Mozilla has officially launched a preview of the upcoming Link Preview feature of its open source Firefox web browser. Unlike traditional link preview extensions, Firefox’s implementation offers a modern take by incorporating AI for summarizing key points.
The AI runs locally on the device, which is excellent for privacy. The tradeoff is that computing will usually take longer, especially on older or slower systems.
Enabling Link Previews in Firefox
The feature is available as a preview currently in Firefox Beta and Nightly. You need to enable it before it becomes available.
- Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
- Confirm the security prompt to continue.
- Search for browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled.
- Toggle the state to True to enable it.
- Restart Firefox.
Tip: the preference browser.ml.linkPreview.outputSentences defines the number of A_generated keypoints. The default is three. The preference browser.ml.linkPreview.allowedLanguages defines the supported languages, which is English at the time.
Using Link Previews in Firefox
Hold down the Shift and Alt keys on the keyboard before hovering over a link. Firefox displays an overlay that lists key information, including a preview thumbnail, full title, reading time, and a meta description.
Below that is a list of keypoints, generated by AI, that summarize key elements of the linked webpage.
Note: Generation of the keypoints takes longer on first use of the feature. It was relatively speedy on my fairly potent HP laptop, but took quite some time on an older system. This is a one-time process.
Keypoint generation is not instant, but it took a few seconds usually after the initial setup. The processing is relatively quick, even on longer articles, e.g., those on Wikipedia.
The quality of the keypoints is quite good. You should realize that this is not a summary of the article, but three key arguments or points made in the article. It is often good enough for a quick overview of the content, which is the main purpose of the preview feature.
To sum it up:
- AI runs locally, which is great for privacy, but adds to the processing time.
- Keypoints give good overviews usually.
Closing Words
Link Previews is a useful feature that bakes privacy-friendly AI into Firefox. While it remains to be seen how popular the feature will be once it launches, it is definitely a welcome addition in the browser.
An option to change the keyboard shortcut from Shift-Alt would be welcome, as it may improve usability.
Now You: do you use link previews? What is your take on the feature that Mozilla added to Firefox?
Guess this works; ideally, a writer’s style precludes the need for link previews. The style is such that the main points are easily identified, the article is devoid of useless dribble, and opinion, if existent, is saved for a last paragraph and can be disregarded by the reader if so desired.
The AI summary doesn’t mention important elements of the article: the feature isn’t available for the majority of users; the key combination to make it work–Shift-Alt. I didn’t notice alternative sources cited like DDG offers, e.g.:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/firefox-ai-link-preview/
It could save time–reading snippets before the commitment to actually read.