AI Controls - These Weeks in Firefox: Issue 196

10 views
Skip to first unread message

Mike Conley

unread,
Mar 9, 2026, 9:00:20 PM (4 days ago) Mar 9
to Firefox Dev
Hello firefox-dev,

It's been a few weeks since we posted one of these - apologies, we've got a bit of a backlog, so expect a few in quick succession over the next few days.

Several weeks ago (on February 17th, to be precise), the Firefox Desktop engineering team met to discuss and share updates on the latest codebase developments. I've taken the liberty of reformulating the meeting notes into something that I hope will be more palatable. Enjoy!

Highlights

  • Shout out to mstriemer for getting the AI Controls work landed and uplifted!

    • [Screenshot]

      • Caption: Firefox settings page showing AI Controls. A “Block AI enhancements” toggle is enabled at the top, with a notice stating that new and current AI enhancements are blocked by default. Below, under “On-device AI,” several features are listed with status set to “Blocked,” including “Translations,” “Image alt text in Firefox PDF viewer,” and “Tab group suggestions.” Each feature includes a short description and a “Learn more” link.

  • We’ve also enabled New Tab with Sections by default in the UK!

    • [Screenshot]

      • Caption: The Firefox New Tab page showing the search bar at the top and shortcut icons for Wikipedia, YouTube, BBC, Reddit, and Add Shortcut. Below, the “Popular Today” section displays news cards, including “Behind the Writers Guild’s Internal Revolt” from The Hollywood Reporter and “Greens win seat from Labour in city by-election” from BBC. Additional news thumbnails appear below in a grid layout.

Friends of the Firefox team

Resolved bugs (excluding employees)

Volunteers that fixed more than one bug

  • Henry Yeary

  • Khalid AlHaddad

  • Sam Johnson

  • Thomas Sileo

New contributors (🌟 = first patch)

Project Updates

Add-ons / Web Extensions

WebExtension APIs

  • As part of the work for the AI toggle switch, we have applied some small tweaks to improve the behavior of the the trialML WebExtensions API when it is disable/enabled globally at runtime through AI toggle switch - Bug 2012543

  • As part of improving cross-browser compatibility of the browserAction / action WebExtensions API, the isEnabled API method has been tweaked to optimally accept a tabId (as currently expected on Chrome) and to return the global state instead of rejecting when called without any parameter (aligning it to both Chrome and Safari) - Bug 2012727 / Bug 2013477

  • Fixed webNavigation transitionType for webpages loaded from the Firefox bookmarks panels by making sure it is set to auto_bookmark instead of the fallback link transitionType - Bug 1623654 

    • Thanks to Thomas Sileo for contributing this fix and improving the cross-browser alignment of the webNavigation WebExtensions API!

Smart Window

  • generate memories based on browsing and chat history to use in conversations

    • schedule memories generation 2010143 when activating smart window 2011478

    • toggle memories per conversation 2011323 and show when they’re used 2011774

    • [Screenshot]

      • Caption: Firefox Smart Window showing recipe suggestions on a webpage, including dishes like Creamy Mushroom Risotto, Honey Garlic Glazed Salmon, Vegetarian Buddha Bowl, and Spicy Thai Basil Chicken. An overlay card labeled “Researches food topics” appears in the center, indicating a Smart Window memory. At the bottom, the address bar shows “Ask, search, or type a URL,” with a tooltip reading “Memories on,” and an “Ask” button on the right.

    • manage memories from about:preferences 2001453

      • [Screenshot]

        • Caption: Firefox Nightly settings page open to “Manage memories” under about:preferences#manageMemories. The page explains that memories are what Smart Window learns from your activity. A list of saved memories appears with delete icons next to each entry, including “Watches videos on YouTube,” “Researches food topics,” and “Tracks limited edition sneaker releases.” A “Delete all” button appears at the top. The left sidebar shows navigation items such as General, Home, Search, Privacy & Security, Sync, AI Controls, and Firefox Labs.

  • refer to tabs with @mentions

    • rich multiline inputbox to @ tabs 2003064

    • [Screenshot]

      • Caption: Firefox Smart Window search input showing the user typing “compare Honey-Glazed Bak…” and “@salmon.” A tab suggestion dropdown appears on the right under the heading “Tabs,” listing open recipe tabs including “Honey-Glazed Baked Salmon Recipe,” “Honey Garlic Glazed Salmon Recipe,” and “Sweet Glazed Salmon Recipe.” A “Previously visited” section shows “easy honey garlic glazed salmon recipe.”

