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---
slug: disable-firefox-ai-slop
title: "Disable Firefox AI Slop"
date: "2026-03-28T08:50:51-04:00"
---
I restarted [Firefox][] after an update, and my laptop fan started going
berzerk.
The culprit was a background thread pegged at 100% CPU for one of the
new AI "features" in [Firefox][]; presumably doing inference for a local
model.
I disabled this junk, and you should too.
Steps:
1. Go to Settings.
2. Click "AI Controls" on the left sidebar.
3. Click the "Block AI enhancements" radio button.
4. Set all of the drop-down menus to "Blocked" in the "On-device AI"
section.
5. Set all of the drop-down menus to "Blocked" in the "AI chatbot
providers in sidebar" section.
6. (Optional) Send [Mozilla][] a nastygram. Let them know how you
feel about features which waste your CPU, battery, disk space, and
time for no discernable benefit. Profanity encouraged!
This absurd gaggle of misfeatures should have always been [opt-in][],
not [opt-out][].
I also resent the [Orwellian][] [doublespeak][] that [Mozilla][] is
[using][] to describe this nonsense.
Definitions:
- [opt-in][]: A feature which is **disabled by default**. The
user must take an explicit action to enable the feature.
- [opt-out][]: A feature which is **enabled by default**. The
user must take an explicit action to disable the feature.
The intentional obfuscation suggests that [Mozilla][] was aware it was
inappropriate to enable this claptrap by default.
[George Lakoff][] wrote about the use of [Orwellian][] language in
politics in ["Don't Think of an Elephant!"][elephant]:
> But we should recognize that they use Orwellian language precisely
> when they have to: when they are weak, when they cannot just come out
> and say what they mean. Imagine if they came out supporting a “Dirty
> Skies Bill” or a “Forest Destruction Bill” or a “Kill Public
> Education” bill. They would lose. They are aware people do not support
> what they are really trying to do.
>
> Orwellian language points to weakness -- Orwellian weakness. When you
> hear Orwellian language, note where it is, because it is a guide to
> where they are vulnerable.
[firefox]: https://firefox.org/
"Firefox web browser"
[mozilla]: https://mozilla.org/
"Mozilla"
[doh]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS
"DNS over HTTPS (Wikipedia)"
[opt-in]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opt-in
"Definition of opt-in (Wiktionary)"
[opt-out]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opt-out
"Definition of opt-out (Wiktionary)"
[orwellian]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian
"Orwellian (Wikipedia)"
[doublespeak]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
"Doublespeak: language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words (Wikipedia)"
[using]: https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/115740500918701463
"Mozilla doublespeek on Mastodon"
[george lakoff]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff
"George Lakoff (Wikipedia)"
[elephant]: https://www.amazon.com/ALL-NEW-Dont-Think-Elephant/dp/160358594X
"Don't Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff (Amazon)"
[unused-kb-ai-controls-unused]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-ai-controls>
[unused-tea-consent]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8
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