To my surprise, in Librewolf this was also enabled. To how much effect, I wouldn't know (I hadn't noticed any shenanigans, then again, I just updated my librewolf and don't know if that brought it in).
Didn't entirely work for me. I still had the little popup when I selected text, even after restarting. However, it did go away and stay away when I selected "hide chatbot..." at the bottom of the popup.
Personally, I do not mind it if it's on-device, especially small specialised models (e.g. overview generation, audio generation, etc) with no internet access.
Mozilla could have had the no-nonsense, high performance browser backend that everyone uses to build their own browsers (like the recent glut of AI browsers), instead of everyone using Chromium/Blink. In the past, Gecko was really the go-to choice for this. They almost had a second shot with Servo. But they kinda really dropped the ball on the technical capability of the browser while continuing to be distracted by all sorts of random gimmicks like Pocket and then this. Sad!
It's been 20 years since Apple decided they needed a browser of their own, and even then they chose to throw their weight behind KDE's KHTML, not Gecko.
Good to know. I tried to find an off switch in the settings for the AI junk when it first popped up and didn't find one. It's mostly unobtrusive, so didn't bother me too much, but it's nice to have a way to get rid of a feature I'm not going to use.
This is the last I pressed the update button (I only allow notification, no automation). And will speed up the study of other browsers (like Brave, Orion). This sneaky delivery of unnecessary but questionable privacy nonsense, also pushing on you enabled, is revolting.
Why do people care? It's nice, been using it since Nightly. And you have to actually hook it up to a service for it to do anything.
The toggle for the popup is in (as you might expect) the settings hamburger menu in the AI Panel. There's even a remove button! Lots of new things have been added to browsers over the years, and these AI features are becoming incredibly popular as more users recognize the utility (and what they actually are).
I'm actually not all that opposed to some of these features, but the way it's implemented is so clunky. The UI make it feel like a half baked browser extension.
I like seeing new features in Firefox even though I won't use nearly any of them. It indicates new ideas and investment into software that I very much want to continue to exist, that I use everyday.
Feels like people making a big deal out of it. You can also just, you know, not use these features. I can't remember the last time I use the "Print" dialog, the "Manage bookmarks" or the "Homepage" button. But these things don't have AI in their name, so people aren't so obsessed with removing them.
IMHO just like many companies are obsessed with adding AI features, some users are obsessed with rejecting them. Both seem mostly senseless to me, especially when it's a local-first AI implementation.
The article is actually good. The title is a little click-baity even if that is actually what it covers. It is mostly about tweaking the AI options which is actually helpful as I don't mind some of the new features.
You're on your own running these in the wild; at least use a few other layers of security protection. Later versions of Firefox will not run unsigned addons unless you're running a development build, without running it from the debugger page. (Maybe someone can chime in with a workaround.)
After sticking to Firefox since it first came out, I finally switched to Vivaldi. Not happy it's Chromium based but it's the next best option I could find.
36 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 56.8 ms ] threadbrow-ser.ml.enable
It's been 20 years since Apple decided they needed a browser of their own, and even then they chose to throw their weight behind KDE's KHTML, not Gecko.
The toggle for the popup is in (as you might expect) the settings hamburger menu in the AI Panel. There's even a remove button! Lots of new things have been added to browsers over the years, and these AI features are becoming incredibly popular as more users recognize the utility (and what they actually are).
This just seems like some more anti-AI hysteria.
Selecting text and having a action with a custom prompt/tool without needing a browser extension might be nice. It need not even be a llm.
https://nilsheuman.github.io/TIL/2025-04-17-custom-firefox-a...
IMHO just like many companies are obsessed with adding AI features, some users are obsessed with rejecting them. Both seem mostly senseless to me, especially when it's a local-first AI implementation.
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/
You're on your own running these in the wild; at least use a few other layers of security protection. Later versions of Firefox will not run unsigned addons unless you're running a development build, without running it from the debugger page. (Maybe someone can chime in with a workaround.)
Deleted it in my config. I'm solely relying on DuckDuckGo.