.exe has crashed
Sephr 2y ago
A hosted service for this is underwhelming, especially with Chrome shipping on-device AI models and APIs that can also handle summarization.
binarysneaker 2y ago
Installing the extension enables a floating widget in the webpage. Horrible implementation. Couldn't it have been integrated into the browser better, like the Reader button?
- ripped_britches 2y ago
  That would require actual engineering effort
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mattl 2y ago
Mozilla has one job: make the standards compliant browser and work with the relevant groups to foster those standards. Everything else is a waste of time and money and energy.
drdaeman 2y ago
I guess I'm really not this extension's target audience, because somehow Mozilla managed to make me uninstall it in just a few minutes. First, they have forced telemetry. Okay, it's an early release, it's very basic information, they want to understand how they're doing - I don't like it, but I can understand it. Sets a wrong vibe, though - I had to check if it was from Microsoft and not Mozilla. ;-) Then, I figured there is no option to use locally-hosted LLMs, which can be something as minimal as simply allowing to configure custom API URL. Somehow, less and less things about Firefox are tinkerer-friendly than they used to be. That made me wonder if Mozilla used OpenAI-like API, or if they invented their own unique thing for some reason. So I went to look and according to the extension page, it's proprietary ("All Rights Reserved") and I'm too lazy to bother deminifying code from the xpi or remembering how to debug extensions. Finally, '00s have called and said they wanted their weird floating round thingy UI back, and so I had to return it to the store. (I'm kidding, I don't really mind the visual style. The real issue with that thingy was how it floats on the page. Like, why on Earth it isn't normal right-click menu option that doesn't obstruct the view until it's needed? Or a menu on that toolbar button? It's not even a paperclip to be worth it.) And then I realized I somehow missed the big "AI you can trust" header, which should've already been a huge red flag.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
  > I'm kidding, I don't really mind the visual style. The real issue with that thingy was how it floats on the page. Finally someone admits that BonziBuddy was 25 years ahead of its time.
- ajcp 2y ago
  > For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. Based on this I would assume they are using GCP Vertex AI as that's going to be WAY cheaper than rolling it all themselves and hosting the model on a GCP server instance. I would also assume they'd be using the gcloud SDK for Vertex AI/Model Garden, which I believe means they can't just provide for a different endpoint and payload shape if you had a service elsewhere. Eitherway, at the (presumed) scale they'll probably also be using GCPs API management service, so I would expect further abstraction between what the extension is sending and what the model/Vertex AI expects as a payload. This means providing that kind of "bring your own endpoint" experience would require more bespoke build-out time. BUT who knows? Maybe this is just straight up hitting the out-of-the-box GCP Vertex AI REST API directly from the extension like some hobby project.
block_dagger 2y ago
That announcement was painful to read. I had AI summarize it.
- nipperkinfeet 2y ago
  What a horrible web site. My eyes hurt. I'll need Orbit to summarize it.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Given the broader Mozilla foundation's political biases, will these assistants be censored or heavily curated? I am reminded of when Mozilla chose to ban Dissenter, a free speech plugin powered by Gab, from its store. I've never used it but I found it distasteful that a company working on a basic utility program decided to become political. I don't understand why they cannot just focus on the basics and get those right. Still waiting for proper vertical tabs.
- JaDogg 2y ago
  What is a free speech plugin? were there political discussions in these threads? If so it seems like they did the correct thing removing such political plugin right? > basic utility program decided to become political looks like they wanted to avoid it, isn't it?
quickslowdown 2y ago
God damnit, all I want is one nook of the Internet where AI isn't being foisted on me.
hu3 2y ago
Related. This is the bookmark I use to summarize websites using ChatGPT: javascript:window.open('https://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page in 100 words: '+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href),'_blank'); Basically it opens a new tab on chatgpt.com with the prompt: "summarize this page in 100 words: URL" Tested on Firefox and Chrome. Some websites block ChatGPT and can't be summarized this way. Works in incognito/anonymous mode and doesn't require a ChatGPT account. You can probably use another AI service with this idea.
- bufferoverflow 2y ago
  That only works for public pages. It can't summarize some attachment to your email, for example.
- mdaniel 2y ago
  I was surprised about the "doesn't require a ChatGPT account" part but when I tried it from an incognito window their "4o mini" gave back I cannot access external links directly. However, if you provide the text or key points from the page, I can help summarize it for you! and clicking the model selection drop-down produced "Log in to try advanced features"
  - hu3 2y ago
    interesting so it didn't work for you unfortunately. Give me 2 minutes I'll try it and screenshot the result in both browsers. edit: you're right it requires the user to be logged in to crawl websites. Somehow in my test while writing it I was logged in. My bad. So while it's handy, it's not perfect.
- simonw 2y ago
  Here's a version of that which should work for any page, whether or not they allow ChatGPT URL access: javascript:window.open('https://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page in 100 words: '+encodeURIComponent(document.body.innerText),'_blank'); I swapped window.location.href for document.body.innerText
  - 2y ago
ilaksh 2y ago
I wish they would copy this one https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api and include a few options for small self-hosted LLMs using WebGPU or some built-in accelerated AI for Firefox.
omolobo 2y ago
[dead]
tangoalpha 2y ago
Looks like there is no way i can use it without giving up on screen real estate. I'd love to have it pinned in the browser toolbar and I click it when I need it. But it wouldn't allow itself to be hidden and needs to have a floating circle taking up page real-estate. Disabled it.
- dbmnt 2y ago
  Someone provided the solution in another comment. After pinning the extension, click on it and deselect the "enabled" option (the line with the purple X). This will kill the floating orb UI but you can still click on the extension in the toolbar to use it.
amatecha 2y ago
Can I just be blunt here and ask, why the F? No one asked for this. No one wants this. We just want a good, standards-compliant browser that doesn't eat up 8gb of RAM watching a single YouTube video (something that seems to be quite a challenge, though not entirely the browser engine's fault but rather the runaway train that is "capitalistic motives dictate the browser is now an OS and needs all features thereof"))…
sitkack 2y ago
please fix firefox.
anyfactor 2y ago
The only useful (or even paid) browser-integrated AI service I can imagine using would be a browsing history-aware AI chatbot. Essentially, it would just spit out a link from my history based on the context or prompt I give. Since privacy will be a crucial factor, I can imagine building an extension that reads page contents, stores them in a database, and connects to a self-hosted LLM.
bearjaws 2y ago
I really wish I could run this against a local ollama instance.
xnx 2y ago
Google pays money to Mozilla. Mozilla creates Firefox extension powered by Google AI(?). Mozilla pays Google for cloud services(?). Is that the right flow? FAQ link is broken so I can't tell.
xnx 2y ago
I'm skeptical of a lot of Firefox side quests, but I encourage this one. Orbit could be a stepping stone to an Open Source version of Google Project Mariner. A n un-nerfed built-in AI could turn browsers into true user agents that work on your behalf.
usernomdeguerre 2y ago
I'm encouraged that they're actively exploring this and not shying away from experiments. It seems clear to me that there are areas of Mozilla[0],[1] pushing closer and closer to great local AI integrations doing the kinds of things that I, a browser user, find useful. I went to some of the articles on the hn frontpage and had questions (and followups!) that begat reasonable starting points for further learning. Hopefully they continue to iterate on this with better integration (for instance, moving to a toolbar icon instead of persistent badge on every page) and then make it ~truly privacy respecting by moving locally. [0] https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile [1] https://github.com/mozilla/translations https://github.com/mozilla/translations
sergiotapia 2y ago
such a random product. uses an old tiny model, they are paying the gcp bill, and it's to summarize content? why not use their technical expertise to built an in-browser "https://big-agi.com/ https://big-agi.com/" of sorts where users can paste in their API key and use bleeding edge models in combination with the browser's data which they could expose and manipulate as the creators of Firefox! this product seems really random and quite frankly weird.
sionisrecur 2y ago
At least it's an add-on and not built into the browser.
silisili 2y ago
Mozilla will spend any amount it takes to do anything but build a better browser.
- nophunphil 2y ago
  In my opinion, the browser has been much better since 2017/2018. Have you used it in the last few years? Complaints about Firefox aside, the Manifest V3/uBlock Origin issue should be a major concern for tech-savvy Chromium-based browser users.
