Mozilla The CEO recently changed.And the first thing he did was say that the future of navigation will depend heavily on AI. Firefox will continue its development in that direction., although we, its users, do not agreeFollowing the criticism received, Mozilla responded and He indicated that there would be an option to disable all artificial intelligence functions. In your browser, there's a "Kill Switch" to turn off the AI.
Mozilla has published a note saying that That button is ready and will arrive on February 24thThis coincides with the release of Firefox 148. They begin the article by stating that AI will change the web—that's their position—but then acknowledge that many users don't want it. Hence the switch, necessary to regain some of the lost user trust.
One place in Firefox to control all AI settings
Starting with Firefox 148, there will be a new "AI Controls" settingInside, you'll find a "Block AI enhancements" toggle, which will prevent new AI enhancements and pop-ups from being displayed. Just below that is another option to enable or disable specific features.
The AI ​​features that will be available from the start will include:
- Translations, which help you navigate the web in your preferred language.
- Alternative text in PDFs, which adds accessibility descriptions to images within PDF documents.
- AI-enhanced tab grouping, which suggests related tabs and names for groups.
- Link preview, which shows the key points before opening a link.
- AI-powered chatbot in the sidebar, allowing you to use your chosen assistant while browsing, with options such as Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Le Chat Mistral.
My personal opinion
Until I switched to Vivaldi for its productivity-enhancing features, I'd been a Firefox user for almost two decades. During that time, I've also used Chrome and Safari, but Mozilla's browser has been my most frequent choice. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's still my go-to on computers where I don't need Vivaldi's extra features, and Mozilla has always been a company you can trust..
Therefore, my personal opinion and recommendation regarding AI is that everyone should try it out and see if they find it useful. Based on that, they can decide whether to use more or less AI in Firefox.
What worries me a bit more is that the browser itself might not improve as much as it should with this new approach, but that's another issue. At least we'll be able to disable AI by the end of this month.