FILE PHOTO: The Firefox logo is seen at a Mozilla stand during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Credit: REUTERS/Albert Gea
Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, all big technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Perplexity, Adobe and many more have introduced deeper integration of generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI) features with existing productivity tools and even announced new features to bring value-addition to their services to the customers.
Even Mozilla at the start offered similar features, but now, it is bucking the trend. As noted in the headline, it has announced to bring the 'off switch' to AI features on its Firefox browser.
Called the AI Control feature, it offers an option for users to use or disable a particular AI feature or fully block all features.
They can individually turn on some features, such as:
1) Translations: This feature AI feature help the user browse the web in the preferred language.
2) Alt text in PDFs: It offers accessibility descriptions to images in PDF pages.
3) AI-enhanced tab grouping: This feature suggests related tabs and group names.
4) Link previews: This AI feature shows key points before the user opens a link.
5) AI chatbot in the sidebar: This lets the user choose the chatbot (Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Le Chat Mistral) as the user browse and seeks more information on a particular topic.
Users can choose to use some of the aforementioned and not others. If he/she doesn't want to use AI features from Firefox at all, they can turn on the Block AI enhancements toggle. Once turned on, the user won’t see any pop-ups or reminders to use existing or upcoming AI features.
"We believe choice is more important than ever as AI becomes a part of people’s browsing experiences. What matters to us is giving people control, no matter how they feel about AI," said Mozilla.
The new 'AI Control' feature is coming in the new Firefox update scheduled to roll out on February 24.
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