  - silisili 2y ago
    I was a hardcore Firefox user for many years. Today, Chrome just blows it away. Platforms are Android and Gnome Desktop. I tried Firefox again about once a year, up until about 2022, and left disappointed again each time. Rust was important. Servo too. I'm not just hopping on the 'Mozilla blows money' train for no reason, I'm sad to see the browser languish while they blow money on things that don't matter. This doesn't matter. I use Brave now, which has a whole host of haters, some for good reason. But it blocks ads and runs circles around Firefox on every platform that I use.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      You didn't use Firefox in the last three years, and you claim that Chrome/Brave (still) blows it away. Interesting.
      - silisili 2y ago
        Fair. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 12 times or so shame on me. /s, kinda. The OP claimed it got better in 2017, and it didn't meet my standards. But I'm honest that I haven't tried it in 2 years. If some news or person came out to suggest something big changed and I should try it again, I will. Otherwise I'm just wasting time for no reason.
        2y ago
mattvr 2y ago
If you're interested in this, you might like https://nuggetize.com/ https://nuggetize.com/ which works without installing anything and with any browser.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  It looks like a nice marketing product, but nowhere it acknowledges how bad LLMs are in general for summarization, or what techniques, if any, the devs use to counteract this. (also, their dev page https://orgsoft.org/ https://orgsoft.org/ claim "NO BS", but again does not provide details, proof, not even an about page or a business address which is a red flag.
  - mattvr 2y ago
    Hey, thanks for the critique (this is my product)! Yeah, LLM summarization definitely has its challenges. We've actually spent months optimizing for this: 1. Using latest models (gpt-4o & claude-3.5) which show major improvements in quality 2. Extensive prompt engineering focused on distilling surprising insights vs. pure summarization 3. Structured output format that's easier to parse Re: transparency - you're right, we need to add more details. I'm new to this and still learning how to communicate this. Btw, it's free to use 1x/day, and here's an example: https://nuggetize.com/n/claude-shannon-wikipedia-47ca5e5b https://nuggetize.com/n/claude-shannon-wikipedia-47ca5e5b
mentalgear 2y ago
I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely uses advanced telemetry by default. Not to speak of all the other providers who are either paid or free-but-mine-your-data.
- FireInsight 2y ago
  A very similar service is https://duck.ai/ https://duck.ai/ from DDG.
  - mentalgear 2y ago
    Definitely like DuckDuckGo - I have recently moved from Google to DDG as I noticed it serves the same, and even better plus privacy-first, results. Yet what you provide is not quite the same: An AI Chat Website vs a Browser Extension (Orbit).
    - pixxel 2y ago
      When the Bing API went offline a short while back, the DDG website was a blank page. No fall back, nothing. A Bing wrapper with ‘trust us’ privacy marketing.
      - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
        How often does the Bing API go offline? Meanwhile, every single google search I carry out includes, right at the top, 'AI' generated nonsense which is sometimes wildly inaccurate. DDG never does that.
        pixxel 2y ago
        > How often does the Bing API go offline? That’s not the point. Use any search engine in a terminal to strip the shit. Welcome to Hacker News.
mentalgear 2y ago
Hopefully Mozilla will eventually come up with a local-AI in the browser model, like the one currently being explored by Google Canary called Gemini Nano (which Google of course doesn't seem to want to make available in Chromium though).
butz 2y ago
Just keep it as optional extension and that will be perfectly fine. They should make it compatible with other browsers too. Considering llamafile project, maybe there will be an option for offline assistant, where user will be able to select their preferred model?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Dilettante_ 2y ago
Finally I can gaze at my orb and browse at the same time
andhuman 2y ago
Related, I made a small extension for chrome that talks to ollama: https://github.com/tobias-varden/llama-explain-extension https://github.com/tobias-varden/llama-explain-extension
- timtom123 2y ago
  I like yours better. I can't even find the source for Mozilla's and yours does not have google analytics.
wwqrd 2y ago
How long till it gets added to https://killedbymozilla.com/ https://killedbymozilla.com/?
PeterStuer 2y ago
This is the 4th time this has been posted here.
- yabatopia 2y ago
  And it still doesn't work on on Firefox Mobile. Disappointing.
sharmi 2y ago
[dead]
breakingcups 2y ago
So, I'm reading there's a free, anonymous Mistral endpoint somewhere with the bill being footed by Mozilla.
wiseowise 2y ago
Mozilla is like that ADHD child that will do anything except to work on what made company successful in the first place - browser.
- goobert 2y ago
  This move makes sense for Firefox adoption, as Chrome has AI features built in now such as Lens
  - spzb 2y ago
    I don't want AI features in my browser. I want to browse the web with it.
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    You know what would make sense for Firefox adoption? iOS Firefox that actually works. People complain that every browser is a reskin of Safari on iOS, but somehow only Firefox, native iOS app, manages to lag worse than any webview wrapper app I've ever used.
thiht 2y ago
Such a weird domain name, why not orbit.mozilla.com? This looks like a phishing attempt
- traspler 2y ago
  Yeah, I really don‘t understand why companies on one side try everything in their power to teach people to be vigilant of phishing and then do stuff like this. Azure does it too with www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com I always feel like one of these days I will get phished if those are the domains they force me to use :(
  - thiht 2y ago
    Oof, www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com is terrible, it even looks like phishing... at this point I have to ask: are you sure it's NOT phishing? :D The fact it doesn't even work without www. feels suspicious as well
- meindnoch 2y ago
  When your organization is so broken that it's easier to buy a separate domain for your team, than to go through the process of putting it under the main company domain.
sunshine-o 2y ago
Interesting product, very relevant in our time and age. My guess is this could be useful to many "knowledge workers" who constantly have to crawl, translate and find the meaning of the sugar coated landfill that has become most of the web. We are right in the middle of the Tower of Babel story. Seriously if it works reasonably well on legal fine prints I am in.
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
Am I the only person who isn't hugely interested in summarizing emails? I don't want emails summarized because that bypasses a tell-tale sign that said email isn't worth reading in the first place.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  I kinda want to run some of our CEOs emails through summarizing, because I feel that there's a very real chance that I'll just get a black page back. Other than that, I'm with you. The need for summarizing is a symptom of our increasingly poor communication and degrading writing skills. That, and SEO optimization which attempts to hit as many keywords as possible. We're heading in a direction where people will use LLMs to pad their writing, so it will appear more substantial then it actually is. The receiver will then parse it though another LLM, because the writing has now become to convoluted, or they simply don't have the time for a ten page essay (in which case the none padded draft would have sufficed). Admittedly I have found a few useful cases for LLMs, mostly related to text parsing and information extraction, which can be seen as summarizing I suppose, but mostly I have a pretty negative view of LLMs. Part of it may be me getting older and not fully understanding how they work, partly it's also their deployment in areas where I believe communication should be human to human.
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    [Obligatory cartoon](https://marketoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/230327.n.aiwritten-768x402.jpg https://marketoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/230327.n...).
  - dingaling 2y ago
    > The need for summarizing is a > symptom of our increasingly > poor communication and degrading > writing skills. Whilst I agree there is a societal decline, there has also always been a corporate tendency towards verbosity and opaqueness. The old rule from the days of memos still seems to apply: ignore first paragraph, get positive / negative gist from second, learn about the impact in the third, ignore remainder.
- 2y ago
nullc 2y ago
Just seeing the title as announcing some new mozilla service my first thought was "What personal data does this new mozilla feature send to cloudflare?" -- turns out the answer was emails and documents but to their own google cloud accounts rather than cloudflare. Of course, no option to use a local model even though the one they're using is small enough that its perfectly reasonable to use locally. Even on a cell phone.
deleted 2y ago
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ph1lw 2y ago
Unfortunately no BYOLLM. Brave supports bringing your own LLM e.g. through Ollama Besides that I'm using AI Summary Helper plugin for Chromium-based browsers https://philffm.github.io/ai-summary-helper/ https://philffm.github.io/ai-summary-helper/ which also allows using Ollama (or OpenAI / Mistral), asking questions to articles and inserting summaries right into the DOM (which is perfect for hoarding articles / forwarding them to Kindle)
- JFingleton 2y ago
