Yesterday, Mozilla launched Firefox 130 for Home windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, fixing a variety of necessary safety vulnerabilities whereas additionally enhancing a number of options and introducing a brand new setting that makes it rather a lot simpler to mess around with experimental options — like a brand-new integration with third-party AI chatbots.

Within the Firefox 130 safety advisory report, Mozilla lists 9 safety vulnerabilities which have been mounted, of which 4 have been categorized as “excessive danger” by the browser producer. So far as is understood, not one of the vulnerabilities have been exploited within the wild but.

However let’s dive into essentially the most attention-grabbing bit on this replace: the chance to expertise AI chatbots proper inside Firefox.

AI chatbots have come to Firefox

Previous to Firefox 130, in case you wished to check out experimental browser options which can be disabled by default, you needed to take the not-so-intuitive route utilizing the about:config web page. With this replace, we now have a “Firefox Labs” part within the Settings, the place you possibly can toggle completely different options that aren’t enabled by default.

For instance, you should utilize Firefox Labs to allow a brand new experimental characteristic that integrates third-party AI chatbots into Firefox (though you possibly can solely choose one chatbot at a time). The chosen chatbot is then made accessible within the sidebar for, properly, chatting.

You’ve got a number of choices in terms of these AI chatbots, together with the 2 mainstream contenders ChatGPT and Google Gemini in addition to some lesser-known options like Anthropic Claude, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral. Notably lacking is Microsoft’s Copilot. (You’ll nonetheless have to register with the respective chatbots earlier than utilizing them.)

Frank Ziemann

Frank Ziemann

Frank Ziemann

Right here’s one other AI-driven characteristic in Firefox 130: the PDF viewer included in Firefox can now mechanically generate description textual content for photographs contained inside PDF information. That is achieved by a neighborhood AI mannequin that’s downloaded by Firefox the primary time it’s wanted.

The builders have additionally improved Firefox’s net web page translation characteristic, which now works regionally with no cloud connection. You’ll be able to have a whole web page translated, then instantly choose textual content and have it translated into one other language.

With each of those options, all your knowledge stays in your pc.

If you wish to strive these new options, be sure you replace to Firefox 130 (and get these safety vulnerabilities patched, killing two birds with one stone). To manually replace, go to the menu and choose Assist > About Firefox. Mozilla plans to launch Firefox 131 in October.