So, @anildash wrote an interesting reflection on "AI" and Firefox a few days ago: anildash.com/2025/11/14/wantin…

He argues that the number of people who want Mozilla to just stop with the AI development and focus on a more traditional browser is small (probably true) and that people are so used to using AI in their everyday lives that it's Firefox's/Mozilla's job to make that as secure and "less big tech dependy" as possible.

I think that's not an unreasonable argument. I do think that the actual question is more about _what Mozilla is for_ and not "AI" (or other tech hypes).

From my reading the people who don't want AI in Firefox are often AI critical, sure. But it's also about resources and narrative. The idea of Mozilla was to have something that would work for the good of the open web, that would fight for users through participating in standards development but that would also argue based on what is right. Mozilla's sales pitch was a moral one - at least that is how many in the community on Mastodon for example interpreted it.

So when Mozilla cuts down on policy work, cuts work on technologies like Servo or Rust that were supposed to materially improve the security of browsers and people online while setting a lot of developer hours on fire in order to integrate fundamentally insecure (and some would say fundamentally anti-"open web") systems "just because people use them", it feels like an organization having lost their mission or the drive to push their values.

I think "AI" is just the latest (and probably biggest) event that illustrates a sentiment that has been brewing for a while: That Mozilla's mission or goals have shifted in a way that their original supporters no longer feel aligned with.

I know you don’t want them to want AI, but… - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

^{Anil Dash}