    • rendering mentions in the conversation 2001526

  • chat conversation history in firefox view 2001496

  • start new chat from sidebar 2003657

  • require account when opening 2012806 and switching to smart window 2012014

  • callout to remind how to switch back to classic 2010897

  • improve reopening conversations by id 2009866

  • hookup new urlbar provider for smartbar chat 2003067

  • renamed prefs from aiwindow to smartwindow 2010128

DevTools

  • Kian fixed a bug in the Inspector where Shadow Root children couldn't be inspected (#1643915)

  • Matt M improved the layout of Netmonitor's "Edit and Resend" UI (#2012236)

  • Chris Vander Linden refactored devtools/client/accessibility/accessibility-proxy.js to use proper private fields (#2013442)

  • Leo McArdle [:leo] made the markup view to omit the attribute value when it is empty. For example we used to show <input checked="">, now it will only be <input checked>) (#2009915)

  • Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe] made attr() strike-through the attribute name or the fallback, depending if the attribute is set on the element (#1854104)

    • [Screenshot]

      • Caption: Firefox Developer Tools showing CSS rules for div::after and div::before. The div::after rule sets content: attr(unknown, "fallback"); with the attribute name “unknown” shown struck through, indicating it is invalid or not recognized. The div::before rule sets content: attr(class, "-");, with the “-” value struck through.

  • Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe] fixed a couple issues in the computed panel. We were missing nested media query declarations (#2012412), and we would incorrectly order selectors when an inherited rule declaration had a higher priority than non-inherited "direct" rule declaration  (#2013327)

  • Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau] fixed an issue that could prevent to re-open devtools (#2003810)

  • Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe] made the stacktrace from log points (when checking "show stacktrace") to also show async frames (e.g. setTimeout callback, Promise then, …) (#2006092)

  • Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] addressed a bug that would show an empty Timings tab for some network requests(#2007846)

WebDriver

Lint, Docs and Workflow

  • ahal has fixed the source-docs-generate and source-docs-upload tasks to run when changes occur to the JavaScript files which are used in generating docs.

    • The list of files for generating has moved to docs/config.yml

    • When posting patches for review, if you get a message such as The analysis task source-test-doc-upload failed, but we could not detect any defect ,  please do check the task output manually by visiting the link. There's a bug on file to improve the output there.

New Tab Page

Picture-in-Picture

  • Special thanks to jsudiaman who fixed a long-standing bug where an open Picture-in-Picture player window would close if the mirrored <video> element was moved around in the DOM!

Screenshots

Search and Navigation

  • Drew and Daisuke are consolidating urlbar results UI, according to new design specs.

  • Dao and Moritz are continuing polishing the new search bar

  • Dale continue polishing the new identity box

    • Fixed identity popup not opening on trusted about pages - Bug 2010361

    • Connection secure shown for self-signed certificates - Bug 2010045

    • Clicking on privacy settings doesn’t close the trust panel - Bug 2006633

  • James improved the autofill ranking, to address recent feedback. The patch will be uplifted to Beta, we’re evaluating Release - Bug 2010941

  • Moritz addressed a performance issue when dragging large text over the address bar - Bug 2002920

  • Mark finished cleaning up the Search Service after deCOMtaminizing it - Bug 2003302, Bug 2003300, Bug 2003298, Bug 1643008

Storybook/Reusable Components/Acorn Design System

Settings Redesign

Below the fold


This information, including all of the previous updates, are fully available in this doc: https://docs.google.com/a/mozilla.com/document/d/1u9YH3ULNRYg6G-fN-Udkvfkcvg0alJfzi_zIAfFNkL8/edit?usp=sharing


Also note that we’re really just synthesising and humanising the stuff that's on the Wiki, which is freely available from here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Meeting, so check that out if you want the source material. It'll also be posted (minus the Below the Fold stuff) to the Nightly blog.


Finally, if there's a Firefox-ish team that you feel isn't being represented here, please let them know about the above meeting so we can get their updates.


Keep on rockin' the free web,


-Mike



Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages