Firefox’s New Link Previews Are Actually a Good Example of AI-Powered Search
If it seems like every tech company is trying to incorporate AI into all of their products and services, that’s because they are. And as someone who rarely (if ever) uses AI, that’s a lot: I don’t need AI to write emails , and I don’t want it to create realistic videos that might trick viewers into thinking they were created by a human. I definitely don’t need AI to give me incorrect information when I try to search the web.
But Firefox’s latest AI feature seems genuinely useful, probably because it doesn’t “do” anything for me. Instead, its new AI-powered link previews simply show a small summary of the web page’s content hidden behind the URL, so you’ll have a better idea of whether a link is worth clicking.
Mozilla first announced these AI-generated link previews last month , before rolling them out as part of Firefox 139. The feature is currently in an “experimental” phase, and Mozilla is open to user feedback on how to tweak it. Here’s how it works in its current iteration: When you hover over a URL and press the appropriate keyboard shortcut, Firefox extracts and parses the web page’s HTML without actually loading the page. It then looks for metadata that can help inform the page’s title, description, and cover image. Once it has the data it needs, it displays everything it’s pulled in a pop-up window.
Like what you see? Go ahead and click to see the full page. Not what you’re looking for? Continue to the next link. Assuming the summaries are accurate, I can actually imagine that this is what I rely on to get an idea of whether a particular link is relevant to my current query — especially after Mozilla fixes some bugs.
How to Test Firefox’s AI-Generated Link Previews
To try out AI link previews, you’ll need to be running Firefox 139 (or newer). (If you’re not sure which version you have, open Firefox, go to Preferences > General , then scroll down to Firefox Updates . If there’s a new update, install it, then restart your browser.)
After that, go back to Settings , then select Firefox Labs . Under Customize your browsing experience, click the checkbox next to Link Previews.
Now, open any website, hover over any link on the screen, and press Shift + Alt (Windows) or Shift + Option (Mac). A small pop-up window should immediately open with the web page title and a short description. You should also soon see a cover image for the page, then after a few moments, Firefox will generate “Highlights” of the page.
Should you use Firefox’s AI-powered link preview feature?
So far, this feature has been a bit of a wild card for me. Sometimes the key points it suggests are three well-summarized takeaways from the article. Other times, they’re quotes lifted straight from the article. Plagiarism aside, it’s hard to get a sense of the scope of an article if the “key points” simply list the first few ideas in the text.
I suspect part of the problem is that what the AI finds most important will vary depending on how each site is set up: I found that previews often copied the text of Lifehacker articles verbatim, for example, while summarizing articles found on other sites. Again, this is a work in progress, so Mozilla may have to figure out how to account for differences in website design to make it equally useful. But as far as AI features go, I don’t hate it, and in 2025, that’s saying something.