Firefox Lets Users Remove On-Device AI Models for Smart Tab Grouping, Link Previews & More

Mozilla will soon allow Firefox users to delete on-device AI models powering features like Smart Tab Grouping and Link Previews, WindowsReport has learned. The change, expected in Firefox 140, gives users complete control as browsers like Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Brave increasingly integrate AI.

Mozilla has been developing various AI features in Firefox. For instance, with Smart Tab Grouping, Firefox aims to suggest tabs for grouping. Similarly, Firefox can also generate AI-powered Link Previews.

The company officially introduced AI in Firefox last year with on-device text generation for images in PDFs. Many in the community dislike privacy-centric Firefox using AI, even though it operates locally instead of through the cloud.

Recently, Mozilla started experimenting with local AI models for developers in Firefox. The company introduced a new API in Firefox Nightly that allows web extensions to run offline machine learning (ML) tasks using the Firefox AI runtime.

The company states: “Whether used by Firefox itself or an extension, models are automatically downloaded on the first use and cached.”

Manage local AI models in Firefox via Add-ons Manager

Soon, Firefox will introduce a new section in Firefox that will display “On-Device AI” models, listing models used for PDFJS Alt Text, Smart Tab Grouping, and Link Preview, allowing users to manage them. This update is expected to appear in Firefox 140 in the Add-ons Manager.

“Some features and extensions in Firefox are powered by AI models that work locally on your device. This approach protects your privacy and, in many cases, speeds up performance. Learn more,” Firefox says.

As seen in the screenshot, the section lists AI models used for Smart Tab Grouping as Smart Tab Embedding, Smart-Tab Topic, and SmolLM2-360M-Instruct-GGUF, which Firefox uses to create key points when previewing links.

Firefox provides details for each model, including file size, last used date, model card, version (with a link to more details), and last updated date.

These on-device AI models in Firefox can be removed or deleted using the provided option. However, Firefox warns they will be re-added if the browser uses features or extensions that rely on them.

Firefox users will have full control over local AI models used in the browser when it comes to features that use AI.

Note: Deleting an AI model removes the trained machine learning data that powers an AI feature, but it doesn’t necessarily remove the feature itself. An AI feature, like Smart Tab Grouping or Link Preview, relies on AI models to operate. If you delete an AI model, the feature may stop working or revert to a non-AI version, but the feature itself still exists in Firefox.

For example, if Firefox uses an on-device AI model to suggest tab groups, deleting the model means Firefox won’t have the intelligence to make suggestions—but the tab grouping feature itself may still be present.

Apart from this, Mozilla is enabling a Terms of Use notice for everyone in Firefox. Additionally, Firefox is set to promote the Perplexity AI search engine.