News Firefox 130 brings a few AI features, including integrated chatbots

[News]

terday, Mozilla released Firefox 130 for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, fixing a number of important security vulnerabilities while also improving several features and introducing a new setting that makes it a lot easier to play around with experimental features — like a brand-new integration with third-party AI chatbots.

In the Firefox 130 security advisory report, Mozilla lists nine security vulnerabilities that have been fixed, of which four have been categorized as “high risk” by the browser manufacturer. As far as is known, none of the vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild yet.

But let’s dive into the most interesting bit in this update: the opportunity to experience AI chatbots right within Firefox.

AI chatbots have come to Firefox


Prior to Firefox 130, if you wanted to try out experimental browser features that are disabled by default, you had to take the not-so-intuitive route using the about:config page. With this update, we now have a “Firefox Labs” section in the Settings, where you can toggle different features that aren’t enabled by default.

For example, you can use Firefox Labs to enable a new experimental feature that integrates third-party AI chatbots into Firefox (although you can only select one chatbot at a time). The selected chatbot is then made available in the sidebar for, well, chatting.

You have several options when it comes to these AI chatbots, including the two mainstream contenders ChatGPT and Google Gemini as well as some lesser-known alternatives like Anthropic Claude, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral. Notably missing is Microsoft’s Copilot. (You’ll still need to register with the respective chatbots before using them.)

Frank Ziemann


Frank Ziemann


Frank Ziemann


Here’s another AI-driven feature in Firefox 130: the PDF viewer included in Firefox can now automatically generate description text for images contained within PDF files. This is done by a local AI model that’s downloaded by Firefox the first time it’s needed.

The developers have also improved Firefox’s web page translation feature, which now works locally without a cloud connection. You can have a complete page translated, then immediately select text and have it translated into another language.

With both of these features, all of your data remains on your computer.

If you want to try these new features, make sure you update to Firefox 130 (and get those security vulnerabilities patched, killing two birds with one stone). To manually update, go to the menu and select Help > About Firefox. Mozilla plans to release Firefox 131 in October.