Firefox 148 adds AI kill switch and enhanced privacy controls
Firefox 148 includes a new "AI kill switch" feature that allows users to disable AI functionalities like chatbot prompts and AI-generated link summaries. Mozilla states that once AI features are turned off, future updates won't override this choice.
How to disable AI features
To disable AI features, navigate to Settings > AI Controls and toggle the 'Block AI Enhancements' option. This prevents in-app notifications about AI features and removes previously downloaded AI models from the device.
For selective blocking, users can maintain some AI functionalities while avoiding cloud-based services, such as keeping on-device translations.
Additional privacy controls
Firefox 148 offers more control over remote updates while minimizing data collection. Users can set these preferences under Settings > Privacy & Settings > Firefox Data Collection.
Technical enhancements
- Integration of Trusted Types API and Sanitizer API to combat cross-site scripting (XSS) issues
- Improved screen reader compatibility for mathematical formulas in PDFs
- Firefox Backup now available on Windows 10
- Translation capabilities added for Vietnamese and Traditional Chinese
- New tab wallpapers in container tabs
- Service worker support for WebGPU
📖 Read the full source: HN AI Agents
👀 See Also
Trading Strategy Benchmark: Cheaper AI Models Outperform Claude Opus 4.6
A benchmark tested 10 LLMs on developing trading strategies, with cheaper models like Minimax 2.5 and Gemini 3.1 outperforming Claude Opus 4.6 despite its 10x higher cost. The experiment was run three times with consistent results.
Mercury 2: Diffusion-Based Model for Real-Time AI Coding
Mercury 2 uses diffusion-based generation instead of sequential token-by-token decoding, generates tokens in parallel and refines them over steps, and claims 1,009 tokens/sec on NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs with pricing at $0.25/1M input tokens and $0.75/1M output tokens.
EU Forces Google to Share Search Data, Open Android to Third-Party AI
New DMA specification measures require Google to share search data with competitors and open Android to third-party AI assistants with full system integration by mid-2027.
AWS Lambda MicroVMs: VM-level isolation for user and AI-generated code, with suspend/resume up to 8 hours
AWS launches Lambda MicroVMs, a serverless compute primitive built on Firecracker, providing per-user VM isolation, near-instant launch, and up to 8-hour state preservation for executing user/AI-generated code.