  > Brave supports bringing your own LLM e.g. through Ollama It's a shame Brave is so far ahead of the game but no one seems to notice.
  - kbelder 2y ago
    I run Brave at home and a local LLM on the same machine, and didn't know this. I guess I'll be playing around this weekend.
- lhl 2y ago
  Sort of funny for the lack of local options considering that Mozilla funds llamafile even. Hopefully they allow some API integration, if they are using standard OpenAI API calls, it should be easy to enable swapping the endpoint. Also, while it's nice to have a service option for those without any spare compute, I think it's a bit of a shame on the model considering how even at the 7B class, models like Llama 3.1 8B, Qwen 2.5 8B or Tulu 3 8B, Falcon 3 7B, all clearly outclass Mistral 7B (Mistral 7B is also very bad at multilingual, and is particularly inefficient at multilingual tokenization). The current best fully open weights (Apache 2.0 or similar) small models currently are probably: OLMo 2 7B, Qwen 2.5 7B, Granite 3.1 8B, and Mistral Nemo Instruct (12B) There's been a recent launch of a "GPU-Poor" Chat Arena for those interested in scoping out some of the smaller models (not a lot of ratings so very noisy, take it with a grain of salt): https://huggingface.co/spaces/k-mktr/gpu-poor-llm-arena https://huggingface.co/spaces/k-mktr/gpu-poor-llm-arena
serbuvlad 2y ago
I use Librewolf (based on Firefox), but about once a year I open Chrome for some shitty website that only works on Chrome. And I use Chrome for a few minutes. It shocks me every time just how fast Chrome is. It is legitimately a superb piece of software. Going to Librewolf after feels like going back ten years in hardware. Can we please start spending some money to make Firefox better? Instead of whatever Mozilla is currently doing? Firefox Quantum was great. But why stop? Just keep doing that! It's the only thing you should be doing!
- Qem 2y ago
  Same number of tabs open and add-ons installed on each?
  - serbuvlad 2y ago
    Damn. Thanks a lot for the comment. uBlock Origin on both (wouldn't browse the web without it). Vimium and Dark Reader on Librewolf. But turning Dark Reader off does speed it up by _a lot_. Chrome still seems faster but now they're both playing in the same league. Never thought about it.
roter 2y ago
When running Orbit on the comments in this page: > The Orbit add-on by Mozilla is a new AI-powered tool that summarizes and answers queries about web content, including articles and videos. It uses a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted on Mozilla's GCP instance. The add-on is free to use and works on various websites, including Gmail, Wikipedia, NY Times, YouTube, and more. However, some users have raised concerns about the size of the model and its privacy implications, as well as the fact that it requires an internet connection to function. Additionally, some users have suggested that Mozilla should focus on improving the browser itself rather than developing new add-ons.
usr1106 2y ago
In the same area of privacy-aware AI there is Jolla Mind2. It's your own computer, so probably even more trustworthy than Orbit by Mozilla? I have not studied either product in depth, so I am unable to comment on commonalities or differences. Jolla has a mixed track record: They supported some phones over 10 years with decently working software (typing on one of those). They also failed at least once to deliver a crowd-sourced tablet to most of the backers. Not a risk-free choice, but at least someone trying to do the right thing.
i_love_retros 2y ago
Why so much hate for Firefox in these comments? What's a better browser that isn't basically advertising spyware (i.e. chrome, edge) ?
- pluto_modadic 2y ago
  I think someone put it best: make your competitor depend on your evil thing (in this case, google donates to firefox/mozilla and makes deals about default search). In addition, people intentionally go to firefox because it /isn't/ chrome, but that only works SO LONG AS they don't copy everything google does (e.g. opt-out ads in the browser, AI, etc)
- akimbostrawman 2y ago
  >What's a better browser Not Firefox but forks based on it such as Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser or LibreWolf. https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/
stiltzkin 2y ago
[dead]
legacynl 2y ago
I think Mozilla is doing a great job. I really don't get the comments that they should not focus on anything else than the current browser. If other browsers start adding llms, I bet those same people will start complaining that Firefox is outdated compared to those browsers in about a year.
zaep 2y ago
There is a (to me very surprising) typo in the section 'Focus on what matters.' where the AI summary states "... 11 out off[sic] 100 products ..." I don't think I've ever encountered a typo in any of the LLM output I've seen, seems like the exact sort of thing an LLM would be more or less perfect at. Am I wrong to take this as an indication that this text is actually written by a human as a concise marketing example?
mort96 2y ago
I have to ask: why, exactly, does it make sense for Mozilla to invest heavily into running expensive servers to run vanity chat bots for people? What's the path here to something which improves their financial situation or browser market share? How isn't this just yet another random service they'll throw money into for a couple of years before shutting down?
- j45 2y ago
  Because Firefox has to do things to try and grow itself along with their mission. If they aren’t trying things, they would also then be accused of languishing in obscurity. AI being built into browsers isn’t new. Summarization isn’t novel. It’s not early in the game where resources are crazy high. Summarization could run with a basic low powered model privately hosted. Market share changes based on what browsers do well.
  - binkHN 2y ago
    > If they aren’t trying things, they would also then be accused of languishing in obscurity. They are languishing into obscurity not because they aren't trying things, but because their browser functionality is languishing behind the others.
    - j45 2y ago
      Firefox doesn’t have a profit model to sell ads or user browsing behaviour like other browsers as far as I know. I appreciate the languishing comment, at the same time Firefox has features that seem to be a little unique to it out of the box. Spaces comes to mind. Getting really good at one thing might be beneficial. Ai summarization seems to be more and more common in a browser. Maybe they’ll add it as a local feature once a model can comfortably run.
  - likeabatterycar 2y ago
    A car with square wheels doesn't grow itself by adding three horns and a bubble dome...
andypants 2y ago
It feels very resistant to doing anything other than summarizing. Even when you ask questions for details, the answer is always in the form of a simple summary.
freediver 2y ago
From a product standpoint, I am curious if sidebar is the right way to integrate AI features in the browser? Did anyone see any better integrated solutions?
dankobgd 2y ago
Stopped reading after "AI you can trust"
ssivark 2y ago
I don't understand all the pessimism. - It's clear from user share graphs that Firefox as just a browser is tending towards irrelevance. No amount of "improving the browser" is going to solve the problem. - More fundamentally, the browser is just one portal to the internet / world wide web. With technology outside the browser getting increasingly sophisticated, Mozilla necessarily needs to expand their mandate beyond Firefox in order to serve user needs and influence the landscape. Otherwise we might easily end up in a future where the browser becomes irrelevant and everybody interacts with proprietary large models. - As far as innovation in browser features goes, this seems like a breath of fresh air. Internet users at large deserve access to AI services in a secure and privacy-friendly, and as a pillar of the free web Mozilla is well-placed as a distribution channel to serve these needs. Therefore, this seems like a very good stepping stone / experiment for Mozilla. There will be execution challenges that need to be figured out. AFAIK Mozilla doesn't have the talent+budget for training large AI models, or even for doing intensive product research. So they're going to have to team up with some other AI expertise -- either explicitly or implicitly, by depending on open source models. Regardless, IMHO this is a risk they have to take and figure it out as they go along.
pyaamb 2y ago
I wonder of this or something like it can be extended to "unclickbait" videos/article titles by spawning a background crawler that reads the article / watches the video and comes back with a resolution to the curiosity bait they used to get you to click. Would save countless hours and make the web less shitty IMO. Plenty of examples available just scrolling through youtube for training data.
meindnoch 2y ago
Mozilla will do anything but work on their browser.
tonymet 2y ago
Funny how “orbit summary” of the Long Board Email is still vacuous
poppafuze 2y ago
The opening paragraphs are nauseatingly written by AI. Who uses 'delve' all the time? AI, that's who.
andro_dev 2y ago
Mozilla first needs to regain the trust of its users. They aren't privacy-first at all, they run a lot of telemetry on their users. Have you ever checked the number of DNS queries and IP requests that go to Firefox servers every minute? If you haven't, I have, and it is a lot. They literally ping home every minute in the name of network connectivity and other things, if you believe it. I don't mind using Mozilla products, but I just don't trust their motives and data practices. If you want privacy first AI in the browser here are the tools https://ollama.com https://ollama.com https://github.com/n4ze3m/page-assist https://github.com/n4ze3m/page-assist
timtom123 2y ago
Where is the source code for the extension itself?
jamieplex 2y ago
I REALLY liked the part about preparing cakes with AI... Makin' me hungry just thinking about it.

