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Quick post about AI-free FireFox Based Browsers (Keep your Addons and avoid the Bloat)
(lemmy.world)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40834339
Just pick one - All the Fox functionality without bloatware
Librewolf - https://librewolf.net/
Waterfox - https://www.waterfox.com/
Zen Browser - https://zen-browser.app/
More browsers here - https://alternativeto.net/category/browsers/firefox-based/
You can also use this add to disable the ~~shitload~~ ai function in many search engines in one go
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-ai/
GitHub page - https://github.com/jruns/disable-ai
You can find all the links on Mastodon<
To add to the point about AI in search engines, arguably it would be better to just stop using those search engines and inflating their demand at all. This not only removes the need for yet-another-add-on, but it reduces the uniqueness of your browser fingerprint. Remember, the more add-ons and changes you make to your browser, the more unique you are to the world when browsing.
And no, DDG is not a friend. Besides having their own LLM-bot, they also still have microsoft ads fuckery going on.
Nice tip. I'll check some of these search engine for sure ๐.
To be fair to DDG, you can permanently disable all ads and AI in their settings, or use a URL parameter to disable them in private browsing. They also block any embedded trackers in the ads they serve. Still not great, but leagues better than Google or Bing
Still, their copy at that link uses the wording, "partnered with Microsoft", and that doesn't sit well with me at all when they go on to mention, "relevant advertising." My personal trust level in them has vanished entirely.
I just want a search engine to search, fuck off with ads of any kind, relevant or not. There are plenty of other options that do exactly this, so why settle for a slightly more diluted poison when I could just drink water.
Name some! Don't leave us hanging!
I literally gave a list in the first comment of this thread...
At some point with this level of purity testing, you will just be hurting yourself, and making the people around you annoyed though.
You basically want companies to exist while not being profitable for idealistic reasons.
You'll say you don't of course, but the collection of people like you all have similar but different enough red flags that the end result is that you who care idealistically end up having basically 0 effect on the market except making any company that tries to appeal to you walk on egg shells to the point they fail or give up and go for a broader audience.
I mean, I personally wouldn't mind paying 50 bucks a year for a proper open source, well maintained browser, but that will never happen because the type of person like me, also is probably pretty nitpicky, and tends to have ridiculous things they consider as red flags even if they could just ignore a feature or disable it, and that would mean there is no common paid browser possible.
We are then back to there being free browsers that have many reasons to be hated but that the common person is fine enough with.