Try out Link Previews in Firefox Labs 138 and share your feedback with us!

[itskaren]

Hi all!

I'm Karen, the product manager in charge of Firefox Labs. Today, Joy (@mozpm) from the Firefox product team is joining me to share some awesome news!

We’ve just introduced a new experimental feature in Firefox Labs on Beta and Nightly called Link Previews, and we’d love for you to give it a try and let us know what you think.

What it does

We created Link Previews to help you browse more efficiently by showing a quick snapshot of what’s behind a link before you open it. It’s designed to help you get to the most relevant info faster, reduce tab clutter, and stay focused and organized as you browse the web.  

Most links you preview will include an image, the webpage title, and AI-generated key points. 

Firefox uses AI that runs locally on your device to read the linked page and create the key points. Because the AI runs locally, it works in a way that prioritizes your privacy since your browsing data is not shared or stored. 

And, as with all of our AI-enabled features, Link Previews is entirely optional: it only appears in Firefox if you enable the feature and consent to local AI processing. 

How to try it

This feature is currently available through Firefox Labs 138 in limited regions:

1. In Firefox, type about:settings#experimental into the address bar
   
   
2. Check the box next to Link Previews to turn it on
   
   
3. Hover over a link and press Shift + Alt/Option to see a preview
   
   

What to expect

This is an early version: it’s functional, but you may run into some rough edges. Your feedback will help us shape this feature as we continue to improve it! 

Known limitations 

• Keyboard shortcuts: The current shortcut (Hover + Shift + Alt/Option) may overlap with system shortcuts on some devices. We’re working on ways to make this more accessible. 
  
  
• Language support: Right now, Link Previews work best on English-language pages. The feature also may not be available in all regions while testing in Firefox Labs.
  
  
• Accuracy of Key points: In some cases, the AI that generates the key points may miss context from the webpage and make mistakes.  Your feedback on these mistakes helps us improve the feature.

We’d love your feedback

Once you’ve had a chance to try it, please share your thoughts in the comments below. Whether it’s UX polish, content quality, or ideas for how this feature could better support your workflow – we’re all ears. 

Thanks for helping us build a better Firefox! 

[Erwan]

My personal point of view:

Not interested at all, I turned off all previews, including tab previews, it annoys me all these things that open all the time. If I click on a link, I know where I'm going, no need for previews.

And where does AI come from?? I thought there was no AI in Firefox, only an isolated chat that could be disabled?? You mean to tell us that in fact the AI ​​is mixed into the Firefox core and that it has access to all our activity??

---FR---

Mon point vu personnel :

Pas du tout intéressé, j'ai désactivé tous les aperçus, y compris ceux des onglets, ça m'énerve toutes ces choses qui s'ouvrent tout le temps. Si je clique sur un lien, je sais où je vais, pas besoin d'aperçus.

Et l'IA, elle vient d'où ?? je croyais qu'il n'y avait pas d'IA dans Firefox seulement un tchat isolé qu'on pouvait désactiver ?? Vous voulez nous dire qu'en fait l'IA est mélangé dans le noyau Firefox et qu'elle a accès à toute notre activité ??

[mozpm]

Hi @Erwan, that’s a completely fair perspective – appreciate you raising the question. It’s clear you know what kind of browsing experience you want, and so the option to turn the Link Previews feature on or off is there for that reason.

Regarding the AI piece, just to clarify: the Link Previews AI model only downloads to your Firefox when you choose to turn on the feature.  

The model runs locally and on-device – so you can rest assured your browsing data stays with you. It’s not part of Firefox’s core code, it doesn’t have access to anything else you do in Firefox, and it’s only used to generate key points when you request them. 

Our goal is to give people choice: some people will want a fast, minimal browser with no extras, while others want smarter tools to help them get things done. We hope Firefox can support both – thanks again for raising these points!

[whoami730]

Is it possible to integrate all ML related settings in one place? We have atleast two firefox features using ML now - smart tab groups & link previews. Also more information/settings on which model is being used, from where etc will be much more useful. This information is not available anywhere except technical documents .

[uniqueusername]

Every time a new default shortcut is added to Firefox, support communities get flooded with posts from people saying that these new shortcuts conflict with something else they had been using for ages, and that they want to know how to change or disable them in Firefox.

Some of those people react in a very violent way when we try to explain that Firefox offers no way to customize keyboard shortcuts.

Please work on this before adding even more shortcuts:

* https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979
* https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/hotkeys-yes-please/td-p/57804

[kxra]

It's nice, but I'm assuming that the hotkeys are mostly to prevent it from being too obnoxious during testing, but will probably be enabled without hotkeys if it works out. For me, the previews are for some using a much larger text size than anything else on the page (would expect smaller, since it's a tiny preview) so they appear very cramped.

Also, one of my pet peeves is when stuff slowly loads and then the view for the content grows as it loads. For example infinite-loading web pages that have a navigation footer you can never reach, or searching for a user in Instagram messenger and tapping on the result only to have the results finish loading and then you tap on the horrible AI assistant that just took the actual results spot in the list.

[okay_okay]

I like the idea, but the hover plus keyboard shortcut experience is a bit clunky. I'd prefer to just enable the feature and then hover over links to see preview (without having to also enter a shortcut). Thanks! 

[00FF00]

Looking forward to this being added to the regular release version, I had to fire up the dev version and poke around just to see it in action - very nice!

Now if only we could remove that pesky empty flexible space from the toolbar as long as we have either the title bar or menu bar enabled 😁

[Denir]

Looks good and useful feature. I would also like to suggest a similar feature edge has, when you hover over an image and press ctrl, it opens a small window where you can zoom into the image, would love to see this on Firefox. Also off topic but please please implement split tabs functionality, it's really important to a lot of us.

[2mustange]

Its kind of clunky if i were to add my 2 cents. 

Seems to take forever for it to generate the "preview". I would almost prefer the ability to do something of an inline modal of the webpage and have the ability to preview the whole webpage and just exit out of it without loading a new tab.

[uniqueusername]

If the link points to a URL pattern that is known to be used by articles (e.g. Wikipedia, news websites, blog hosting services, etc.), this modal could actually show its Reader View and load it almost instantly, allowing the user to skim over it with his/her own eyes and brain.

[Windows_Vista]

What a useless feature its just AI bulls*** why couldn't you guys ever come up with something original or even remotely useful!