Unlike many of the companies stuffing AI into their browsers, Mozilla will soon give you a way to turn all of these features off. An update coming on February 24th will add a new “AI control” option to Firefox’s settings menu, allowing you to disable or enable the browser’s individual AI features, including access to a built-in AI chatbot, translations, AI tab group suggestions, and more.
In December, Enzor-DeMeo promised an AI “kill switch” in response to users unhappy with Firefox’s embrace of AI. “Choice matters and demonstrating our commitment to choice is how we build and maintain trust,” Enzor-DeMeo wrote at the time. Now that the switch is on the way, and includes an option to disable all current and upcoming AI features. You can also manage whether Firefox uses AI to generate alt text for images in PDFs or to generate key points in link previews.
“AI is changing the web, and people want very different things from it,” Ajit Varma, Firefox’s vice president of product, writes in the announcement. “We’ve heard from many who want nothing to do with AI. We’ve also heard from others who want AI tools that are genuinely useful. Listening to our community, alongside our ongoing commitment to offer choice, led us to build AI controls.”