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
   
   Edit as of June 3, 2025: Please note that the shortcuts for Link Previews now also include "Press Shift key while you hover over a link" and "Click and hold the link for 1 second (long press)." These shortcuts can be configured in Settings.
   

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! 

 ------

**UPDATE on April 29**

We’ve just incorporated a bug fix to optimize the Link Previews experience. This is a rare occurrence when you may need to “restart” this now fixed feature in Labs--if you’ve been using Link Previews in Firefox Labs on Nightly, Beta, or Developer Edition, please visit Labs (about:preferences#experimental in the URL bar) and re-check the “Link previews” checkbox to get the feature back.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your support!

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Thanks for the feedback Lex.

This is exactly why we ran the experiment with a small group of users, to find out what works and what doesn't.

You'll be pleased to hear we're turning off the shift-hover shortcut as it causes too many issues. Before we consider making this feature available to any more users we are also working on improving the AI model's output so that it gives a more useful preview of the content.

[OS2User]

Hi Paul,

the disastrous "shift-hover shortcut" outcome shouldn't come as a surprise as it is a longtime and widespread standard to Shift-Click in order to select multiple items. So of course it would interfere most negatively in a major way.

Additionally I don't see the wisdom in "click and hold" either, as I pointed out 2 days ago. In all my efforts coming to terms with it, the click always resulted in the link to be executed after the hold period upon click-release. So what's the point in getting a preview before being confronted with the link target right after anyway?

[PaulFirefoxUX]

That's not how it's expected to behave, of course. I totally understand why you'd be baffled at that, as it sounds very inconvenient and not at all helpful like that! Thank you for reporting it.

It's reports like this during our experiment phase that help us iron out bugs before it goes to a wider audience.

Could you please let us know what operating system you're on and anything else with your setup that help us recreate, identify, and fix this issue? (do you use a mouse, a trackpad etc)

[OS2User]

Paul, 

what just happened to my posting from 202-07-14 and the other 3 or 4 replies since, some from just within the last 30 minutes?

Did I just get censored?
20 minutes ago they where all still here and now only a single one has survived! ????

I'm using Linux Mint on a laptop (trackpoint and regular touchpad) and was describing the issues with Yahoo!'s webmail client, driving me almost insane when trying to mark a series of emails for deletion.

[PaulFirefoxUX]

I sometimes find it hard to re-find comments on Mozilla Connect too, as the sort-order is unintuitive. I suggest reloading the page, scrolling to the bottom, hitting 'Load more replies' until everything is loaded, and then CTRL+F to find your username.

Nobody is on here removing feedback.

Thank you for providing more details to help us identify the bug.

[OS2User]

It is MUCH weirder than just that on this page with those comments.

Since posting my initial reply on 2025-07-14 @ 19:18 CDT I kept the tab open to follow up on email notifications about new replies and also to make some follow up remarks.

That was working fine with all/most, I think, the replies posted by others since then being visible, including my own.

And then suddenly after the next page refresh to see what's new, pretty much everything since Agentvirtuel's post from 2025-07-07 was missing but the very last three to four ones made by you and me this morning.

Ctrl-Shift-R refreshing the page didn't improve anything, switching the current page Sort Order from 'Oldest to Newest' the other way around didn't either.

Also, opening this thread again in a new window, starting from scratch from https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/firefox-labs/bd-p/Labs had the same poor outcome.

All those posts remained gone. That's when I posted this one in desperation.

At last I tried the direct, bookmarked link to my initial 2025-07-14 @ 19:18 CDT posting and weirdly, this time mine and most? of the others since then are now showing again.

This whole discussion page is acting so weird.

[tilwiti]

If it's only for English, then I don't see the point.

[tilwiti]

I don't really trust AI when it comes to reading something, because it seems like it might simplify things and miss something. If I need to summarize something, I read it first and then talk to ChatGPT about it. Most of the pages I read are either too simple or too complex for me to trust AI...

