Info Mozilla Firefox 148 released with "AI kill switch"

[Steltek]

https://www.techspot.com/news/111453-firefox-148-rolls-out-promised-ai-kill-switch.html

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks for the heads up. I updated and killed HAL.

Firefox 148.0 release notes: https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/148.0/releasenotes/

It's weird that they made create backup work with windows 10 and not 11 yet. It sounds like a nice feature if you don't want to use their sync service.

 

[WelshBloke]

In Firefox 148, all AI features are disabled by default, though users can enable them at any time with a few clicks.

Nice!

 

[mindless1]

Thanks for the heads up. I updated and killed HAL.

Firefox 148.0 release notes: https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/148.0/releasenotes/

It's weird that they made create backup work with windows 10 and not 11 yet. It sounds like a nice feature if you don't want to use their sync service.

Does it give me anything useful if already running the portable version and making backups of the entire folder?

 

[balloonshark]

Does it give me anything useful if already running the portable version and making backups of the entire folder?

What does the backup file save​

The backup file saves browsing data, such as:

• Bookmarks
• Settings
• History
• Passwords
• Payment methods
• Extensions
• Other browsing data

Sensitive data such as passwords, payment methods, or credit card numbers is encrypted and protected by a password.

You can choose to back up:

• Basic data, and you won’t have to use a password.
• All data, including sensitive data, but you’ll have to use a password.

When you install Firefox on a new device, you can restore all your browsing data.

Restore your Firefox browsing data with a backup file | Firefox Help

Learn how Firefox Backup helps restore your bookmarks, settings, and passwords on a new device.

support.mozilla.org

If you're are backing up your profile folder this is what it contains.

Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data | Firefox Help

Firefox stores your personal data and settings in a profile folder. Learn what information it contains and how to find your profile.

support.mozilla.org

 

[mindless1]

^ So from that I must assume no, that the portable version folder backup goes above and beyond everything else.

 

[balloonshark]

^ So from that I must assume no, that the portable version folder backup goes above and beyond everything else.

I would assume so but perhaps the other data is covered under the vague phrase "Other browsing data".

 

[mindless1]

Unless I am overlooking anything, it's basically just the profile folder for the portable version, which is inside the *working* folder everything is contained within. I've been just backing up that entire working folder, redundantly without the cache files, and less periodically the entire folder RAR compressed into a single file. Either way, both still work as portables ready to run from wherever they are (once the RAR file is extracted in that case), with everything (history/bookmarks/settings/add-ons/passwords/etc) there.

Just yesterday I grabbed the most recent R3dfox browser portable version, and cloned over an existing Firefox portable user environment by just deleting the R3dFox profile folder and copying over the one from Firefox - but the newly cloned browser must be same or newer than the one you take the profile folder from. It checks that and disallows if coming from a newer Firefox code base.

I am only assuming that the R3dfox developers didn't disable this check and the preventative blocking measure implemented by Firefox devs. It should be noted that the portable version # was still 147, which trails behind the non-portable, that recently moved to v148.

 

[balloonshark]

It looks like enabling the AI kill switch also kills the Firefox translation feature. You can turn on the individual AI translate feature though. It would be nice if it was on an easily accessible switch that could be easily turned on/off instead of needing to go into Settings - AI Controls every time .

 

[Steltek]

It looks like enabling the AI kill switch also kills the Firefox translation feature. You can turn on the individual AI translate feature though. It would be nice if it was on an easily accessible switch that could be easily turned on/off instead of needing to go into Settings - AI Controls every time .

It appears that even with the AI kill switch turned on you can still permanently activate individual AI features like translation (which is one of the very few AI features I don't mind having on all the time). I do agree it should have been made more easily accessible, though -- if nothing else, the kill switch should at least be added to the Tools menu and also be assigned to a keyboard shortcut key.

Part of me wonders if the Mozilla devs implemented it this way to passively annoy users so that they would just eventually leave the kill switch turned off all the time.

 

[mindless1]

FF v148 is now live for the portable version:

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition | PortableApps.com

Mozilla Firefox® is a fast, full-featured web browser that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including popup-blocking, tabbed-browsing, integrated search, improved privacy features, automatic updating and more. Plus, thanks to the PortableApps.com launcher bundled in the Mozilla...

portableapps.com

R3dfox portable (for legacy Win XP/Vista/7/8) is now at v148 as well.

r3dfox - Modern Firefox for Windows 7

Download r3dfox - Modern Firefox for Windows 7 for free. Modern Firefox based web browser for Windows Vista & 7! r3dfox or r3dactedfox is a fork of release branch Mozilla Firefox made for Windows Vista, 7, and 8. r3dfox also comes with limited compatibility for Windows XP using One Core API.

sourceforge.net