For about three years now, everything has been AI. Well, it actually has that label, because the reality is very differentSomething accompanied by the words "powered by artificial intelligence" sells, and I wouldn't be surprised to see someone selling a calculator claiming to offer results using Artificial Intelligence. Projects developing web browsers are doing their best to offer something that includes those words or acronyms, but there's at least one that will resist: Vivaldi.
This was explained at the end of last month by its CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, in a article dealing with the topicThe first thing he says is that browsing the web is also exploring it, and that It should make us jump between ideas and make decisionsIn other words, it's helping us activate our brains, to which I would add that we shouldn't become so comfortable that we lose intellectual capacity. Jon says much the same thing I've been saying for months: that most AI is marketing, something Linus Torvalds also says.
Vivaldi doesn't want to give up control to AI
Right now, Chrome already uses Gemini to summarize web pages, and in the medium-term future, it will save users work. For its part, Microsoft already "sells" Edge as an AI-powered browser. There are several problems with this, and media outlets like ours will be affected. When an AI summarizes an article, there are fewer clicks, if any.
Let's imagine the creator of the Moloconlinux app (I didn't use AI to come up with a name) contacts us to tell us about his wonderful app. He might even want to pay for an objective article. If someone used AI to summarize us, the links wouldn't be visited, his website wouldn't generate the expected traffic, and if this happens repeatedly, we'd have more problems.
Vivaldi will add some AI… if it respects privacy and contributes something
Vivaldi He is not completely opposed to the use of AI, but he wants to set certain limits on it.Jon says they'll use it if it contributes something real, but it must respect intellectual property and privacy, which is also an important issue. And where does the data we pass to AI end up? Vivaldi Technologies' perspective is to protect without prohibiting, and that, well, if we want to use AI, that's our responsibility, but it won't be imposed on us.
Are AI tools in browsers really useful?
A separate topic is If all this that they sell as something super useful is actually so. For example, Firefox's preview-like summary from the v142I don't know where I mentioned that I'd been using something similar in Safari for iOS/iPadOS/macOS for years, but what's available in Firefox couldn't be more bland. It shows a sort of card with an image, a headline, and a very brief summary, not to mention that activating it isn't the most convenient thing in the world. In Safari, at least, it's activated with a middle click and shows much more. But there we have it: "an AI feature." Then we have Leo from Brave, who tries to assist us, and he doesn't look like the smartest lion on the savannah either.
What I mean is that companies that develop web browsers have joined a trend that doesn't really involve much marketing. The bad thing about that, aside from everything discussed here, is that they don't use that time for more important things. For example, Firefox should use it to implement tiled tabs (split view), which otherwise wouldn't be something interesting. they wouldn't have adopted Brave and Edge, among others.
Like many, I use AI models, but no one imposes it on me.
I think the correct approach is Vivaldi's. I'm not going to lie and say I don't use any artificial intelligence, but I do it on my own. For example, sometimes I see a headline that poses a question and all I want is the answer, and for that I have a Vivaldi thread, so it can explain it to me without having to read an article that could take 5 minutes to read.
And here's the thing: if someone just wants to browse, Firefox is fine. If you're looking for add-ons, you'll have to create them or watch people switch to a browser that already has them. AI has potential, but things can't just stop at the initial "wow."