For pete's sake, @mozilla : if you want to measure whether the AI/ML features are worth a damn, put a big green "disable all AI in my browser" button on the version update screen and put some telemetry around how many people instantly click it.
Just about everyone I know who has taken the 142 update is working through about:config menus to toggle off everything under browser.ml.* and grumbling about it, or just straight-up abandoning Firefox in exasperation.
Turn the ship around. *Please*.
@gnomonI have a `user.js` in my dotfiles that I use to always turn on things like Global Privacy Control and turn off things like AI and telemetry.
I do agree that this is something that should have a big Disable Me Now button, though.
@bk2204 Would it be possible to make this into a simple extension? It's harder than it should be to even find the profile directory.
@mattl It certainly may be, but I'm not aware of how to do that. I also don't really want the responsibility of maintaining that, since my free time is relatively limited.
In my case, the makefiles in my dotfiles detect the profile directory automatically, so it's fire-and-forget for me.
I don't have an objection if others want to create an extension, though. I think it would be useful.
@bk2204 It seems like it's not possible to do about:config type changes with an extension since they changed things a few years ago.
But I had forgotten about user.js so thank you for reminding me.
@mattl @bk2204 you can put things in /etc/firefox ex https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-policiesjson
@falken @bk2204 Interesting. This seems really annoying for Mac users as I'd have to add the file inside the app bundle, which means it'll be removed every time I upgrade. I'll take a look.