Comment by shevy-java
8 hours ago
I tested firefox recently. It had some AI summary button or something that was new. I instantly wanted to eliminate this from the UI but I don't know how to do that. I guess it is possible? But it probably requires some time and research; the thing I don't need or want this, it just takes away space.
Then I remembered why I no longer use firefox. I believe we, as users, need to take back the open web. The days of some random developers ruining the UI should really be over, be it firefox, or Google chrome killing ublock origin. We need to fight back.
> It had some AI summary button or something that was new. I instantly wanted to eliminate this from the UI but I don't know how to do that. I guess it is possible?
Started a fresh profile, but couldn't find an AI button. The AI stuff in the context menu? You can remove the chat bot functionality right there. As for the buttons, if there is an undesirable button, it should be removable via context menu or toolbar customization.
I feel your pain with the AI stuff, but I think I had one sidebar open one time and I was able to disable it with one click.
You have to click that button and option to hide is right there.
I agree with your comment, but to resolve the question it's "browser.ml.chat.enabled". A common topic on HN,
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=browser%20ml%20chat&type=all
I use Firefox because it is better than Chrome, which is the only alternative I see.
Do you use something else?
Almost all "alternative" browsers are Chromium based or Gecko/Firefox based. If there are any that are truly scratch-built other than the text-based browsers such as lynx or w3m I'd be interested to hear about them. I'd guess they are extremely limited in features.
The graphical alternatives that I am aware of are extremely limited, such as NetSurf.
Not the commenter you're replying to, but I've been using LibreWolf for the last few months.
It's a bit more privacy focused, so may need some tweaking to your liking (by default it won't persist history, zoom levels, cookies, etc.)
LibreWolf, Iron Fox, and Brave are all worth a look, I think.