Orbit by Mozilla

498 points by blinky88 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

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beretguy 2y ago

I'd rather have tab groups.

easygenes 2y ago
Sidebery is my go to for that. https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
- hodanli 2y ago
  Definitely makes Firefox irreplaceable for me.
navs 2y ago
Looks like it's just around the corner. See previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42499693
stuartd 2y ago
Tab groups are on by default in nightly, and though I haven’t been on the computer much this past week they seem well realised. This article suggests they can be enabled in other versions, but I only really use nightly so I haven’t tried it.. https://www.ghacks.net/2024/12/03/how-to-enable-tab-groups-in-firefox/ https://www.ghacks.net/2024/12/03/how-to-enable-tab-groups-i...
gorbachev 2y ago
What's wrong with the multiple Firefox addons that provide this functionality already? I'm not trying to be snarky...I'm genuinely curious. I've been using Simple Tab Groups [1] for many, many years. 1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr...

jsheard 2y ago

For those wondering, this uses cloud-hosted AI models. But it's completely free to use so Mozilla is just paying the cloud bills out of pocket. Maybe not the best idea given their increasingly precarious financial situation?

deleted 2y ago
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janice1999 2y ago
I never understood why Mozilla doesn't offer paid privacy respecting services (outside basic sync that already exists) like email, cross platform password storage etc.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  Because everyone who cares about it is already using some sort of a service like that, and it’s incredibly niche market so it’s not worth the effort to develop and support such projects.
  - kelvinjps10 2y ago
    But imagine if Mozilla would have done this before, like capturing the market now proton has
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  It's almost like... They're owned by Google and don't really compete or something... Gee, fucking wow, it's almost as if it's plain a day why they've sucked as a corp, non profit, and culturally for a decade at this point.
- anyfactor 2y ago
  Mozilla should have been doing what Proton is doing. But considering how far Proton has gone I wouldn't be surprised if Proton spun up their own browser at this point.
- 2y ago

lordofgibbons 2y ago

Sounds extremely expensive. How is this paid for? Also, does anyone know if we'd be able to point it to our own LLM instance for the guarantee of our data being secure?

JonChesterfield 2y ago
Out of the funds that should have been used to improve Firefox of course.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

mhitza 2y ago

> How does Orbit work? > Orbit is a Firefox add on that uses AI to summarize and answer queries about web content such as articles and videos. > When a user asks Orbit to summarize or query content, Orbit gathers the context (eg. text, images, videos, etc.) of the page the user is viewing and provides a summary or answer. Orbit works on websites including Gmail, Wikipedia, NY Times, YouTube, and more. > For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. It's interesting they're going with Mistral 7B. Is anybody else using Mistral 7B in production? And in what role? I've considered using it for general knowledge type questions, and as a way to classify information, but would have never considered it for summarization type tasks due to it's limited context size (8k).

pilotneko 2y ago
Mistral 7B has a context window of 32k. I use it in production for medical summarization tasks supporting appeals and physician advisory services.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Why are you confident to use such a tiny model on something so critical? I would never use anything smaller than a 70B model for anything even vaguely medical related!
  - N2yhWNXQN3k9 2y ago
    Its summarisation, who cares if its right as long as you feel confident after reading it? /s. In my experience, even GPT-4o is terrible at revealing information from things longer than a few pages. It might be an issue with dimensionality reduction in general though. If you think about it, you can't really take away much of what is contained within any given amount of text with text, unless the source was produced extremely inefficiently. Producing outlines or maybe a form of abstract, it seems to be okay at, but you would never really know where it fails unless you read the entirety of the source text first to begin with. IMO, its not worth risking unless you plan to read the source anyway or its not really important.

neilv 2y ago

Huge heading: > Commitment to privacy Buried as the last sentence in a collapsed box at the bottom of the page: > For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. And why is it "...Mozilla's GCP instance", not "We quietly send all your data to Google servers, and everyone pinkie-swears that's totally privacy-respecting"?

BadHumans 2y ago
Any revelation that Google is siphoning data out of other companies GCP instances would be so earth-shattering I don't think it is happening.
- rubidium 2y ago
  Dude, the number of times outright lying has been done and brushed off in a 24 hour news cycle means it’s totally what they are doing.
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    I don't know what bit of news you are talking about. Unless you are just talking about the news in general which still doesn't prove anything. Any news that Google is stealing data out of GCP is not something you could just sweep under the rug in 24 hours.
- neilv 2y ago
  Even on the linked page, Mozilla is arguably being evasive about the fact that they're sending the data out the Internet at all. We don't know whether this is another time that Mozilla execs have sold out users, or shipped something half-baked and vulnerable. I'm not saying they're leaking the data (by agreement, or negligence), but Mozilla has mediocre credibility in recent years, and there's nothing on this page that improves that reputation. Regarding Google, for a long time, their thinking seemed to be "We're Google, so of course anything we do is privacy-respecting", not as guidance, but to justify whatever they wanted to do. Also, every time Google gets caught with their hand in the private information cookie jar, it just mints a new industry standard practice.

todotask 2y ago

Bad marketing header "AI you can trust".

ericra 2y ago

Info from the FAQ: - Currently using Mistral 7B, but ability (by Mozilla) to swap the model used to another open source at any point. - Hosted "by Mozilla" on their GCP instance. - No obvious info about what it will cost them to run this since it is free to use. - No training on user data. Like others here, I'm very curious about the cost for Mozilla to run this service. It may be less than it initially appears given the 7B model they chose. I do wish they would focus their efforts on creating a very long-term endowment to pay devs for continued Firefox development in lieu of projects like this given the tenuous situation with their Google funding. I'm not against this kind of thing in theory, but I hope it's being done in a cost-sustainable way.

