There's a checkbox on whether you want to use it or not in the settings page, does this not change these settings?
I don't feel opposed to them changing the browser in principle--certainly there have been many improvements to web browsers over the years. Is privacy the concern here?
If the checkbox you're referring to is the "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab groups" one, then I can't see what setting it changes. It's not the browser.ml.enable flag. I tried unchecking it, restarting the browser, and that flag was unaffected. This is in version 144.0.2.
Searching for "AI" shows one other setting: "Quickly access bookmarks, tabs from your phone, AI chatbots, and more without leaving your main view." But I'd already disabled that apparently. Despite that, there are plenty of flags that were enabled mentioned in the article.
Last I checked there wasn’t and you still had to fiddle with a few about:config options to actually turn off all the ai stuff. I would be fine with it if it was just a settings page rather than hidden settings.
I don't feel opposed to them changing the browser in principle--certainly there have been many improvements to web browsers over the years. Is privacy the concern here?