Mozilla has launched Firefox 142, introducing several features to enhance user experience and developer capabilities, with a notable focus on AI integration.
Key Features of Firefox 142
Topic-based New Tab Page (US Only)
In this update, users in the United States will notice a new feature on the New Tab page: recommended stories categorized by topics like Sports, Food, and Entertainment. This organization allows users to better navigate the content and customize their experience by following or blocking specific topics.
Local AI Support for Extensions
Firefox 142 introduces support for the wllama API, enabling web extension developers to incorporate local large language model features into their add-ons. These AI capabilities use on-device models from the transformer.js library, although they may require significant resources.
Focus Tab in Collapsed Tab Groups
Users can now keep an active tab visible when collapsing tab groups. This improvement helps maintain focus on one particular tab, reducing visual clutter while maximizing efficiency.
Enhanced Tracking Protection Exceptions
Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) now includes new exception lists to prevent essential website functions from breaking. Users can find these settings under Settings > Privacy, allowing for a balance between privacy and usability.
Other Notable Changes
- AI-powered Link Previews will be expanding to more regions (for devices with >3GB RAM).
- Users can now easily remove web extensions from the sidebar with a right-click option.
- Improvements aim to reduce duplicate results in browsing history searches.
Firefox 142 also boasts various other adjustments and security fixes to enhance overall performance.
How to Get Firefox 142
Firefox 142 will be available to Ubuntu users through automatic background updates starting August 19. Linux Mint users can update via the Mint Update tool. Those wanting to install Firefox on Ubuntu can opt for the official Snap, Flatpak, or download the Firefox DEB directly from Mozilla’s website.
For more detailed information about these updates, you can visit the official Mozilla page.