According to XDA-Developers, Mozilla’s newly appointed CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, recently announced that Firefox’s next chapter involves a pivot to become an “AI browser.” This announcement immediately sparked a vehement backlash from the browser’s core user base, which represents just about 3% of the global market according to StatCounter data. The community reaction was so negative that Mozilla was forced to issue a clarification, promising that AI features won’t be mandatory and that a “kill switch” would be included. The company, a non-profit that heavily relies on revenue from its default search deal with Google, now faces a critical trust crisis. Long-time users, who specifically use Firefox to escape data-hungry AI ecosystems like Google’s Gemini, feel the move is a fundamental betrayal of the browser’s privacy-first ethos.
A tone-deaf betrayal
Here’s the thing: Mozilla doesn’t seem to realize who actually uses Firefox in 2024. We’re not there for speed or battery life. We’re there because it’s the last major, non-Chromium browser that genuinely seemed to care about data minimization. So when the new CEO rolls out a plan filled with corporate buzzwords about “taking back the web” with AI, it feels incredibly out of touch. It’s the exact opposite of what this user base wants. As discussions on Reddit highlighted, people fled Chrome to escape this nonsense. Now Mozilla wants to replicate it?
The real motivation? Money.
And that’s the frustrating part. Following an AI trend for stock prices is one thing, but Mozilla isn’t even publicly traded. But as commenters on Y Combinator pointed out, the business model is the problem. A browser that just renders pages is hard to monetize beyond search defaults. But an “agentic AI-led” browser? That’s a data goldmine. The data collected trains models and gets sold to advertisers. That’s the play. It foreshadows a potential IPO or major partnership, where an AI story attracts more investors than a simple, privacy-respecting browser ever could.
Opt-out is not consent
Now, Mozilla did backtrack, promising optional features and a kill switch. But let’s be real. Offering an “opt-out” buried in settings is a world away from asking for consent with an “opt-in.” It’s the classic corporate move: shove the feature in, and let the most motivated users figure out how to disable it. Companies that respect users ask first. This philosophy shift, more than any specific feature, is what shattered decades of built-up trust in one fell swoop. If Firefox defaults to AI, it simply ceases to be the privacy-first browser it claims to be.
The forks are the lifeboats
So what’s a privacy-oriented user to do? The answer, for many, is already here: forks. Just like Chromium is the engine for Chrome, Firefox’s Gecko engine powers independent projects like LibreWolf. These forks strip out the telemetry, the Pocket integrations, and yes, the impending AI “value-add,” leaving a clean, focused browsing experience. Sticking with an old, pre-AI version of Firefox is a security nightmare. Switching to a maintained fork is the logical next step. It’s a grim outcome, but it shows the power of open source. When the main project loses its way, the community can literally take the code and keep the original promise alive themselves.
