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Mozilla Criticizes Microsoft for Installing Copilot on Windows Without User Consent
(cybersecuritynews.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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In firefox they are enabled by default in the sense that you can get to them via the UI unless you flip some settings, but they don't do anything unless you use them, including not even downloading the models until first use. So yes, I would prefer firefox not have them (except local translation which uses a local model instead of shipping it off to a remote service, which is a useful feature that is better then the alternative ways to do it), but I wouldn't say it's as far as hypocrisy.
this condemnation coming after they enabled the link preview popup by default because "it's not ai" and having a big "activate ai now!!!!" button take up half of it, and then doubling down when people rightfully pointed out to them that this is a textbook dark pattern, makes it hypocritical.
Is there an issue with the link preview pop-up thing? I'm pretty sure librewolf has it on by default
they added an ai summary section. it's disabled by default but it consists more than half of the popup and if disabled has a big blue button on it that activates ai features, the only big blue button on the popup, and it says "continue". or, it does now. it used to be bigger and say "See more with AI" or some shit.
I feel like there's a gap in the understanding of this situation. Firefox is struggling for user as is. Imagine you sit at the wheel, everyone and their grandmother are implementing AI everywhere, the average user expects to have AI at their fingertips believe me. Do you choose to stick with the very few who fully reject AI, or at least provide the option to make sure you don't fall further behind?
This is a question of survival for every product out there, like it or not.
several studies over the past few years have shown that a majority of people do not use ai and actively pick products without ai when given the choice. going after the majority feels like a better business decision.
I do hate all the ai stuff and wish there wasn't any of that bullshit in my visible spectrum but none of these articles you've linked support the claim of "people don't use AI". Are they concerned about AI? That's for sure. Do they use it anyway? Apparently so!
The only article that maybe supports the claim is located behind a paywall and the headline reads that people don't want AI in their hardware/appliances, nothing about software.
People love the path of least resistance, that's how we've always worked, and tools that summarise, translate or otherwise will help us navigate this ad-ridden content-overloaded webscape will see use, at least until something changes about this money-driven content creation scene that is today's internet (which probably won't happen, yes, because of ~~AI~~ LLMs)
the reason it's so hard to find studies on whether people want it or not is because that's not a question being asked. the only ones that did were duckduckgo and those answers were obviously self-selected. i cant remember which of the four articles it was now but one of them actually gives a number on how many actually want to use it and it lands somewhere around 35%.
I don't like that link preview is how they spent their time, but the misinformation and subsequent overreaction to it is insane. I only even know this stuff or that it exists at all because I thought surely it wasn't as egregious as people were saying so I checked it out and boy was I right.
I'd be surprised if users that don't talk about firefox on the internet even know link previews exist.
all of that is correct and also basically what i said. the reason it became a big deal was because of accessibility. the definition of a "long press" is short enough that older users, who tend to hold the mouse button down for longer after a click, were suddenly seeing popup windows everywhere and, believing it to be an issue of the site they were on, assumed their popup blocker was broken. the timing was adjusted to one second in an update and also the long press shortcut was made optional.
when it was pointed out to mozilla that having a popup containing one big blue button in a popup with fancy graphics around it might also be harking back to the popup ads of yore, and that it might compel people to click on the only visible button on instinct, their head of firefox did an interview with pc world where he countered this with, and i'm paraphrasing here, "nuh-uh". this was in reference to an ama they did where several interaction experts weighed in with frankly pretty standard stuff: don't surprise the user, don't shove things in their face, don't draw attention needlessly.
for reference, here is the popup post-fixing:
before they pushed an update the button didn't say "continue", it said "Summarize with AI ✨" and didn't have a "cancel" option.I'd be way more concerned about other things in that interview than nitpicking the language when firefox checks notes listened to feedback
oh believe you me i am incredibly concerned about all of it. but they didn't listen to feedback, is the point. it's still there, it still pops up randomly due to no accessibility research, it's still blue.
I'd rather they let me know that there is an add-on I "could" add that will add AI tools to my browser, if I wanted