1946099 - Unclear how to disable GenAI / "Ask" context menu after selecting a chatbot provider with old sidebar

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Machine Learning: General, defect)

Description

[Tom Schuster (MoCo)]

Today, I noticed the context menu entry "Ask Le Chat Mistral". I had actually thought I had disabled the AI features before, but I can't be certain now. However it's totally unclear to me how to disable it, from what I remember there used to be an option in Labs, which is now missing. Searching for "AI" in about:settings doesn't find anything relevant either. A colleague told me that he has a sidebar with the option to disable it, but I don't have the sidebar enabled.

Comment 1

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

You need to go to settings, re-enable the sidebar, go to the gear icon, customize sidebar, Firefox tools, and disable "AI chatbot" there.

Yes, this is complicated and completely unclear, not to mention the weird interaction between not having a sidebar and still getting context menu items from it!

Comment 2

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

Attachment: Screenshot_20250205_165706.png

It looks like the context menu can actually be toggled inside the Chatbot interface itself.

Comment 3

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

I'm going to guess this is a better component.

Comment 4

[Tom Schuster (MoCo)]

I don't think either of these steps work. It seems like the "shortcut" from comment 2, is actually this sparkly icon you can get in addition to the context menu.

Comment 5

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

You're right about the shortcut in that .. menu, but completely disabling the AI Chatbot feature does get rid of the shortcut for me. Does this not work for you?

Comment 6

[Tom Schuster (MoCo)]

(In reply to Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp] from comment #5)

You're right about the shortcut in that .. menu, but completely disabling the AI Chatbot feature does get rid of the shortcut for me. Does this not work for you?

Sorry, you are right. Following the steps from comment 1 does remove the context menu item, not sure what I was doing wrong before.

Comment 7

[Tom Schuster (MoCo)]

Okay this is even stranger ...

If I have the sidebar enabled ("Show sidebar" in about:settings) and disable the AI chatbot there, the context menu disappears.
However, if I then disable the entire sidebar, the context menu comes back!

Comment 8

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

the context menu entry for chatbot isn't actually controlled by the sidebar customization (whether the icon shows up as a tool) nor "hide shortcut when selecting text" (whether icon shows up in page). the current logic for context menu is that chatbot is enabled and a provider is configured

since bug 1933524, we've removed the labs entry for toggling chatbot (although browser.ml.chat.enabled is available from about:config). it was intentional to remove the labs entry that allowed showing/hiding "AI Chatbot" as a sidebar menu item, and users don't normally get the context menu entry until picking a provider

tom, are you intending to use the chatbot but don't want it to show up in the context menu or not use the chatbot at all? i suppose potentially for the latter, there might want to be some UI to reset browser.ml.chat.provider to empty?

Comment 9

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

(In reply to Tom Schuster from comment #7)

If I have the sidebar enabled ("Show sidebar" in about:settings) and disable the AI chatbot there, the context menu disappears.
However, if I then disable the entire sidebar, the context menu comes back!

ah yes, there's some custom logic to suppress the context menu when using the new sidebar (sidebar.revamp and disable chatbot from customize) as this is intended to be the incoming behavior replacing "old sidebar" so potentially this bug is not an issue long term when users will have new sidebar enabled?

the sidebar prefs are also changing behaviors around this same time, but do you get the desired behavior if you check "Show sidebar" from about:preferences then toggle the sidebar with the button in the toolbar (alt-ctrl-z or ctrl-z on macos)?

Comment 10

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

I can't judge given the planned sidebar changes, but I would say that if we ship a GenAI feature by default I would expect backlash if there is no easy and obvious way to disable it.

Comment 11

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

to be clear, the context menu is showing up because a chatbot provider was previously selected, so this will happen to regular users in 133+ where someone tries out the feature and decides they don't want it showing up in the context menu anymore

we could add an entry to the context menu (or somewhere else like the provider dropdown) to reset the provider to "" resulting in the context menu not showing the chatbot entry anymore. this doesn't address the case of someone wanting to regularly use the chatbot but without the context menu entry

Comment 12

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: users confused about how to get rid of chatbot context menu

bolsson, looks like we might try to uplift to 136 beta a string "Turn off the chatbot" in a 2nd level context menu (although haven't confirmed what actual string)

Comment 13

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Attachment: turn off menu.png

Comment 14

[Donal Meehan [:dmeehan]]

Tracking as requested for Fx136, there is already an NI but mentioning any new/changes in strings will need l10n input.

Comment 15

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Attachment: Bug 1946099 - Unclear how to disable GenAI / "Ask" context menu after selecting a chatbot provider with old sidebar r=ngrato!

Add context menu item to reset the provider

Comment 16

[Bryan Olsson [:bolsson]]

Considering the situation and the prominence of the string, I think we're good to uplift this one string.

Comment 17

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/91ffad7494b2
Unclear how to disable GenAI / "Ask" context menu after selecting a chatbot provider with old sidebar r=ngrato,firefox-ai-ml-reviewers,bolsson,fluent-reviewers,flod

Comment 18

[Tom Schuster (MoCo)]

Thank you for adding this option to the context menu, but I was really hoping we would with adding a toggle/option to about:settings.

Comment 19

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The bug is marked as tracked for firefox136 (beta) and tracked for firefox137 (nightly). However, the bug still has low severity.

:tarek, could you please increase the severity for this tracked bug? If you disagree with the tracking decision, please talk with the release managers.

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 20

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

we have the checkbox for new sidebar and this new context menu item to turn off chatbot prompts from the right-click menu, and it was decided and approved that removing the entry from labs with bug 1933524 would not need a toggle elsewhere in about:settings as it's an optional feature requiring additional actions of going through its onboarding and selecting a provider to activate

Comment 21

[Sandor Molnar[:smolnar]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/91ffad7494b2

Comment 22

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The patch landed in nightly and beta is affected.
:Mardak, is this bug important enough to require an uplift?

• If yes, please nominate the patch for beta approval.
• If no, please set status-firefox136 to wontfix.

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 23

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

This issue is Verified as fixed in our latest Nightly build 137.0a1 (2025-02-10). We can see the Remove AI option in the Context menu, however when we Click the Remove Ai Chat option from the context menu it simply unselects the Provider, The Panel is still opened at the Onboarding panel and the AI chat icon is still displayed on the sidebar, is this ok ? @Ed

Comment 24

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

thanks, i suspect most people removing won't even have the sidebar open, but good to confirm that resetting the provider correctly switches to onboarding. those with the new sidebar can remove the ai chatbot icon from customize

Comment 25

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Attachment: Bug 1946099 - Unclear how to disable GenAI / "Ask" context menu after selecting a chatbot provider with old sidebar

Add context menu item to reset the provider with telemetry

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D237127

Comment 26

[Phabricator Automation]

beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: users who previously picked a chatbot won't be able to get rid of the context menu entry
• Code covered by automated testing: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly: yes
• Needs manual QE test: yes
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: 1. open chatbot 2. select provider 3. open context menu 4. remove provider
• Risk associated with taking this patch: low
• Explanation of risk level: 1 extra context menu item that sets an existing pref
• String changes made/needed: yes, 2 strings for removing provider from submenu
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 27

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/ae0ba3e6e640