Good news, everyone! The newer version of Mozilla's browser uses AI more extensively, provides a summary of linked content, and provides developers with the ability to add LLM support to their extensions.
Firefox 142 brings a visible sheen, but the combination of local restrictions and Mozilla's progressive rollout system means that not everyone can see all the features yet. There is also a new option for extension developers who predict that Universal Acclaim will not be met.
It's not a Geofyken, but a preview of the links of various native British-speaking regions. Right-click a hover, long press, or link and select Preview Link to see a summary. The summary of Mozilla states:
Earlier this month, some people reported that they were finding gobbling CPU cycles in Firefox's inference engine. I'm sure some people like the integrated LLM bot feature, but if so, it's very quiet about it. Some people predict that they will be unhappy with this new role too.
We also expect some misleading consequences. Research from 2024 and earlier this year shows that LLMS is often not accurately summed up.
Overall, this new release looks relatively modest to us, but that's because we are in the wrong geographical region due to some of the features that are affected. As a result, the new ones may be quite noticeable to some readers elsewhere in the world. I also confess that this vulture hasn't actually explored the new tab pages in Firefox and its customization options, as it has been a habit of turning off many new features in apps we've been happy to use over the years.
Two features in the new tab are Geofenced. Users in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain and India can all get news headlines there. Despite being in the British Isles, we are not in the UK or Ireland, so these vultures can't see them. However, if possible, this release is categorized by topic. Additionally, users of North America, Brazil, Australia, India and Japan can get weather forecasts embedded in new tab pages, but they won't do so as they are in “not one of the above” lands.
The two welcome changes are a simpler interaction between the sidebar and the tabbar. Now you can manage pinned tabs with a simple drag-and-drop operation and right-click to remove extensions that run in the sidebar. We use both to predict ourselves. There is also a new system to selectively manage exceptions to Firefox's enhanced tracking protection in case some sites get corrupted.
What's invisible to everyone is that this version has a new Crlite feature from Mozilla. This is explained in detail in a technical blog post with the title Executive Summary. Crlite has been around for a while, but it may now become more common.
Link summary is not the only bit that LLM integration increases. Oddly, Firefox 142 for developers doesn't mention any new technical changes, but the announcement states:
If you're unfamiliar with it like we do, wllama is a WASM concatenation of llama.cpp. This does not integrate spit camels into your browser. Instead, interface with llama.cpp. This allows meta's llama LLM and other models to run locally or in the cloud. Personally, we want to have a face full of anti-minded saliva, but your mileage can vary. ®
