How to Try Experimental Firefox Features Without Downloading the Beta
There are many ways to try out upcoming Firefox features, but most involve using the beta version of the browser. For most people, these builds are not stable enough to be used as a daily driver. The good news is that that changes with Firefox 130: With this update, Mozilla has added Firefox Labs to the browser’s public build, allowing you to try experimental features without sacrificing stability.
How to try experimental Firefox features
To try these features, you will need to update your browser to the latest version. To do this, open Settings, then select General > Firefox Updates . If you are not already using at least version 130, click Check for Updates and follow the onscreen instructions to install the update.
After you launch Firefox 130, you can open this URL in your browser: about:preferences#experimental to view the experimental features. Alternatively, you can click the hamburger menu in the top right corner and go to Settings > Firefox Lab . Here you can access all the features that Mozilla is currently testing. You will have to manually enable the ones you want to try.
At the time of writing, the following experimental features are available in Firefox:
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AI Chatbot : Allows you to select your preferred AI service and access its chatbot from the sidebar. The choices were Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat and Mistral.
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Automatic Picture-in-Picture : When you watch a video and switch to another tab, this feature automatically moves the video to the picture-in-picture window. This way, you can continue browsing while watching a video without having to turn on PiP yourself.
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Address bar: Display results while composing IME . To enter certain complex characters in some languages, you must use the Input Method Editor (IME) tool. This feature shows you search suggestions even if you use IME to type in the address bar.
All experimental features are disabled by default, which is great: I would be pissed if an AI chatbot feature was added without my explicit consent. Additionally, it is important to note that experimental features are ephemeral in nature. Don’t be surprised if the list on this settings page continues to change as Mozilla adds new features to test, or if some of your favorite features are removed entirely. But even if they are there, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re no longer there: sometimes features will be removed from this page but end up in the stable build of the browser. After all, they are being tested for a reason.