Too 2y ago
If you scroll to the bottom of the page it appears like this is made by Fakespot, https://www.fakespot.com/our-mission https://www.fakespot.com/our-mission. They explain that they make money through ads, for their other similar product, wouldn't be far to guess that's the future strategy here as well.

shmerl 2y ago

Is Mistral AI open source?

benatkin 2y ago
The one they're using is under the Apache 2 license. Mistral has released Codestral under a new license, but that's not the one used here. https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ai-non-production-license-mnpl/ https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ai-non-production-license-mn...

BadHumans 2y ago

[flagged]

raincole 2y ago
I don't know how Mozilla even exists financially. Is it just that Google keeps them alive to avoid antitrust lawsuits against Chrome?
- jsheard 2y ago
  Pretty much, about 85% of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google in exchange for making them the default search engine. The ongoing antitrust case against Googles search business is threatening to make that deal illegal though, so ironically the attempt to break up one Google monopoly might incidentally kill Firefox and make another Google monopoly stronger than ever.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    Assuming donations would still be legal they have the funding structure to get around that through their foundation.
    - nickthegreek 2y ago
      They are gonna need to shed a lot of weight (like this project) in order to make donations feasible.
anyfactor 2y ago
In a separate comment, I mentioned how Mozilla should have been more like Proton with their cloud storage, VPN, password manager, and cloud office suite. In fact, they should have done that a decade a ago. Mozilla has been around since the late '90s and should have evolved beyond just being a browser company. They launched a VPN service when VPNs were already everywhere, and they did the same with a bookmark manager when others were already offering similar solutions. Mozilla is always catching up, never leading, and that's a common issue with many big open-source and free software companies. They often pretend to be a business that isn't heavily propped up by big tech donations. If I were leading a browser company, my focus would have been aggressively directed towards small business software. I’d create an internet and privacy-focused affordable minimal business software suite that lives within the browser — a combination of Proton and Zoho. And I’d strongly avoid building things that should be browser extensions.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Some more information from when this was launched 3 months ago on the Mozilla connect board: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-orbit-by-mozilla-a-new-ai-productivity-tool/m-p/71853 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/try-orbit-by-mozi...

Dalewyn 2y ago

Shit like this is why Mozilla deserves to die. They have overstayed their welcome and just drag the rest of us all down.

sitkack 2y ago
Firefox needs to be forked and owned by the people. I'd pay $1 a month for a browser run by the people. Management and extension options could be rolled out for government, business, education, etc. There are so many models where the browser thrives, the org that shepherds the browser thrives, and the people thrive. Firefox is like the shitty best option that camps out in its niche, it sucks but it is really hard to push out of the way.
- askvictor 2y ago
  And who are 'the people'? It's an open source product, developed by a non-profit organisation. You want the government to release a browser? I can tell you how popular that will be...
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >developed by a non-profit organisation. Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation >The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, >Unlike the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla open source project, ... the Mozilla Corporation is a taxable entity.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      Right, but its board and owners that it is beholden to is the Non-Profit.
- dralley 2y ago
  > I'd pay $1 a month for a browser run by the people. You and approximately 5 other people. Paid browsers in 2024 are not a path to mainstream success, especially if you are what Firefox is - a fully independent tech stack down to the browser engine and not a barebones reskin of Chrome. A reskin of Chrome would have very low development costs. Firefox does not.

RadiozRadioz 2y ago

I installed it and it's a giant floating popup that's permanently on your screen. You can enable the "minimal" theme in the settings to turn it into a smaller-but-still-big pill shape. It doesn't look like there's a way to hide it in a context menu, at least not one I can see. I don't fancy having a random floaty object in the way of my webpages, no thank you. Edit: It appears to go away occasionally. This UX is unclear to me.

TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
Yeah, I can't imagine what lunatic thought it would be a good idea to have this stupid orb floating inside the page. Heck, it would be fine if you at least had an option to move it into the toolbar where it belongs...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aabiji 2y ago
If you pin the extension in the toolbar, there's an option to "disable" the extension. The floating popup goes away and using the extension to summarize still works.
- dbmnt 2y ago
  Wow, that's really not intuitive, but it works. Thanks!
93po 2y ago
Same complaint here, uninstalled immediately

reissbaker 2y ago

Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects? Cloud-hosting an outdated tiny LLM that you can't swap out or run locally, to do basic summarization? This just doesn't feel like an area of strategic focus that makes sense for Mozilla. GPUs are expensive, talent to do inference well is expensive, and the actual product they're shipping seems pretty marginally useful at best. If they shipped vertical tabs I'd probably switch back to Firefox. But that would require focusing on actual browser UX instead of random offshoots. What's their actual product differentiation from Chrome these days?

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
> What's their actual product differentiation from Chrome these days? Not being the progenitor and linchpin of surveillance capitalism.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  That and Firefox can run a full-grown version of uBlock Origin that actually works... at least for now.
  - janfoeh 2y ago
    uBlock Matrix, not Origin, if you actually want fine-grained control.
    - minitech 2y ago
      *uMatrix is unmaintained, and uBlock Origin can do fine-grained control – it just requires the “advanced user” setting for some reason, even if you expand the panels all the way. https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/quick-guide:-popup-user-interface#the-overview-panel https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/quick-guide:-popup-us... (see “I am an advanced user!” expanding section at the bottom)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

jckahn 2y ago

This would be great if users could configure it to use a self-hosted LLM.

DeepYogurt 2y ago

Mozilla please stop.

JBiserkov 2y ago
mozilla.exe has crashed

Sephr 2y ago

A hosted service for this is underwhelming, especially with Chrome shipping on-device AI models and APIs that can also handle summarization.

binarysneaker 2y ago

Installing the extension enables a floating widget in the webpage. Horrible implementation. Couldn't it have been integrated into the browser better, like the Reader button?

ripped_britches 2y ago
That would require actual engineering effort

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mattl 2y ago

Mozilla has one job: make the standards compliant browser and work with the relevant groups to foster those standards. Everything else is a waste of time and money and energy.

drdaeman 2y ago

I guess I'm really not this extension's target audience, because somehow Mozilla managed to make me uninstall it in just a few minutes. First, they have forced telemetry. Okay, it's an early release, it's very basic information, they want to understand how they're doing - I don't like it, but I can understand it. Sets a wrong vibe, though - I had to check if it was from Microsoft and not Mozilla. ;-) Then, I figured there is no option to use locally-hosted LLMs, which can be something as minimal as simply allowing to configure custom API URL. Somehow, less and less things about Firefox are tinkerer-friendly than they used to be. That made me wonder if Mozilla used OpenAI-like API, or if they invented their own unique thing for some reason. So I went to look and according to the extension page, it's proprietary ("All Rights Reserved") and I'm too lazy to bother deminifying code from the xpi or remembering how to debug extensions. Finally, '00s have called and said they wanted their weird floating round thingy UI back, and so I had to return it to the store. (I'm kidding, I don't really mind the visual style. The real issue with that thingy was how it floats on the page. Like, why on Earth it isn't normal right-click menu option that doesn't obstruct the view until it's needed? Or a menu on that toolbar button? It's not even a paperclip to be worth it.) And then I realized I somehow missed the big "AI you can trust" header, which should've already been a huge red flag.

