So they’re reintroducing a feature in 2025 that they added to Firefox in 2010 and subsequently removed in 2013. Such progress. Much wow.
smart tab groups, a new AI-powered feature that suggests names and groups based on the tabs you have open.
Yeah sure ok. Did the community ask for this too?
I mean, why not?
They integrated accessibility focused, local, AI pretty well.
Loads of folks bitched about it because they were triggered by “AI”, but it’s essentially invisible, as it should be.
I hate naming things, that’s actually something AI is good at, hell yeah, let it name my shit for me please.
Then again, these communities are always full of Debby downers who hate on everything.
[Dr. Who meme format]
Is AI bad?
It Depends. Large corporate AI hosted at a data centre that consumes a nuclear reactor’s worth of power and a lake’s worth of water for cooling for the purpose of generating slop stolen from Artists and Writers? Yes.
Locally run embedded AI designed for a specific task to automate small processes or enhance the UI experience with little cost to local computing resources because it’s been properly optimised? No.
a datacenter is more efficient than lots of smaller individual computers doing calculations independently. They actually make their stuff as efficient as possible, otherwise it hurts margins. So, if you’re against datacenter AI because of power, then just stop using ai. If everyone ran locally, the efficiency would be significantly worse overall.
I actually hate what llms have become, but efficiency is still not a good way to compare a datacenter to a home computer.
A consumer would use a lower token AI compared to large datacenters. I am sure it does less environmental damage, because the home user doesnt need tap water for cooling.
Yeah for now I remain cautiously optimistic. I have not used their ai stuff once but it was also never shoved down my throat and my browsing experience has not been affected at all, and them finally listening to the community and implementing tabs grouping is just great. If they keep it that way I think we’ll be fine
I don’t care about AI when it’s doing minor things like this it’s when they’re shoving it down our throats and we don’t want it.
AI as a tool? Hell yeah.
AI to replace people? Fuck no.
For one second I thought Mozilla might have made something that wasn’t anti-feature… But OF COURSE it’s going to need to have AI 😑
Real.
I had to enable them:
about:config->browser.tabs.groups.enabled->trueThank you for this. Now I know hire to turn them off.
But they’re off by default so I’m not sure what you’re talking about
Not on my browser they aren’t. They just started offering to make groups one day, and while I want to tear out someone’s tongue for it, it would require far too much effort, and might just be a bit of an overreaction.
Same here. They also just went away on their own 😂
Now, the team is experimenting with smart tab groups, a new AI-powered feature that suggests names and groups based on the tabs you have open.
Off course, they found a way to integrate more Ai features.
Because you know it’s really hard naming your group yourself
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the inclusion of some small AI feature is what justified the rest of this work being done. As in, someone got approval for tab groups only because they were smart enough to describe it as “AI powered tab groups“. Just speculation
ffs. Of course they had to slap AI on top of it. Goddammit.
“You asked, we built it” --> “People keep shitting on us for our terrible decisions… Quick let’s do something people actually want to compensate ! Wait let’s also slap AI on it, I’m sure everyone will love that” (Mozilla being Mozilla I guess…)
People love to hate on Mozilla without knowing shit. Some of it is literally 4Chan grade manipulation as well.
Like the whole ToS debacle. People just aren’t interested in truth just rage 24/7
Was I signed up for some beta? I’ve had firefox groups for a few weeks now.
And holy shit do I need em.
They do A/B testing for everything now. Why? No clue.
A/B testing a very effective mass testing ground, I’m surprised some people don’t do it. Amazon is probably doing a few dozen a/b tests constsntly
So uhh, when are you introducing PWAs and easier profile management?
Isn’t profile management introduced like right now in the same release?
Is it? I will check when I am on my PC again.
Not something I’ll ever use, but cool regardless
I already used it three times accidentally while rearranging tabs. Mostly annoying, I haven’t used them yet
I got a Stroke reading that. You used it 3 times but haven’t used it?
The three times were all accidental. Didn’t use it with intention yet
How do you unuse a tab group?
Happened to me too, but I really liked it so far
Hoping someone might be able to help me out with this info, I’ve tried looking and can’t find a solid answer.
When you use the “Save and close group” feature of tab groups, do they
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Stay forever, no matter if you close Firefox, restart your pc, not used that group in months etc.
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Allow an unlimited, or at least a high number, of saved and closed tab groups.
I mainly ask because it specifically puts closed and saved tab groups in a section called “recent tab groups” which sounds suspiciously temporary.
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am i the only one who like, closes all his tabs when done? i have tabs I’ll come back to when working on something not when it’s all finished i close it all the fuck down.
i know ‘am i the only one’ is a cliche n shit but I’m starting to think i really am. everyone i know has all these tabs open all the time.
I do this as well - the only exception is work, where I pin a few tabs. Out of curiosity are you an “inbox zero” person? Because I am, and the only parallel I can draw is between that and my similar tab management.
inbox zero
absolutely :D
You are among your people friend
My LibreWolf config purges all data session (history, open tabs, search,cookies…) on quite/exit !
If there’s something I need to keep or read-later, or work-on: readeck/zotero/karakeep makes everything easier to find !
If I need to bookmark something important linkding !
All those browser tabs, history, search results are a privacy nightmare !!
Me too. I hate having lots of tabs. Makes it so much harder to find the tab I want.
All that article and they don’t say how to use it it turn it on, smh.
I got a big banner page that asked me if I wanted to turn it on once I updated. Can’t miss that really.
It’s being rolled out in waves over the next week or so.
I haven’t seen the banner and don’t have the feature yet. Should be there by May 6th(ish), IIRC.
Desktop only? Sigh…
Yeah pretty sad. It would be a much more useful feature for me on mobile.
On desktop, I usually just create a new window for different types of stuff.
No easy way to organize my infinite tabs on mobile (as far as im aware).
Chromium browsers on mobile do this, but it’s also a bit weirdly complicated/frustrating to work with at times, I hope of Firefox get to it, they can make it super simple.
The folks over on IOS are waiting very patiently for extension support. Firefox folks taking their time.
Apple won’t allow extensions for web browsers on their app store.
All browsers on iOS are Safari in disguise
I’m sure it’s much more complicated on iOS considering they are forced to use Webkit instead of Gecko.
Gave up waiting and use Orion for that. iOS is an after thought to them.
Try the Orion browser for that, I like it
Noooo it has AI garbage, what the hell.
I really need this feature, I have over 500 tabs open right now, I just hope it works well.
welcome Firefox to 2021
*here again. Let’s see how long it takes them this time to remove it again.