[OS2User]

Turning on additional two new shortcuts (1. and 3.) for 'link previews' in FF 140.0.x by default:

1. Shortcut: Press the Shift key while you hover over a link
2. Shortcut: Press Shift + Alt while you hover over a link
3. Shortcut: Click and hold the link for 1 second (long press)

without any proper information about it, is a really stinky move!

I knew about the enabled new "Shortcut: Press Shift + Alt" - a good choice, btw - feature of FF 138, but was almost going crazy today for the last hour in Yahoo!'s webmail, when I couldn't mark several emails for deletion at once, because each and every time I pressed Shift before trying to click on the second email checkbox to determine the selection range, a never seen before bloody annoying popup got there always in my way.

I only had briefly used the new link preview feature upon release of FF 138, after reading about it in the release notes, on links in a few articles where I intentionally activated the shortcut and was expecting a link preview, which then worked there properly and as anticipated.

But now, 2½ months in, I had now clue where the bloody hell this weird always appearing modal popup suddenly came from and what it was all about and suspecting Yahoo! for it.
The shown text in it didn't make any sense either and only added to the increasingly frustrating confusion, since it advised to 'login to Yahoo! to access the best in class blahblah', which I already long was - how else could I have accessed my emails?

And the "... couldn't generate key points" useless message in the grey box at the bottom of the popup was no help either - I still had no clue what the bloody devil had suddenly happened with my familiar webmailer since yesterday's update from FF 138.04 to 140.0.4.

What the heck is "can't generate key points" supposed to mean anyway, if you don't know what's happening?
How about adding a tiny hint then, that it is a Firefox Link Preview popup, which is unable to complete its task?

And how is the "Shortcut: Click and hold the link for 1 second (long press)" of any use?
The moment I click on a link and hold to get a link preview, the link is activated upon release, so it always loads anyway.
So what's the point in delaying to load the link for a preview, when its outcome is inevitable and then visible regardless?

Not enough that Mozilla botched the "about:config" custom color option for "visited links" and several add-ons making use of it, since FF 138.0 - here we have the next major screw-up, frustrating and annoying the heck out their users!

No wonder Firefox has hardly any userbase left these days, compared to the ever growing Chrome-based competition!

[BlueWinds]

Please stop putting AI in things. It's unreliable, biased, and a waste of everyone's time (developers, and users alike).

I've used Firefox as my primary browser for well on 20 years, and have recently switched to a fork that respects my privacy and time more than Mozilla seems to these days.

[ariasuni]

Mozilla is speedrunning alienating the most loyal part of their userbase, wondering why they’re doing so badly. When I was a teenager, I dreamt of joining Mozilla; now, I hope for alternatives so we don’t have to suffer using Firefox anymore.

[CanCrystallog]

Please stop trying for force AI slop down my throat. I want my web browser to be a web browser, not to lie to me about what is on a website that is at the end of a link I can just click. I don't get why every company suddenly feels a need to add this to their product, I'm really thinking of moving to vivaldi to get away from it. Now I need to go learn how to edit about:config to disable yet another AI thing Mozilla is trying to push. 

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Hi CanCrystallog

We have designed Link Previews with you in mind!

It doesn't run any AI unless you give consent, and if you gave consent and changed your mind later then you can turn it off in Settings without needing to use about:config – just click the gear icon in a link preview, or go to Settings > Browsing.

You can even remove the privacy-preserving AI model from your computer at about:addons if you gave consent and then later want it not just inactive but, completely removed.

There's more details about Firefox's distinctive approach to AI – one that puts privacy and user control first, here: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-ai/ai-browser-features/

Hopefully this reassures you that we're not forcing AI on anyone, and actually we're being very intentional about not doing so 🙂

[ItsDanielB]

As a website operator, how can I disable this for specific elements? This breaks my web application for firefox users - we are using shift+click to allow users to select multiple items, but the interaction is broken (requires multiple clicks) when this feature is enabled (but works as expected when disabling the `Enable Link Previews` in firefox settings).

