Waterfox pushes back against Mozilla's AI vision and advocates for privacy-first browsing

In a sharply‑worded post titled “No AI Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter”, Waterfox lead Alex Kontos argues that browsers should stay true to their core mission, speed, privacy and user control, rather than become AI‑mediated gateways. He warns that embedding LLM assistants at the heart of Firefox risks turning a trusted tool into a black‑box service that users can’t audit, echoing past concerns. Kontos reminds readers that Waterfox has historically preserved features abandoned by Firefox, such as XUL extensions, and positions the fork as a sanctuary for users who value simplicity over speculative AI integration.

Only days earlier, Mozilla’s new CEO Anthony Enzor‑DeMeo announced a three‑year plan to evolve Firefox into a modern AI web browser. While the company promises that AI features will be toggleable, the announcement has already drawn fire from longtime Firefox fans who feel the move betrays the project’s original ethos of openness, privacy, and minimalism. The shift is framed as a revenue‑diversification effort amid a steady decline in Firefox’s market share, but critics worry it will alienate the very community that kept the browser alive all these years.

Kontos’ rebuttal does not reject AI outright; rather, he draws a line at un‑auditable implementations that could compromise privacy. He points to Waterfox’s track record of stripping unwanted components (telemetry, Pocket integration, sponsored content) and preserving legacy extensions as evidence that a lean, user‑first browser can still thrive. By positioning itself as the “patient march” alternative, Waterfox hopes to capture users disenchanted by Mozilla’s AI push, reinforcing the broader industry debate over whether AI should be an optional layer or a foundational feature in web browsers.

If Mozilla proceeds with its AI‑centric vision, the market may split into two camps: browsers that integrate AI as a core experience (Perplexity Comet, ChatGPT Atlas, Opera Neon, Dia…) and those that refuse AI integration (Vivaldi, Orion, Zen…) and double down on privacy‑first, lightweight designs. Waterfox’s outspoken stance highlights a growing demand for transparent, auditable software, suggesting that the coming months will see a clearer delineation of user preferences, and possibly a resurgence of niche forks catering to the “no AI” crowd.