Mozilla recently introduced an AI-powered feature in its Firefox browser, version 141, called Smart Tab Grouping. This tool is designed to help you organize your open tabs automatically. While the idea sounds helpful, especially if you often have many tabs open, some users have found that it’s causing frustrating performance issues. People are reporting that this new feature is making their computers work too hard, using up a lot of CPU power, and draining their batteries much faster than usual.
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The Problem with Smart Tab Grouping
The Smart Tab Grouping feature uses an on-device artificial intelligence model to look at your open tabs, figure out which ones are related, and then suggest grouping them together with a descriptive name. Because it runs on your device, it’s designed to be privacy-friendly.
However, many users have noticed their computers are suddenly running slow or loud after the Firefox update. The fans on their laptops might start spinning loudly, even when they aren’t doing anything intensive.
These problems seem to be linked to a process within Firefox called “Inference,” which is responsible for running the AI tasks. This process has been seen to cause significant spikes in CPU usage, which in turn affects your computer’s performance and battery life.
Some users have also pointed out that the feature isn’t always accurate. In some tests, it missed several relevant tabs that should have been grouped together and even suggested group names that were completely unrelated to the content of the tabs. One user on the Firefox subreddit expressed their frustration, saying, “I don’t want this garbage bloating my browser, blowing up my CPU, and killing my battery life.”.
It seems the issue might be that the AI feature is running constantly in the background, instead of only activating when you need it. It could also be that the code for the feature isn’t well-optimized, leading to these performance problems.
How to Disable the Smart Tab Grouping Feature
The good news is that this feature is not enabled by default for everyone yet, as Mozilla is rolling it out gradually. If you have the feature and are experiencing these issues, you can easily turn it off. Here are the steps to disable Smart Tab Grouping in Firefox:
- Open a new tab in Firefox and type about:config into the address bar, then press Enter.
- You will see a warning message. Click the “Accept the Risk and Continue” button to proceed.
- In the search bar at the top of the page, type browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled.
- You will see the preference listed. Double-click on it to change the value from true to false.
- Restart your Firefox browser for the changes to take effect.
For users who want to disable all AI-related features in Firefox, there is another setting you can change. In the about:config page, search for browser.ml.chat.enabled and set its value to false. This should remove other AI functionalities, like the AI chatbot.
AI in Your Browser
Firefox isn’t the only browser adding AI features. It’s part of a larger trend in the tech industry to integrate AI into everyday applications. The idea of automatic tab grouping was actually requested by some Firefox users, particularly those who tend to have a very large number of tabs open at once. For these “tab hoarders,” an intelligent organization tool could be very useful.
However, the key is to implement these features in a way that doesn’t harm the user experience. Privacy is a major concern for many people, and Firefox’s choice to use an on-device AI model is a good step toward protecting user data. On-device AI can be very helpful for tasks like offline translations or generating subtitles for videos without sending your information to the cloud.
Ultimately, new features like Smart Tab Grouping should be optional and well-tested before being released to everyone. While AI can offer convenience, it shouldn’t come at the cost of your computer’s performance or your peace of mind. For now, many users may prefer to organize their tabs manually to ensure accuracy and avoid the performance issues associated with the new AI tool.