I know that many here do not like Firefox, but it looks like they installed a kill switch for AI. This maybe of interest for some.
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Will be interesting how they handle it. I've read it should be disabled by default. Hopefully that is true. And there seem to be several Options for setting up that whole Thing.
Okay, I got the Update and ... the Toggle is there but how they handle it ... I find that weird. Why? You enable the Toggle to disable the AI Stuff.
I would think it should be handled that when You disable the Toggle, the AI Stuff is disabled. And when You enable the Toggle, the AI Stuff is enabled.
Oh, and an Information: I saw that there is a new Telemetry Option that is enabled by default.
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www.vivaldi.com doesn't have any AI at all. It is a deliberate choise from the developers.
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Thanks, @Ponce-De-Leon, for the head's up!
They can't help but shoot themselves in the foot! Why? 
It drives me up the wall! I mostly use Brave these days but sometimes I revert to Firefox, so I'd better check my settings as I did notice an update recently.
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The question becomes, is it an actual kill switch or a placebo while the AI continues to mine your data? That's all AI is being used for.
These companies and industries do nothing for the consumer. It's all for their own benefit.
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Welcome to the Forum!
At least there is an Info Text that says that the AI Stuff is blocked. But You can set up under it some Exceptions if You want.
They write:
At launch, AI controls let you manage these features individually:
- Translations, which help you browse the web in your preferred language.
- Alt text in PDFs, which add accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages.
- AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and group names.
- Link previews, which show key points before you open a link.
- AI chatbot in the sidebar, which lets you use your chosen chatbot as you browse, including options like Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Le Chat Mistral.
You can choose to use some of these and not others. If you don’t want to use AI features from Firefox at all, you can turn on the Block AI enhancements toggle. When it’s toggled on, you won’t see pop-ups or reminders to use existing or upcoming AI features.
AI controls are coming to Firefox
Nevertheless, I guess, when you perform a search in Google, you will still see the AI generated answer at the top.
I use zen a fork of Firefox. I noticed they appear to have dropped Perplexity A.I. but it can be installed should you want to. I only use Vivaldi for occasional login to Finacial stuff but delete all data on exit. I notice DuckDuckGo offers two different search engines, one with A.I. and one without. However I am never going back to DucDuckGo because of its censorship of searches. Mojeek is my permanent search engine. I delete all others apart from Wikipedia.
Even easier to avoid if they stop shoving a grossly underdeveloped tool down our throats so they can more effectively mine our data and build better marketing profiles.
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Thanks @swarfendor437 for the hints on Vivaldi and Mojeek which are now my defaults. I am trying both but do have to note that Vivaldi will not open dw.de (my preferred Eu news source) and Mojeek could not find anything under one search string I used but DDG did find what I wanted on page 1.
Leaving vanilla Firefox due to it's "AI" features and telemetry because you distrust the toggles is one thing, and I won't get into my stance on the matter other than saying it's a valid personal opinion, but moving to Vivaldi? It's probably the best of the bunch, but it is still chromium-based so you are directly supporting Google and their increasing monopoly over web technologies.
Please at least use a Firefox fork like Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf instead.
It's like switching from grokipedia to conservipedia because you don't like grok, when wikipedia is right there.
I just tried opening the page dw.de in Vivaldi, and it worked. Maybe it's because of a specific setting or a firewall, VPN, etc.
Because it is out now: Brave Origin.
Interesting...
...opt-in features like AI, Search, and VPN, along with crypto features like Rewards, Wallet, and Web3 domains all directly support the business through revenue from subscriptions, partnerships, or privacy-first advertising. But many users have told us they want a browser without the extras. For these users, we’ve built Brave Origin.
Origin gives our users the ad and tracker blocking they want coupled with the ability to manage which features appear in the browser, for a one-time [US$59.99] fee across all their devices (and free on Linux).
Available as a separate, standalone program on desktop or an "upgrade" (replacement) of an existing Brave install on desktop, but on mobile it's only provided as a replacement to the current app. So you can have both versions on desktop, but not on mobile. Odd.
Also, still supporting Google's web monopoly through chromium.
Don't forget, Mojeek offers multiple search engines if you can't find what you are looking for with their search engine. I would also take a look at LibreWolf, a privacy focused fork of Firefox.
Because in Zorin the Brave Repo is already added, You can install Brave Origin via Terminal with sudo apt install brave-origin when You want try it.
Browsers That Largely Avoid Built-In AI
Several browsers are known for minimal or no native AI integration. Privacy-focused options like LibreWolf, a hardened fork of Firefox, ship without AI assistants and strip telemetry. The Tor Browser prioritizes anonymity and does not bundle AI features. GNU IceCat, a free-software browser, similarly avoids AI and proprietary add-ons. Lightweight browsers such as Pale Moon and certain configurations of Firefox itself can run without AI features enabled, since Firefox often makes AI optional rather than mandatory. Text-based browsers like Lynx, used by power users and for accessibility, contain no AI at all.
[Source: https://aamax.co/blog/what-web-browser-does-not-use-ai]
Plus I read somewhere that Vivaldi has stated it will never use A.I.
What I do find disappointing is the inability to remove some preset search engines as in zen browser, you can only disable them.
100%.
I find Brave Origin to be odd, no matter which angle you look at it.
It has the feel of Mafia Protection. "Look, we get it that you ain't happy 'bout some of the liberties we been takin', so grease our palms a bit and we'll knock it off."
When something like Chromium is forked, it really is not supplying support to the parent.
If Chromium was licensed such that using it for a competing browser resulted in percentages being forwarded to Google - it would. But it isn't.
As an example: Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu.
Even though this is known; The number of Zorin OS users does not benefit Canonical, nor does it even provide assurance that Canonical stays afloat.
Let's say that a large enough user base is sufficiently unhappy about Canonical's direction in regards to Snap Package force and replacement that they leave Ubuntu and opt for Zorin OS.
Canonical would feel the effect the same as if they left for Arch or Debian or Fedora.
Let's say the number of fleeing users was sufficient that Canonical collapses (It isn't and won't be, this is a hypothetical); Then Zorin OS would lose its base, but switch to using Debian as a base. It's existence is adaptive and still does not bolster Ubuntu.
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I wasn't meaning browser market share, as such, more about the engines and influence.
Google are, by far, the biggest contributors to the open-source chromium project that Chrome is based on. Not only do all chromium-based browsers thus inherit Google's decisions (see MV3), but they also further spread the engine which Google have almost complete control over.
Couple that with Google's influence on web standards, and all chromium forks really do add up under Google's numbers.
This gives Google near-unprecedented power over the web as a whole, if not the Internet itself, and every Brave or Vivaldi install only supports this.
It's a very different situation than Linux distros, imo.
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