likeabatterycar 2y ago
> I'm kidding, I don't really mind the visual style. The real issue with that thingy was how it floats on the page. Finally someone admits that BonziBuddy was 25 years ahead of its time.
ajcp 2y ago
> For the current version, we are using a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted within Mozilla’s GCP instance. Based on this I would assume they are using GCP Vertex AI as that's going to be WAY cheaper than rolling it all themselves and hosting the model on a GCP server instance. I would also assume they'd be using the gcloud SDK for Vertex AI/Model Garden, which I believe means they can't just provide for a different endpoint and payload shape if you had a service elsewhere. Eitherway, at the (presumed) scale they'll probably also be using GCPs API management service, so I would expect further abstraction between what the extension is sending and what the model/Vertex AI expects as a payload. This means providing that kind of "bring your own endpoint" experience would require more bespoke build-out time. BUT who knows? Maybe this is just straight up hitting the out-of-the-box GCP Vertex AI REST API directly from the extension like some hobby project.

block_dagger 2y ago

That announcement was painful to read. I had AI summarize it.

nipperkinfeet 2y ago
What a horrible web site. My eyes hurt. I'll need Orbit to summarize it.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Given the broader Mozilla foundation's political biases, will these assistants be censored or heavily curated? I am reminded of when Mozilla chose to ban Dissenter, a free speech plugin powered by Gab, from its store. I've never used it but I found it distasteful that a company working on a basic utility program decided to become political. I don't understand why they cannot just focus on the basics and get those right. Still waiting for proper vertical tabs.

JaDogg 2y ago
What is a free speech plugin? were there political discussions in these threads? If so it seems like they did the correct thing removing such political plugin right? > basic utility program decided to become political looks like they wanted to avoid it, isn't it?

quickslowdown 2y ago

God damnit, all I want is one nook of the Internet where AI isn't being foisted on me.

hu3 2y ago

Related. This is the bookmark I use to summarize websites using ChatGPT: javascript:window.open('https://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page in 100 words: '+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href),'_blank'); Basically it opens a new tab on chatgpt.com with the prompt: "summarize this page in 100 words: URL" Tested on Firefox and Chrome. Some websites block ChatGPT and can't be summarized this way. Works in incognito/anonymous mode and doesn't require a ChatGPT account. You can probably use another AI service with this idea.

bufferoverflow 2y ago
That only works for public pages. It can't summarize some attachment to your email, for example.
mdaniel 2y ago
I was surprised about the "doesn't require a ChatGPT account" part but when I tried it from an incognito window their "4o mini" gave back I cannot access external links directly. However, if you provide the text or key points from the page, I can help summarize it for you! and clicking the model selection drop-down produced "Log in to try advanced features"
- hu3 2y ago
  interesting so it didn't work for you unfortunately. Give me 2 minutes I'll try it and screenshot the result in both browsers. edit: you're right it requires the user to be logged in to crawl websites. Somehow in my test while writing it I was logged in. My bad. So while it's handy, it's not perfect.
simonw 2y ago
Here's a version of that which should work for any page, whether or not they allow ChatGPT URL access: javascript:window.open('https://chatgpt.com/?q=summarize this page in 100 words: '+encodeURIComponent(document.body.innerText),'_blank'); I swapped window.location.href for document.body.innerText
- 2y ago

ilaksh 2y ago

I wish they would copy this one https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api and include a few options for small self-hosted LLMs using WebGPU or some built-in accelerated AI for Firefox.

omolobo 2y ago

[dead]

tangoalpha 2y ago

Looks like there is no way i can use it without giving up on screen real estate. I'd love to have it pinned in the browser toolbar and I click it when I need it. But it wouldn't allow itself to be hidden and needs to have a floating circle taking up page real-estate. Disabled it.

dbmnt 2y ago
Someone provided the solution in another comment. After pinning the extension, click on it and deselect the "enabled" option (the line with the purple X). This will kill the floating orb UI but you can still click on the extension in the toolbar to use it.

amatecha 2y ago

Can I just be blunt here and ask, why the F? No one asked for this. No one wants this. We just want a good, standards-compliant browser that doesn't eat up 8gb of RAM watching a single YouTube video (something that seems to be quite a challenge, though not entirely the browser engine's fault but rather the runaway train that is "capitalistic motives dictate the browser is now an OS and needs all features thereof"))…

sitkack 2y ago

please fix firefox.

anyfactor 2y ago

The only useful (or even paid) browser-integrated AI service I can imagine using would be a browsing history-aware AI chatbot. Essentially, it would just spit out a link from my history based on the context or prompt I give. Since privacy will be a crucial factor, I can imagine building an extension that reads page contents, stores them in a database, and connects to a self-hosted LLM.

bearjaws 2y ago

I really wish I could run this against a local ollama instance.

xnx 2y ago

Google pays money to Mozilla. Mozilla creates Firefox extension powered by Google AI(?). Mozilla pays Google for cloud services(?). Is that the right flow? FAQ link is broken so I can't tell.

xnx 2y ago

I'm skeptical of a lot of Firefox side quests, but I encourage this one. Orbit could be a stepping stone to an Open Source version of Google Project Mariner. A n un-nerfed built-in AI could turn browsers into true user agents that work on your behalf.

usernomdeguerre 2y ago

I'm encouraged that they're actively exploring this and not shying away from experiments. It seems clear to me that there are areas of Mozilla[0],[1] pushing closer and closer to great local AI integrations doing the kinds of things that I, a browser user, find useful. I went to some of the articles on the hn frontpage and had questions (and followups!) that begat reasonable starting points for further learning. Hopefully they continue to iterate on this with better integration (for instance, moving to a toolbar icon instead of persistent badge on every page) and then make it ~truly privacy respecting by moving locally. [0] https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile [1] https://github.com/mozilla/translations https://github.com/mozilla/translations

sergiotapia 2y ago

such a random product. uses an old tiny model, they are paying the gcp bill, and it's to summarize content? why not use their technical expertise to built an in-browser "https://big-agi.com/ https://big-agi.com/" of sorts where users can paste in their API key and use bleeding edge models in combination with the browser's data which they could expose and manipulate as the creators of Firefox! this product seems really random and quite frankly weird.

sionisrecur 2y ago

At least it's an add-on and not built into the browser.

silisili 2y ago

Mozilla will spend any amount it takes to do anything but build a better browser.

nophunphil 2y ago
In my opinion, the browser has been much better since 2017/2018. Have you used it in the last few years? Complaints about Firefox aside, the Manifest V3/uBlock Origin issue should be a major concern for tech-savvy Chromium-based browser users.
- silisili 2y ago
  I was a hardcore Firefox user for many years. Today, Chrome just blows it away. Platforms are Android and Gnome Desktop. I tried Firefox again about once a year, up until about 2022, and left disappointed again each time. Rust was important. Servo too. I'm not just hopping on the 'Mozilla blows money' train for no reason, I'm sad to see the browser languish while they blow money on things that don't matter. This doesn't matter. I use Brave now, which has a whole host of haters, some for good reason. But it blocks ads and runs circles around Firefox on every platform that I use.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    You didn't use Firefox in the last three years, and you claim that Chrome/Brave (still) blows it away. Interesting.
    - silisili 2y ago
      Fair. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 12 times or so shame on me. /s, kinda. The OP claimed it got better in 2017, and it didn't meet my standards. But I'm honest that I haven't tried it in 2 years. If some news or person came out to suggest something big changed and I should try it again, I will. Otherwise I'm just wasting time for no reason.
      - 2y ago

mattvr 2y ago

If you're interested in this, you might like https://nuggetize.com/ https://nuggetize.com/ which works without installing anything and with any browser.

mentalgear 2y ago
It looks like a nice marketing product, but nowhere it acknowledges how bad LLMs are in general for summarization, or what techniques, if any, the devs use to counteract this. (also, their dev page https://orgsoft.org/ https://orgsoft.org/ claim "NO BS", but again does not provide details, proof, not even an about page or a business address which is a red flag.
- mattvr 2y ago
  Hey, thanks for the critique (this is my product)! Yeah, LLM summarization definitely has its challenges. We've actually spent months optimizing for this: 1. Using latest models (gpt-4o & claude-3.5) which show major improvements in quality 2. Extensive prompt engineering focused on distilling surprising insights vs. pure summarization 3. Structured output format that's easier to parse Re: transparency - you're right, we need to add more details. I'm new to this and still learning how to communicate this. Btw, it's free to use 1x/day, and here's an example: https://nuggetize.com/n/claude-shannon-wikipedia-47ca5e5b https://nuggetize.com/n/claude-shannon-wikipedia-47ca5e5b

mentalgear 2y ago

I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely uses advanced telemetry by default. Not to speak of all the other providers who are either paid or free-but-mine-your-data.

