I had a look at what it actually does in the Firefox settings and all it seems to do is to disable one AI feature flag, change the default search engine, and then set a few other flags that are changes that you may or may not want to make, unrelated to AI. Not sure you want to run a 3rd party shell script just to do that…

A few weeks ago I noticed some mysterious app was killing my (poor) internet downloading a large file.

It was chrome, downloading a multi GB file without any sort of UI hints that it was doing so. A generative AI file.

Is this why chrome uses so much ram? They’ve just been pushing up the memory usage in preparation for this day, hoping I wouldn’t notice the extra software now running on my (old, outdated) system?

Does it also remove Firefox's translation models that uses local CPU? I find that feature very useful and totally obliterated my dependence on Chrome's translate features. Models are surprisingly good, especially for languages like English, Spanish and German.

I can see the use of LLMs and machine learning tools like TTS, translators and grammar checkers to be integrated to browser, but only depending on local models or better, like Firefox's case to CPU optimized local models.

Copying my comment from last time

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46616033

Interesting project.. and props for spending the time to figure out all those settings and how to flip them off (for all 4 major browsers too!)

I like the goal of stripping browsers back to basics, but I'm not sure why I'd run a third-party script to flip low-level browser and system settings I can change myself.

From a security point of view, that feels, not great?

This might work better as a simple guide with screenshots, so people can see and control exactly what’s being touched.

> Windows: Open a PowerShell prompt as Administrator

The need for this is mainly on work machines that are locked down; if admin mode is necessary then it's DOA...

A local MITM proxy that doesn't require elevated rights and which filters out everything unwanted, starting with ads, would be nice I think.

> aims to remove: Most AI features, Copilot, Shopping features, ...

I grew up on DOS, and my first browser was IE3. My first tech book as a kid was for HTML[1], and I was in absolute awe at what you could make with all the tags, especially interactive form controls.

I remember Firefox being revolutionary for simply having tabs. Every time a new Visual Basic (starting with DOS) release came out, I was excited at the new standardized UI controls we had available.

I remember when Tweetie for iPhone OS came out and invented pull-down refresh that literally every app and mobile OS uses now.

Are those days permanently gone? The days when actual UI/UX innovation was a thing?

[1] Can someone help me find this book? I've been looking for years. It used the Mosaic browser.

For Firefox, I think that disabling the telemetry and the studies is not going to help Mozilla improve the browser.

Edge has so many places that it can send telemetry to Microsoft. Any of the features that intend to "help" your browsing, including safe URL checks, shopping enhancements, etc.

These Edge changes are important if you value your browsing privacy. Not sure any of the major browsers completely protect you, but Microsoft has just gone all out in finding ways to scrape your browsing habits.

> Open a PowerShell prompt as Administrator...

Sounds like the beginning of a nice ClickFix campaign: https://it.lbl.gov/the-clickfix-attack-a-new-threat-to-your-...

I think a "Just A Browser" approach would be better for people like me, who don't really want to patch configuration files for their existing browsers - sounds messy.

I would however download a new browser that promises to not have all these bad features and has stripped them straight from the source code. For example, I switched from Chrome to Brave because it blocks ads.

That's a nice idea, but I'm hesitant to use automatic installation scripts like this, even if I review them carefully. I prefer manual steps – downloading the file, placing it in the correct directory. Also, I use custom profile directories for my web browsers, so this script wouldn't apply to my setup.

If you go through the manual steps on mac os, the file gets deleted when Firefox is updated.

Is there a way to persist the file even after updates?

> No. Just the Browser uses group policies that are fully supported by web browsers, usually intended for IT departments in companies or other large organizations

This is cool! I was expecting a script, which tend to be brittle. This is a great way to do it.

I like how the bash script to install this starts with getting sudo access :)

I’ve been using Waterfox recently, which feels almost nostalgic in how much it’s just a plain goddamn browser. It’s really delightful.

Helium seems to be trying to be the same thing for Chrome - it’s replaced Brave as my go-to for the sites that have issues with non-Chrome browsers.

Suggesting bash/curl'ing to get a 12 lines JSON file is just... Not great. We've seen a shitload of developers account getting compromised (with all the supply chain attacks) and developers account turning evil.

Also there's absolutely zero need to be sudo to put a JSON config file for Firefox on Linux.

You're basically bash/curl'ing the kitchen sink, with all the security risks that entails, executing a shell script as root (which may or may not be malicious now or at some point in the future), just to...

Put a 12 lines JSON file in a user's Firefox config folder.

Way to go my "fremen" brothers [1].

[1] the "fremen" in Dune as those who adore the Shai-Hulud

Firefox:

"Something that hasn't been made clear: Firefox will have an option to completely disable all AI features. We've been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I'm sure it'll ship with a less murderous name, but that's how seriously and absolutely we're taking this."

https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500373677782

> Mac and Linux: Search for the Terminal in your applications list and open it. Next, copy the below command, paste it into the window (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V), and press the Enter/Return key:

Should be Ctrl+Shift+V

I noticed that Safari is not mentioned - is it because is not relevant on Desktop or because it didn't go through the same enshittification process as the other two major browsers?

  Search for the Terminal in your applications list and open it.
  Next, copy the below command, paste it into the window (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V), and press the Enter/Return key:

   & ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/main/main.ps1")))

This trains Windows users to run random code from the web. You want more malware? Because this is how you spread malware to billions of non-technical users. Please don't normalize dangerous behavior. If you insist on telling people to copy and paste, you could at least add one or two extra lines that check the SHA hash before executing the code.

It'll be good to just use the browser again, so I will def be trying this out. But I can't help but feel that for simple dumb questions it's a lot easier to just ask AI bots instead of searching on a web browser. Does this just depend on the context? Example most recently I wanted to know how many miles would a pair of running shoes last. AI can answer this instantly (hooray instant gratification) and googling something like this would take longer. And of course this is why they shove this stuff on the browser.

I guess then, the browser and AI just serve different purposes now?

I dont understand the need for an entire website and shell script installer when all it does is download 1 file and put it somewhere.

For anyone else on firefox, save yourself some effort and just download this https://github.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/blob/mai...

there are already a bunch of electron and chromium projects that give you just a simple and highly performant browser sandbox.

I wish Firefox had a per-user location for policies, so I can just carry it around with dotfiles.

Very neat, just installed it. I would say having someone download the profile and install it on macOS is honestly just as easy as running bash. It's also safer and provides more understanding.

What difference does this have compared to something like ungoogled chromium?

Nice touch - seeing the Windows 95 IE favicon took me back for a while.

can you remove webrtc, localstorage, web workers, and customize fonts?

launching firefox automatically deletes the distribution folder from Content/Resources; and nothing changed in the browser

How intrusive is AI in a browser that you feel you need another browser that advertises no-ai? Is it a privacy thing? Like for me in edge, it is completely out of the way.

would be great to block all cookie popups. Pry would need to be a chrome extension

Security experts when AI in browser: `curl | sudo sh`

What is sad is that we need anti-AI measures.

Google and others really ruined the web.

I also today tried Qwant and for the first time, in a long while, the results Qwant delivered were objectively better than from Google Search. What the heck is Google doing?

Really cool!!

Just give me a Chromium based browser make it open source and a verifiable build and I’ll pay you twenty dollars.

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I mean this is an Anti-AI move. I am not saying you should join the pro ai but hating on AI just because its AI is not a good look