Am I happy about it? No. But I don't understand the huge backlash in all the comments yesterday. It felt like everyone overreacted. For me, Firefox still checks off the most boxes of what I want in a browser.
To me it's a bit like when your favorite fancy restaurant stops making its own bread in-house. The change itself isn't huge, and isn't all that surprising… but it's not a great sign for how the place will look in a decade.
It's more like your favorite fancy restaurant has a few dishes that suck. Instead of putting time into improving table service, fixing up the menu, maybe getting some aspects of service up to standards, they decided that every meal now comes with a back massage. That's not their core competency.
Firefox is good, but it could be great. Adding AI features aren't what will move the needle on their core competency.
I think it was just one of those throwaway lines. I raised an eyebrow when I read it. It seems like something written to appease some idiot on the board or something. If I thought there was a strong vision there it would be fine, but no one seems to have any vision for AI beyond some controlled tech demos that never quite work as advertised—at least not enough for you to use it in the way advertised.
What exactly changed fundamentally in your experience? I have been using firefox for more than 10 years now, nothing changed that much to feel like complaining about.
People who have strong takes would probably comment more and quicker in such threads, and people without such strong takes not as much. It kind of makes sense, but often creates a weird, and possibly non-representative, impression. I am not overly happy over how mozilla handles stuff, but it all also feels like an overreaction to me.
It's seen as cool to hate on AI right now. I haven't used Firefox in about 10 years, and this is definitely not a feature I would want, but if I were still using it I wouldn't get all exercised over it.
I think it is trendy to hate of Mozilla. I'm not sure why, but it is. I mean you get tons of people who will even say they haven't tried it since before the qantum days. Or people that tried it once and just gave up.
I seriously don't get it and I understand why there's conspiracies about disinformation campaigns. But on all places I don't understand how HN users are just happily giving the keys to the internet to a singular company, let along Google.
> Firefox still checks off the most boxes of what I want in a browser.
Honestly, what doesn't it do? Everyone says chrome is better but other than a few niche things I have been entirely unconvinced.
Why are browsers even "sticky"? There's no social network. Bookmarks are trivial to migrate. It's like the easiest thing to switch out there...
I think it is trendy to hate on Firefox because of how cool Firefox felt in 2002 and how dominant they became in the mid 2000s before Chrome and so everything feels like a fall from grace from that.
I do think there have been missteps. I think Firefox is good and is my browser of choice but most of their new features feel superfluous.
Firefox has made some shady choices of late. The settings functionality is getting ever more unreliable and they are moving more essential settings to about:config and then you have to go and dig around in there and hope you find all interdependent parameters. That is one thing that has definitelybdeclined: be open to your users and enable them to customise the software. All the ML settings can only be changed via editing the profile. How many non-techies go and dig around in the profile?
I've come to the conclusion that anyone who uses the term "AI slop" probably doesn't have anything meaningful to say. Not that "AI slop" isn't a thing, but its use is just a buzzword that doesn't mean anything and is becoming less and less relevant as the tools improve.
This is exactly how some others treat anyone who says AI. It’s not as though somehow GANNs are suddenly deserving of being labeled ‘intelligent’ at precisely the time when corporations are betting the farm on their hopes and dreams of replacing biological intelligence. It’s just a marketing buzzword that sells a framing of worker deprecation, something businesses have been fantasizing about since the Industrial Revolution, right? And so anyone who’s using the term must have a dismissible opinion that need not be given serious consideration.
(This isn’t how I approach the topic, but one hopes that such unfounded dismissals are not widespread, eh?)
It occludes dentinal tubules, helping reduce dentin hypersensitivity. It's a tooth-desensitizing agent helping people who are for example, very sensitive to very cold/hot temperature in their mouth.
There is evidence that it can foster enamel/dentin mineral gain, but head to head studies shows that it's comparable to regular fluoride toothpaste and not superior. E.g. In a randomized in-situ trial (Caries Research, 2017), adding 5% NovaMin to a 927-ppm SMFP toothpaste did not improve remineralization outcomes vs the same fluoride formula without NovaMin.
Also, you can find NovaMin in the US (e.g., NUPRO Sensodyne Prophylaxis Paste with NovaMin).
I don't know if this is everyone's experience, but you get a distinct feeling of smoothness after using it, unlike any other toothpaste. Since NovaMin reacts with saliva to remineralize the tooth you'd imagine it's a stronger bond than directly filling up crevices with nanohydroxyapatite, and studies seem to [slightly] confirm that.
anecdotal experience: my wife had somewhat botched dental filling proceedure. it probably damaged her teeth in some way and it became very sensitive for any fluids or foods. they tried to redo it, but it only increased sensitivity further.
i gave her apagard renamel (with nanohydroxyapatite ). after a few days sensitivity went down and after a few weeks it completely disappeared
Semi-related: is there a modern equivalent of Notational Velocity? I used to love it. Similar to this app, there was a focus on speed. But Notational Velocity (and NValt) also had great search built-in
I also have an eight sleep mattress topper. I was unaware of the privacy issues here, but I feel the same as parent that I won't give it up. Having the ability to always have a cool bed has improved my sleep substantially. And the heating is great when you're sick.
Now if a competitor crops up that has better privacy and a better CEO, I'll swap in a heartbeat.
Note: I don't pay for the subscription, just the mattress topper
I'm assuming since the Steam Deck push it's all changed. Either way, I don't tend to play AAA, but I've been able to play all the games I've wanted to without issue in Steam.
Many games run acceptably well on Linux nowadays thanks to Valve's efforts with the Steam Deck, pushing technologies like Wine -> Proton and DXVK.
The biggest chunk of games that do not work falls into the multiplayer / live-service category, as anti-cheat solutions often don't allow for running on Linux this way.
Compared to macOS, this is probably night vs. day.
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