FireInsight 2y ago
A very similar service is https://duck.ai/ https://duck.ai/ from DDG.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  Definitely like DuckDuckGo - I have recently moved from Google to DDG as I noticed it serves the same, and even better plus privacy-first, results. Yet what you provide is not quite the same: An AI Chat Website vs a Browser Extension (Orbit).
  - pixxel 2y ago
    When the Bing API went offline a short while back, the DDG website was a blank page. No fall back, nothing. A Bing wrapper with ‘trust us’ privacy marketing.
    - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
      How often does the Bing API go offline? Meanwhile, every single google search I carry out includes, right at the top, 'AI' generated nonsense which is sometimes wildly inaccurate. DDG never does that.
      - pixxel 2y ago
        > How often does the Bing API go offline? That’s not the point. Use any search engine in a terminal to strip the shit. Welcome to Hacker News.

mentalgear 2y ago

Hopefully Mozilla will eventually come up with a local-AI in the browser model, like the one currently being explored by Google Canary called Gemini Nano (which Google of course doesn't seem to want to make available in Chromium though).

butz 2y ago

Just keep it as optional extension and that will be perfectly fine. They should make it compatible with other browsers too. Considering llamafile project, maybe there will be an option for offline assistant, where user will be able to select their preferred model?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Dilettante_ 2y ago

Finally I can gaze at my orb and browse at the same time

andhuman 2y ago

Related, I made a small extension for chrome that talks to ollama: https://github.com/tobias-varden/llama-explain-extension https://github.com/tobias-varden/llama-explain-extension

timtom123 2y ago
I like yours better. I can't even find the source for Mozilla's and yours does not have google analytics.

wwqrd 2y ago

How long till it gets added to https://killedbymozilla.com/ https://killedbymozilla.com/?

PeterStuer 2y ago

This is the 4th time this has been posted here.

yabatopia 2y ago
And it still doesn't work on on Firefox Mobile. Disappointing.

sharmi 2y ago

[dead]

breakingcups 2y ago

So, I'm reading there's a free, anonymous Mistral endpoint somewhere with the bill being footed by Mozilla.

wiseowise 2y ago

Mozilla is like that ADHD child that will do anything except to work on what made company successful in the first place - browser.

goobert 2y ago
This move makes sense for Firefox adoption, as Chrome has AI features built in now such as Lens
- spzb 2y ago
  I don't want AI features in my browser. I want to browse the web with it.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  You know what would make sense for Firefox adoption? iOS Firefox that actually works. People complain that every browser is a reskin of Safari on iOS, but somehow only Firefox, native iOS app, manages to lag worse than any webview wrapper app I've ever used.

thiht 2y ago

Such a weird domain name, why not orbit.mozilla.com? This looks like a phishing attempt

traspler 2y ago
Yeah, I really don‘t understand why companies on one side try everything in their power to teach people to be vigilant of phishing and then do stuff like this. Azure does it too with www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com I always feel like one of these days I will get phished if those are the domains they force me to use :(
- thiht 2y ago
  Oof, www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com is terrible, it even looks like phishing... at this point I have to ask: are you sure it's NOT phishing? :D The fact it doesn't even work without www. feels suspicious as well
meindnoch 2y ago
When your organization is so broken that it's easier to buy a separate domain for your team, than to go through the process of putting it under the main company domain.

sunshine-o 2y ago

Interesting product, very relevant in our time and age. My guess is this could be useful to many "knowledge workers" who constantly have to crawl, translate and find the meaning of the sugar coated landfill that has become most of the web. We are right in the middle of the Tower of Babel story. Seriously if it works reasonably well on legal fine prints I am in.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

Am I the only person who isn't hugely interested in summarizing emails? I don't want emails summarized because that bypasses a tell-tale sign that said email isn't worth reading in the first place.

mrweasel 2y ago
I kinda want to run some of our CEOs emails through summarizing, because I feel that there's a very real chance that I'll just get a black page back. Other than that, I'm with you. The need for summarizing is a symptom of our increasingly poor communication and degrading writing skills. That, and SEO optimization which attempts to hit as many keywords as possible. We're heading in a direction where people will use LLMs to pad their writing, so it will appear more substantial then it actually is. The receiver will then parse it though another LLM, because the writing has now become to convoluted, or they simply don't have the time for a ten page essay (in which case the none padded draft would have sufficed). Admittedly I have found a few useful cases for LLMs, mostly related to text parsing and information extraction, which can be seen as summarizing I suppose, but mostly I have a pretty negative view of LLMs. Part of it may be me getting older and not fully understanding how they work, partly it's also their deployment in areas where I believe communication should be human to human.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  [Obligatory cartoon](https://marketoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/230327.n.aiwritten-768x402.jpg https://marketoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/230327.n...).
- dingaling 2y ago
  > The need for summarizing is a > symptom of our increasingly > poor communication and degrading > writing skills. Whilst I agree there is a societal decline, there has also always been a corporate tendency towards verbosity and opaqueness. The old rule from the days of memos still seems to apply: ignore first paragraph, get positive / negative gist from second, learn about the impact in the third, ignore remainder.
2y ago

nullc 2y ago

Just seeing the title as announcing some new mozilla service my first thought was "What personal data does this new mozilla feature send to cloudflare?" -- turns out the answer was emails and documents but to their own google cloud accounts rather than cloudflare. Of course, no option to use a local model even though the one they're using is small enough that its perfectly reasonable to use locally. Even on a cell phone.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ph1lw 2y ago

Unfortunately no BYOLLM. Brave supports bringing your own LLM e.g. through Ollama Besides that I'm using AI Summary Helper plugin for Chromium-based browsers https://philffm.github.io/ai-summary-helper/ https://philffm.github.io/ai-summary-helper/ which also allows using Ollama (or OpenAI / Mistral), asking questions to articles and inserting summaries right into the DOM (which is perfect for hoarding articles / forwarding them to Kindle)

JFingleton 2y ago
> Brave supports bringing your own LLM e.g. through Ollama It's a shame Brave is so far ahead of the game but no one seems to notice.
- kbelder 2y ago
  I run Brave at home and a local LLM on the same machine, and didn't know this. I guess I'll be playing around this weekend.
lhl 2y ago
Sort of funny for the lack of local options considering that Mozilla funds llamafile even. Hopefully they allow some API integration, if they are using standard OpenAI API calls, it should be easy to enable swapping the endpoint. Also, while it's nice to have a service option for those without any spare compute, I think it's a bit of a shame on the model considering how even at the 7B class, models like Llama 3.1 8B, Qwen 2.5 8B or Tulu 3 8B, Falcon 3 7B, all clearly outclass Mistral 7B (Mistral 7B is also very bad at multilingual, and is particularly inefficient at multilingual tokenization). The current best fully open weights (Apache 2.0 or similar) small models currently are probably: OLMo 2 7B, Qwen 2.5 7B, Granite 3.1 8B, and Mistral Nemo Instruct (12B) There's been a recent launch of a "GPU-Poor" Chat Arena for those interested in scoping out some of the smaller models (not a lot of ratings so very noisy, take it with a grain of salt): https://huggingface.co/spaces/k-mktr/gpu-poor-llm-arena https://huggingface.co/spaces/k-mktr/gpu-poor-llm-arena

serbuvlad 2y ago

I use Librewolf (based on Firefox), but about once a year I open Chrome for some shitty website that only works on Chrome. And I use Chrome for a few minutes. It shocks me every time just how fast Chrome is. It is legitimately a superb piece of software. Going to Librewolf after feels like going back ten years in hardware. Can we please start spending some money to make Firefox better? Instead of whatever Mozilla is currently doing? Firefox Quantum was great. But why stop? Just keep doing that! It's the only thing you should be doing!

