I am fine with it being a disable-button, as long it's persistent once set.
What I honestly fear is that while AI-features are disabled, popups inviting me to enable them again. That, or them auto-enabling them on every update like sometimes has happened with `browser.ml.enable` flag on `about:config`.
It's already problematic to have Chromium dominating/near-monopolizing, and add salt to the wound letting Gecko die this way.
Chromium is so prevalent as an engine, that most developers don't test their code on Firefox and just tell everyone to use Chrome/Chromium when they run into issues.
This has the unintentional side-effect of strong-arming the W3C into compliance with the engine and not the other way around. Why do we bother with the W3C then? if they are powerless and Chromium can do as they please?
>> This has the unintentional side-effect of strong-arming the W3C into compliance with the engine and not the other way around.
I don't want any engine to have that much dominance, but I especially don't want that dominating engine owned by an ad company who's main goal is to spy on people.
You're getting downvoted because that's not the point.
You are technically right, we still have access to these services via a web browser today. It doesn't mean we'll have it forever.
With the advent of AI browsers and AI agents, it's not hard to think of a future where LLM chat interfaces and mobile apps are the future, and web apps start getting disregarded as legacy and eventually, discontinued.
Try ordering some food via mobile application and then again via web app. You'll instantly feel the downgrade on the web app. Bugs, glitches, slow experience.
The desktop web is already the 2nd-class citizen for modern startups.
My reply is a counterpoint to the statement that banks, government services and streaming services require excessive control over my device. They aren't, as they all can run in a browser, which sandboxes them from the OS. That's it.
And I guess people who downvoted my counterpoint thought that it means that all services on the planet have very well functioning browser version, judging by their comments. Some don't, some do. But no one of them "requires" excessive access a native app can provide.
Some may want to have it, for some browser version is simply not a priority. But nobody needs to have additional info for those services to function.
The problem is not the lack of patches. The problem is with websites refusing service based on client's version from the user-agent or breaking by using cutting edge features without a polyfill.
I had to look thrice to find it.