[PaulFirefoxUX]

The shift-click shortcut will be switched off for everybody soon as it causes too many issues. The purpose of running this experiment with a small group of users was to discover exactly things like this.

So don't worry, it doesn't affect many users and it is temporary. On an individual basis people can turn off each shortcut by clicking the settings gear icon in a link preview, or going to Settings > Browsing.

[OS2User]

It wasn't "shift-click" it was the much more vicious simply "shift on hover"  coming suddenly out of nowhere and with no indication from what. THAT was the HUGE issue about it. 

Why couldn't the popup indicate, who/what is initiating it? Common sense. Not?

[PaulFirefoxUX]

A slip of the keyboard on my part – yes, I meant shift-hover.

The onboarding card explained that it was from Firefox, but you're right that the link preview itself could include an indication of what has triggered it, for users that missed the onboarding card.

Thank you for the feedback!

[Adam_YUNG]

Hello,

I think that the idea of a preview is awesome.  It would be even better if we can choose between an AI overview and just a popup view of the link in a slightly smaller window like Zen browser's Glance feature. 

While the AI overview is great, my primary use case for such a "preview" ability would be to browse google or amazon's search results without constantly moving back and forth between the search page and the results.

Without a preview, one would have to click on a result, decide it's not fit and go back to the previous page and repeat.  With a preview, one could just glance at the popup view of the link, decide if it's good and enter or discard it without the hassle of going back to the original page.

If Firefox could implement such a preview, it would truly be a gem of a feature for users and I think would greatly increase user satisfaction.

Again, thanks so much for considering my suggestion and for improving Firefox!

[alsjflasasjdfla]

I did not sign up for this terrible feature and it took a long time and a lot of digging to get here and figure out how to disable it. 

[thebudman420]

Doesn't seem to generate key points for any links or websites that i have tried yet. A bit awkward to hold shift and alt at the same time.

[wellington1993]

Hi, 
I need an easy way to create site exceptions. 
I liked the idea, but requires some improvements. 

Thanks!

[uongsuadaubung]

If it's for previewing, I would prefer it to display in a larger popup window and show the full content of the website, similar to what Zen Browser is doing. I often read news, and with the current browsing method, when I scroll down and see an article I'm interested in, I have to click the link to view it. After reading, I press back, but then my scroll position resets to the top of the page, so I have to scroll back down to where I was. Opening the link in a new tab works too, but I just prefer the feeling of a more seamless browsing experience.
As for the AI summary feature, it's nice to have, but I think there should be a setting to let users choose which language the AI responds in. For example, if I'm reading news in Vietnamese and I hit preview, but the AI gives me a summary in English, I definitely won't use it.

[thebudman420]

Maybe my computer is to old. I am using the non distro firefox from Mozilla on Linux mint 20. I keep getting something went wrong when generating. I would be updating my Linux distro minimally but my computer has been off and not working for a long time and my hard drives are too full to do an upgrade or total install of a new linux distro until i can get the money for a hdd or sdd. I been struggling to find files i want to part with.

[KrisKale42]

I think the link preview system is fine, I would like to be able to have the Keypoints triggered for the current page or a part of the current page as it can help me focus for these points.

Unlike other AI features found in other browsers preview does have a clear reason to truly exist and does not need to be an online feature.

I have ADHD and I am not against the use of AI features but when it can have a true neccessary or use. Firefox's local translation system works for the languages I need at a suitable quality, the AI tab suggestion tries it's best which can try to help sort though a large set of tabs, this link preview feature I feel can be locally explored and shows promise of a functional use of a LLM even on contrained systems; although model elaboration or further transparency would be preferable such as an explanation of what the model is, like the tab suggestion model where the AI feature was not quite clear in the settings page. 