Qem 2y ago
Same number of tabs open and add-ons installed on each?
- serbuvlad 2y ago
  Damn. Thanks a lot for the comment. uBlock Origin on both (wouldn't browse the web without it). Vimium and Dark Reader on Librewolf. But turning Dark Reader off does speed it up by _a lot_. Chrome still seems faster but now they're both playing in the same league. Never thought about it.

roter 2y ago

When running Orbit on the comments in this page: > The Orbit add-on by Mozilla is a new AI-powered tool that summarizes and answers queries about web content, including articles and videos. It uses a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted on Mozilla's GCP instance. The add-on is free to use and works on various websites, including Gmail, Wikipedia, NY Times, YouTube, and more. However, some users have raised concerns about the size of the model and its privacy implications, as well as the fact that it requires an internet connection to function. Additionally, some users have suggested that Mozilla should focus on improving the browser itself rather than developing new add-ons.

usr1106 2y ago

In the same area of privacy-aware AI there is Jolla Mind2. It's your own computer, so probably even more trustworthy than Orbit by Mozilla? I have not studied either product in depth, so I am unable to comment on commonalities or differences. Jolla has a mixed track record: They supported some phones over 10 years with decently working software (typing on one of those). They also failed at least once to deliver a crowd-sourced tablet to most of the backers. Not a risk-free choice, but at least someone trying to do the right thing.

i_love_retros 2y ago

Why so much hate for Firefox in these comments? What's a better browser that isn't basically advertising spyware (i.e. chrome, edge) ?

pluto_modadic 2y ago
I think someone put it best: make your competitor depend on your evil thing (in this case, google donates to firefox/mozilla and makes deals about default search). In addition, people intentionally go to firefox because it /isn't/ chrome, but that only works SO LONG AS they don't copy everything google does (e.g. opt-out ads in the browser, AI, etc)
akimbostrawman 2y ago
>What's a better browser Not Firefox but forks based on it such as Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser or LibreWolf. https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/

stiltzkin 2y ago

[dead]

legacynl 2y ago

I think Mozilla is doing a great job. I really don't get the comments that they should not focus on anything else than the current browser. If other browsers start adding llms, I bet those same people will start complaining that Firefox is outdated compared to those browsers in about a year.

zaep 2y ago

There is a (to me very surprising) typo in the section 'Focus on what matters.' where the AI summary states "... 11 out off[sic] 100 products ..." I don't think I've ever encountered a typo in any of the LLM output I've seen, seems like the exact sort of thing an LLM would be more or less perfect at. Am I wrong to take this as an indication that this text is actually written by a human as a concise marketing example?

mort96 2y ago

I have to ask: why, exactly, does it make sense for Mozilla to invest heavily into running expensive servers to run vanity chat bots for people? What's the path here to something which improves their financial situation or browser market share? How isn't this just yet another random service they'll throw money into for a couple of years before shutting down?

j45 2y ago
Because Firefox has to do things to try and grow itself along with their mission. If they aren’t trying things, they would also then be accused of languishing in obscurity. AI being built into browsers isn’t new. Summarization isn’t novel. It’s not early in the game where resources are crazy high. Summarization could run with a basic low powered model privately hosted. Market share changes based on what browsers do well.
- binkHN 2y ago
  > If they aren’t trying things, they would also then be accused of languishing in obscurity. They are languishing into obscurity not because they aren't trying things, but because their browser functionality is languishing behind the others.
  - j45 2y ago
    Firefox doesn’t have a profit model to sell ads or user browsing behaviour like other browsers as far as I know. I appreciate the languishing comment, at the same time Firefox has features that seem to be a little unique to it out of the box. Spaces comes to mind. Getting really good at one thing might be beneficial. Ai summarization seems to be more and more common in a browser. Maybe they’ll add it as a local feature once a model can comfortably run.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
  A car with square wheels doesn't grow itself by adding three horns and a bubble dome...

andypants 2y ago

It feels very resistant to doing anything other than summarizing. Even when you ask questions for details, the answer is always in the form of a simple summary.

freediver 2y ago

From a product standpoint, I am curious if sidebar is the right way to integrate AI features in the browser? Did anyone see any better integrated solutions?

dankobgd 2y ago

Stopped reading after "AI you can trust"

ssivark 2y ago

I don't understand all the pessimism. - It's clear from user share graphs that Firefox as just a browser is tending towards irrelevance. No amount of "improving the browser" is going to solve the problem. - More fundamentally, the browser is just one portal to the internet / world wide web. With technology outside the browser getting increasingly sophisticated, Mozilla necessarily needs to expand their mandate beyond Firefox in order to serve user needs and influence the landscape. Otherwise we might easily end up in a future where the browser becomes irrelevant and everybody interacts with proprietary large models. - As far as innovation in browser features goes, this seems like a breath of fresh air. Internet users at large deserve access to AI services in a secure and privacy-friendly, and as a pillar of the free web Mozilla is well-placed as a distribution channel to serve these needs. Therefore, this seems like a very good stepping stone / experiment for Mozilla. There will be execution challenges that need to be figured out. AFAIK Mozilla doesn't have the talent+budget for training large AI models, or even for doing intensive product research. So they're going to have to team up with some other AI expertise -- either explicitly or implicitly, by depending on open source models. Regardless, IMHO this is a risk they have to take and figure it out as they go along.

pyaamb 2y ago

I wonder of this or something like it can be extended to "unclickbait" videos/article titles by spawning a background crawler that reads the article / watches the video and comes back with a resolution to the curiosity bait they used to get you to click. Would save countless hours and make the web less shitty IMO. Plenty of examples available just scrolling through youtube for training data.

meindnoch 2y ago

Mozilla will do anything but work on their browser.

tonymet 2y ago

Funny how “orbit summary” of the Long Board Email is still vacuous

poppafuze 2y ago

The opening paragraphs are nauseatingly written by AI. Who uses 'delve' all the time? AI, that's who.

andro_dev 2y ago

Mozilla first needs to regain the trust of its users. They aren't privacy-first at all, they run a lot of telemetry on their users. Have you ever checked the number of DNS queries and IP requests that go to Firefox servers every minute? If you haven't, I have, and it is a lot. They literally ping home every minute in the name of network connectivity and other things, if you believe it. I don't mind using Mozilla products, but I just don't trust their motives and data practices. If you want privacy first AI in the browser here are the tools https://ollama.com https://ollama.com https://github.com/n4ze3m/page-assist https://github.com/n4ze3m/page-assist

timtom123 2y ago

Where is the source code for the extension itself?

jamieplex 2y ago

I REALLY liked the part about preparing cakes with AI... Makin' me hungry just thinking about it.