Another Crazy Day in AI: Firefox Experiments with Previews So You Can Say Goodbye to Tab Chaos
- Wowza Team
- Apr 22
- 4 min read
Hello, AI Enthusiasts.
Popping in with your semi-daily dose of AI and other curiosities.
Mozilla wants to save your sanity—and your tabs. A new experimental feature uses AI to show you what’s behind a link without sending you down the rabbit hole.
Despite all the buzz, nearly half of colleges still don’t offer students access to generative AI tools. But while institutions wait, students are DIY-ing their way into the future.
After losing his son to a rare disease misdiagnosis, a Microsoft engineer built DxGPT—an AI-powered diagnostic assistant now helping hundreds of thousands worldwide.
Okay, now close this tab. You’ve earned it.
Here's another crazy day in AI:
Firefox tries something new for better tab management
Many colleges still withhold AI tools from students
A father builds an AI to diagnose rare diseases
Some AI tools to try out
TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: Firefox Link Preview Experiment
Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram; edited with Canva)
Are you tired of blindly clicking through endless links only to find they're not what you need?
Mozilla's Firefox Labs 138 has introduced an experimental feature that might save you from tab overload. Ed Lee from The Mozilla Blog recently detailed this Link Preview functionality that lets users get a snapshot of webpage content before committing to opening it. By combining metadata extraction with on-device AI processing, Firefox aims to make browsing more efficient while maintaining privacy.
When enabled, the feature allows users to preview a link's title, description, image, reading time, and a few key points—without actually visiting the page. The best part? All of this is powered by AI running directly on your device, ensuring your data stays private. It’s triggered by a simple keyboard shortcut (Shift + Alt), giving you a quick glimpse of what’s behind a link before you click. This could be a helpful tool for those who often juggle multiple tabs or want to quickly determine if a link is worth opening.
Here's what the early version of Link Preview offers so far:
Press Shift + Alt (or Option on Mac) while hovering over a link to see a preview
A card appears showing the title, image, short summary, reading time, and three content points
Previews are generated entirely on your device using a lightweight local AI model (~369MB download)
No scripts, cookies, or external requests are triggered when previewing a page
Previews rely on the same engine behind Firefox’s Reader View for clean content extraction
Works only with English text at the moment, though more language support may follow
Still in testing, but may expand to Android and other platforms in future builds
This blog post is as much a call for feedback as it is a technical breakdown. Mozilla is testing the waters and inviting users to help shape the direction of this feature. Questions around interaction, content access, performance, and multilingual support are all on the table—and the post outlines the specific areas they’re looking to improve.
It’s not a finished product, but it’s a meaningful glimpse into how Firefox might evolve to help users browse with more context and less friction. If you’ve ever opened ten tabs just to find the right one, this kind of feature could be a quiet but powerful improvement to the way we navigate the web. And with everything happening locally on your device, it adds a layer of control that’s rare in today’s browser landscape.
Read the full blog here.
OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:
Many Colleges Still Withhold AI Tools from Students
/Colleen Flaherty, Editor, on Inside Higher Ed
Despite growing awareness of AI’s role in workforce readiness, nearly half of colleges still don’t provide students access to generative AI tools, according to a new Inside Higher Ed survey. Institutional cost is the top barrier, followed by ethical concerns and privacy risks. Experts argue that limiting access may worsen the digital divide and leave students underprepared. Some leading universities are experimenting with secure, in-house AI platforms and encouraging culturally responsive tools to expand access equitably.
Read more here.
A Father Builds an AI to Diagnose Rare Diseases
/Juan Montes, Contributor, on Microsoft Newsroom
After his infant son’s painful misdiagnosis, Microsoft engineer Julián Isla turned grief into innovation—developing DxGPT, an AI tool that helps diagnose rare diseases more quickly and accurately. Now used by over 500,000 people and hundreds of doctors, the tool offers fast, secure diagnostic suggestions based on symptom inputs. Built on OpenAI models and hosted on Azure, DxGPT aims to support early intervention and save lives globally. Isla’s journey is a powerful reminder of AI’s potential for compassionate, life-changing impact in healthcare.
Read more here.
SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:
Tablextract – Extract tables from PDFs and images to save hours of manual work.
Bookaroozie – Understand books better with AI-powered reading support.
Shotup – Turn your screenshots into a searchable knowledge base.
That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.
Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉
EXCITING NEWS:
The Another Crazy Day in AI newsletter is on LinkedIn!!!
Leveraging AI for Enhanced Content: As part of our commitment to exploring new technologies, we used AI to help curate and refine our newsletters. This enriches our content and keeps us at the forefront of digital innovation, ensuring you stay informed with the latest trends and developments.
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