[Lampe2020]

I feel like putting AI into it is both overkill and a little bit annoying. I disable as much of all the AI functionality in all programs that I use, because I only want to interact with an AI when I explicitly go to an AI, not in a feature that I know can be implemented better. The fact that this is region-locked could also be made unecessary by removing the AI or at least making it optional.   

I cannot test this as it is because of the region lock (I'm in Sweden and get all the other AI features like AI page summaries, but not this), but the description of it doesn't really make me want to try it out anymore anyways.   

I think you should take a look at how Zen Browser's "Glance" feature works, as that is a _very_ handy tool the way it is implemented there. No AI summary, no relying on page metadata (like `og:` or `twitter:` meta tags) to get an image preview, just loading the page inside a hovering frame, with buttons next to it to close it or push the page to its own tab.   

[probablywrong]

-

[mz8234]

From a server point of view: there are pages that are expensive to generate and we would rather not have fetched like this

Is there an in-html way to tell the browser not to preview specific links, similar to how rel="nofollow' tells spiders not to load them?

I would *really* prefer not to have to create a bunch of vendor-specific header-checks to block previews. Seems like something that should be standardized. ...But if checking for the "x-firefox-ai" is the only way of blocking these requests, what http response code does your browser expect for "no preview available"?

[RM5]

I am very happy that it is easy to turn off. Mainly, with only the "Shortcut: Click and hold the link for 1 second (long press)" selected,  I was getting a lot of popups stating that "We can't generate key points for this web page." 

[probablywrong]

I love this feature but find it really annoying that Mozilla keeps changing whether or not I can use Shift + hover as a shortcut. First it wasn't there, then they added it, then they removed it, then they added it again. Well, I didn't understand why the feature wasn't working until I looked in settings and lo and behold, it's gone yet again.

This is precisely why people get annoyed with updates. Because developers can't make up their minds. Just add the feature and if people like me want to use it (yes) then they can, and if people don't want to because they prefer click and hold, then they can do that. Why remove it?

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Hi probablywrong

Glad you're enjoying link previews!

During the period when this feature was only available as an experiment, we used it to learn which shortcuts would be easy to use without conflicting with shortcuts people use for other apps. Shift-hover proved to trigger a lot of accidental previews, which meant people couldn't just choose not to use it – it was unexpectedly interrupting their day to day Firefox use, so we had to find a better solution.

This is the nature of experimental features. It's not our indecisiveness, it's the process for seeing what works with a small group of people who have chosen to try out features we're still testing.

The feature has now been released to a wider audience in the main browser release, and the shortcut has been stable as long-press since that public release.

Hope that helps explain why it changed! And thanks for sticking with it 🙂

[probablywrong]

Thank you for the answer. I'm curious why people couldn't choose not to use it, though. Wasn't shift-hover an option the same way that the other ones were?

That's why I'm confused. If people found that to be triggering accidentally, that's fine, I get that, but couldn't it just be that that option is off by default but still present?

Personally I find myself accidentally triggering it way more with click and hold, but there are no other keyboard options anymore. It's just click and hold or find it buried in the right-click menu.

[PaulFirefoxUX]

The feature's on by default, or it wouldn't be very discoverable.

Adding additional (off by default) ways to trigger it would be adding complexity, to the codebase, to the interaction UX, and to the settings screen. Perhaps we'll make the trigger customizable in future, but for now we went with the simpler choice that the data showed caused vastly fewer accidental triggers (implied by link previews that were closed by the user within a couple of seconds, suggesting they didn't intend for it to open).

Sorry that you're in the minority who find it accidentally triggers more often this way.

[probablywrong]

Ah, I meant make the default long press rather than shift-click, but still allow shift-click as an off-by-default option. Not turn off link previews entirely as default. But a customizable option in the future would be very appreciated.

It's only a minor issue on desktop for me, like yeah sometimes I do start clicking and holding on a link as I'm still reading something but intend to go to the link in a moment. But on other devices it proved to be a real hassle. Like on Steam Deck, I had to disable it because the default methods of clicking are right trigger (meaning it sometimes takes a moment to depress which I think means it registers as a long press) or pushing in on a touchpad (which is just a bit awkward so sometimes it ends up being a long press). I can remap those features, but it was just a bit more precise when I was able to just map shift to a button then click however.

