AI on your terms: Firefox meets you where you are
People feel differently about AI, and here at Firefox, we think that is completely reasonable. Something else that is completely reasonable: deciding for yourself how and when you engage with AI features.
For some of you, AI is part of your everyday life, whether you are using it to summarize a large amount of information, brainstorm ideas for work, or research trips and personal purchases. Some of you interact with AI as little as possible, and prefer to keep it that way. And a lot of you are somewhere in between: curious, but exploring on your own terms and at your own pace.
Your personal use of AI is just that, personal. Firefox offers various levels of AI integration into your browser, and the choice between them is entirely yours.
Opting out of upcoming and current AI features on your browser should not require endless navigation through multiple Settings pages. That’s why Firefox offers an AI controls section within its General Settings panel. A single, easily located place where you can block current and future AI features and related pop-ups with the swipe of a toggle.
Not only do we want people to have the choice to remove certain AI features from their Firefox browsing experience, we make sure doing so is as easy and accessible as possible.
For the many people who sit in the middle of the AI usage spectrum, we made sure you can opt in and out of specific features in line with your preferences. Capabilities like AI translations, image alt text in Firefox PDF viewer, tab group suggestions, and key points in link previews can all be individually switched on and off, ensuring you can enjoy such offerings on a case by case basis as it suits your needs.
In addition, if there is an AI chatbot provider you already trust or pay for, you can use it directly inside Firefox’s built-in desktop sidebar. This means you can use your chatbot of choice and browse side by side without ping-ponging between tabs.
While some browsers integrate a singular AI model or chatbot into their system, this can restrict flexibility and concentrate data sharing. Firefox prioritizes transparency and user control by letting you select from multiple providers, allowing you to review each option’s policies before you engage with them.
You can turn on AI chatbot providers in the AI controls section of browser settings and select one of the following: Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Le Chat Mistral. Once this feature is turned on, you can switch between chatbots within the sidebar itself based on your preferences and task at hand.
Smart Window is Firefox’s most integrated AI experience, but that doesn’t mean it compromises our commitment to choice, privacy, and transparency. Our newest window type, which we’ve been polishing and testing in beta, uses only the context you share with it to help you move work forward and across the finish line.
When permitted by you, its built-in, AI-powered assistant can work directly with your open tabs and browsing history to connect the dots. This means comparing information, generating recommendations, summarizing pages, and planning projects without having to feed every crumb of context from your previous and current browsing activity each time you enter a new prompt.
As we’ve built out Smart Window, we’ve added a few additional features to align its design with how people actually browse. These include the ability to group related tabs together – so you can make sense of what’s open without spending time organizing everything yourself – and visual history previews that help you spot a page you visited earlier when you can’t remember the exact URL or phrase searched. In addition, a new partnership with Exa enables Smart Window to not only locate current web information to include in responses, but also display the sources behind these responses so you can verify what you’re seeing, without breaking your flow.
We understand people use different Firefox windows for different reasons, and often switch between options based on the task at hand. Smart Window is the window you reach for when your browsing turns into a project. When your quick search becomes inspo for the girls’ trip you’ve been meaning to plan, or finding the perfect gift for your partner becomes a dozen tabs comparing prices and reviews, turn the window you’re already using into a Smart Window. Your tabs and progress stay in place while Smart Window helps organize the task and move it forward. Use it for one complex project, use it all the time, or switch it back when you’re done.
Smart Window remains in beta as we continue to learn and improve from our community’s feedback. At present, it’s available in English to people in the U.S. and Canada.
To try Smart Window, visit: https://www.firefox.com/smart-window
Your opinions and preferences on AI usage are individual to you.
We don’t think there is one right answer for how and when to engage with AI, and we’re not going to pretend there is one. What we can do is make sure that whatever level of engagement is right for you, Firefox supports it well. Because the only person telling you how much AI you need should be you.
The post AI on your terms: Firefox meets you where you are appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.
Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS: More Control, Fewer Distractions
There’s only so much room on your screen. Pop-ups, overlays, and ads can take over fast, getting between you and what you came to do.
That’s where Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS comes in: a built-in option that blocks many third-party ads and ad-related trackers before they load, helping reduce clutter and distractions while you browse.
How it works
Ad Blocker uses Apple’s WebKit Content Blocker technology and the EasyList filter list to determine what gets blocked. There’s no separate extension to install, and you can turn it on in Settings > Browsing > Ad Blocker. It’s off by default, so you decide whether to use it.
Ad Blocker won’t block every ad. Ads served directly by the site you’re visiting and ads shown in search results will still appear. Sponsored shortcuts and other sponsored content shown by Firefox when you open a new tab are separate from ads on the web pages you visit, so Ad Blocker doesn’t affect them.
Ad Blocker works alongside the privacy protections already built into Firefox, including Enhanced Tracking Protection, which blocks many trackers and limits tracking across the web.
More control over how you experience the webOn Desktop and Android, Firefox already supports a strong ecosystem of ad-blocking and privacy extensions, giving people the flexibility to choose the tools that work best for them. We value that ecosystem and will keep supporting it.
iOS works differently. Extensions aren’t available in the same way, and we know people want more options. Bringing ad blocking to Firefox on iOS meant building it directly into the browser.
Giving people choice in how they experience the web is important to us. Advertising helps fund much of the open web, supporting the publishers, creators and websites people rely on. We also know that ads can sometimes crowd the screen or interrupt what you’re trying to do.
That’s why Ad Blocker is optional: you decide whether it’s part of how you browse. It’s part of a broader approach across Firefox to give you more control over your experience, from the extensions you use to how AI shows up in your browser.
Try itTo turn on Ad Blocker, go to Settings > Browsing > Ad Blocker.
If you find an ad you expected to be blocked, a site that behaves strangely or something we should improve, let us know on Mozilla Connect.
Visit our Support page for more details on Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS. For more on Firefox’s built-in privacy protections, check out How Firefox Protects Your Data.
The post Introducing Ad Blocker for Firefox on iOS: More Control, Fewer Distractions appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.