When Mozilla announced that its Firefox browser would have built-in artificial intelligence switchit set itself apart from the crowd of tech giants by eagerly adding an onslaught of AI features to every online experience.
When he stepped into the role in December, Mozilla CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo says it became clear that the Firefox community wanted the ability to turn off the browser’s AI features entirely.
“Our community spoke positively, especially when the CEO was announced, which not everyone wanted [AI],” he told me in an interview. “At its core, we want to listen to our users, and they were talking. … It was true to the roadmap, but I accelerated it, judging by the public response.”
But the AI kill switch, now available on mobile and desktop, is bypassed by 1% of Firefox users to turn off AI completely. It is also used less by just 3% to turn off certain AI features in the browser.
Enzor-DeMeo notes that tools, including AI interpretation, have value that people want to keep. The key difference to Firefox is that there is choice, he says, pointing out Microsoft automates in Copilot when searching on the Windows desktop again Google is putting massive AI models on human computers without letting them know.
“I think there’s a general user feeling of, ‘hey, I didn’t ask for that, and I didn’t choose that.’ The good thing about Firefox … we offer a choice,” he said.
Enzor-DeMeo also talked to me about Firefox’s new smart window, built-in VPN, privacy concerns in the age of AI and the re-launch of a new browser design in the fall with the goal of keeping the Internet open and fair.
Firefox Smart Window: BYO AI
Switch from a classic browser window to an AI-powered smart window in Firefox in beta.
Smart Window, available in beta now, lets you choose which AI model to use in Firefox, and lets you import your own AI models to use in the browser.
“If you want to use ChatGPT, great. If you want to use Gemini, great. … Our sidebar lets you use them all,” Enzor-DeMeo said. “They all excel at different things; why do I need to be forced into one of them?”
The team at Firefox hopes that other browsers will take this more AI-agnostic approach, and use proprietary AI models, too.
Mozilla also promotes the privacy of your conversations in Smart Window. It says it doesn’t use any of your information to train models and automatically filters out sensitive and private data. You can then choose what data the AI model remembers about you and delete anything you don’t want it to know or turn off its memory entirely.
Enzor-DeMeo noted that not only are there skeptics of AI, but most of the world has no access to it. According to some statistics, about 83% of people worldwide have never used AI, and in the US, only about 3% do. He called AI “mostly non-profit,” and predicted that we’ll start seeing more ads for AI services soon.
“Sometimes, especially in the tech bubble, I think we get a little tunnel vision or an echo chamber of AI, AI, AI, but I think if you look at it from a global scale, there’s not a ton of access,” he told me. “If we actually go in such a way that AI is very browser-centric, and that’s how people access the Internet, you run the risk of the Internet becoming very closed.”
AI tools need a lot of information about you to provide relevant information — “that’s the brutal truth.” But he said Firefox is focused on active consent.
“I think there’s an inflection point in the market to distrust Big Tech,” Enzor-DeMeo said. “There’s a point in what AI does to society, and I think people want control, autonomy, choice and privacy.”
Built-in VPN for Firefox: 1.5 million people signed up
Firefox has a built-in VPN.
To help maintain this privacy, Firefox has introduced a free VPN in the browser last month. Enzor-DeMeo said one of her top priorities when she took office in December was building a built-in environment. VPN product, because it’s much easier for people to just click a button on a browser than it is open another application and sign in — “an underwhelming experience,” he noted.
While many VPNs offer browser extensions To simplify the process, remember that the VPN is usually based on the browser it only encrypts your work within that browsernot to other apps on your entire device. You need VPN apps for strong privacy protection.
Firefox VPN now has 1.5 million subscribers, and Mozilla is currently offering an Unlimited VPN package from June 9 to Aug. 31 which allows you to choose your location. And with nearly 800,000 users already active, Enzor-DeMeo said it’s a nod to Firefox doing the right thing, especially in an age of rampant AI, where privacy is enabled by using VPN it is incredibly important.
“What we are seeing is an increase in surveillance. There are many different challenges, depending on your geolocation, continuing with AI,” he told me. “We’ve always been a firm believer in VPNs. I think people have a right to privacy. I think people need to look up information about medical issues or things like that, and stay private. So for me, it was driven by ethos.”
The new Firefox: “Keep the Internet a level playing field”
Firefox’s redesign has vertical tabs and rounded icons.
Project Nova, which will simply be called Firefox when it launches later this year, focuses on making Mozilla’s browser faster (page load times up to 9% faster than before, Mozilla says), more secure and more customizable. Firefox has about 200 million monthly users. (Firefox is estimated to have a market share of just over 2%, compared to Google Chrome’s 70% and Apple’s Safari’s 16%.)
It is scheduled to be released in the fall, probably in September or October, although new features are slowly rolling out in Nightly. Mozilla has been seeking input from its community of developers and other users through its forums and AMA posts on Reddit.
A new AI feature is tab groups, where artificial intelligence will automatically group similar tabs you have open to make them easier to find. Enzor-DeMeo said his approach to AI is to find effective features that people will benefit from.
Beyond AI, the new Firefox will receive visual improvements including a compact mode; round shape of panels, menus, settings and browser controls; light around your active tab; and built-in accessibility features.
“What we’re trying to do is keep the web open, safe and competitive,” Enzor-DeMeo said. “Our goal is not to be the biggest browser; to keep the Internet a level playing field.”