Anyway, I appreciate the feature. I just hope there's a couple of options in the future for how to activate.

[RichardNeill]

Please don't ever do this just with hover+delay. That is a critical mechanism for previewing the link URL to see if it's malicious. Also loading pages has side-effects (there are plenty of sites that use a GET request to delete something, or where you have a limited number of pages you can load before a subscription is needed). Thanks.

[OS2User]

I don't know what kind of weird decisions are currently being made with activating "link previews"

I just noticed in FF 143.0.1 (64-bit) on Linux only silly options left in Settings → General → Browsing for "link preview shortcuts" that are rubbish and don't work and the only one making any sense at all is not no longer available (see screenshot below): 

1. "right-click on a link" - Seriously??? That for the last 5 millennia opens the page context menu and only that  (and is not supposed to do anything else)
2. Shortcut: Click and hold the link for 1 second (long press) - I have no idea where and how this is ever supposed to work. Here clicking a link always primes the link action and as soon as you release the hold, no matter if immediately or after 5 days, the link action always engages, usually opening that very link somewhere. But never ever is there any way for it to "Enable link preview"
   Edit: I stand corrected. After some 2...3 sec a link preview now actually pops, up but as soon as I move the mouse pointer after releasing the long press, I am then dragging the link around and have to click again somewhere in the preview popup or cancel by pressing ESC.  → silly and annoying and way more effort than Alt-Shift-Hover
3. Shortcut Alt-Shift-Hover is no longer listed, but luckily still works and this is the only sane, reasonable and working shortcut. Why is it no longer configurable?

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Hi OS2 User!

I hope this answers your questions:

1. Right click opens the context menu, and there's a 'Preview Link' option in the context menu. This is essential for accessibility, as there are many users who can't hold a mouse, and so any mouse interaction is not possible for them. Users who navigate using voice commands can open context menus, so it's essential for the feature to be available there too.

2. If long press isn't working for you then that sounds like a bug. If it was working, then it also wouldn't trigger navigating to the link when you release it. Thanks for giving the browser version and OS – I'll report that for fixing. (maybe the bug also is hiding 'Preview Link' from the context menu for you?)

3. Alt-Shift-Hover was only ever available as a Labs experiment to users who like to try features that we're still working on. It caused a lot of problems for users. Many people couldn't remember it as it's very convoluted. Others don't have the physical dexterity to easily hold down two keyboard buttons at the same time. We need to ensure Firefox doesn't exclude people with limited mobility, so we chose to switch to an easier shortcut, which our research showed the vast majority of people find easier. Before we released it to a wide audience, we removed the old options for simplicity – imagine how confusing the browser would be if every feature had multiple shortcuts! And we'd also run out of shortcuts to use for new features (it was already a challenge to find a shortcut that didn't conflict with other features for link previews!).

Sorry this isn't all to your liking, but I hope we can get that bug fixed for you in a future update.

[OS2User]

Thanks for your swift response

1. "or right-click on a link." is then an overly shortened and thus very confusing description of what is actually meant, getting a link preview through an added option in the RMB page context menu.

2. My edited ‎03-10-2025 11:53 AM didn't seem to have propagated yet before your reply. It now is actually working, but with an annoying side effect, confirming my preference for Alt-Shift-Hover

3. Alt-Shift-Hover: is much faster and simpler than RMB context menu operations or the "Click and hold the link" convolute. And it even works for links on windows/pages that don't have the focus: win-win.
"Many people couldn't remember", "Others don't have the physical dexterity" those aren't forced to use it, if any of the other options is more to their liking, but leave Alt-Shift-Hover in for those that prefer it. 
As I said, after all it is still working -and I hope it stays like this - even if the configuration option for it is now gone.