July 26 Tech news roundup: Proton Lumo is an AI that respects your privacy, Firefox gets AI-powered tab management, Brave Browser blocks Windows Recall

Firefox 141 brings an AI-powered tab management feature

Mozilla released the Firefox 141 update this week. The new version comes with an AI-powered feature that can sort open tabs into groups. Users can right-click on a tab group, and select “Suggest more tabs for group”. The AI will identify similar tabs and ask you whether you want to add them to the existing tab group. Mozilla’s AI checks the title and descriptions of tabs to suggest which ones should be added to a group. For example, it can identify tabs that belong to the same website and offer to move them to the tab group.

The feature is currently rolling out to users, so not everyone will see it right now. But there is a way to enable it manually. Some Firefox users are upset that the browser is adding AI features, but it is worth noting that these AI features run locally, and can be disabled.

Address autofill is now available for Firefox users from Brazil, Spain, and Japan. The browser can now convert units directly in the address bar, and supports units of length, temperature, mass, force and angular measurements. Firefox 141 adds support for several new languages including Albanian, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Kannada, Malay, Malayalam, Persian, Telugu.

Brave Browser to block Windows Recall from capturing screenshots

Brave Browser has announced that it will help users prevent Windows Recall from capturing screenshots of their browsing history. The browser is getting a feature called Block Windows Recall, which will be available in Brave version 1.81.

The option is enabled by default, in order to automatically block Windows Recall from recording the content from web pages that a user visits. Microsoft has drawn criticism from security and privacy experts worldwide regarding Recall, but the Redmond company doesn’t seem to be bothered by the feedback. Recall is currently available for Copilot+ PCs on Windows 11.

Brave’s decision to block Recall is a welcome move, but Brave isn’t the first app to do this, the secure messaging app, Signal, announced a similar feature to block Recall from taking screenshots of chats.

ChatGPT is handling 2.5 Billion prompts everyday

OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022. Less than three years since its debut, the AI-powered chatbot has managed to attract several hundreds of millions of users. Do you know how many prompts ChatGPT handles per day? Two and a half Billion! It’s still way behind Google, but ChatGPT is definitely catching up. 2.5 Billion prompts per day is no joke. OpenAI says that 500 million users access ChatGPT on a weekly basis. The company recently launched ChatGPT Agent, which can perform tasks set by the user.

These usage figures are staggering, but also raises concerns about how users are relying on AI more and more. OpenAI is reportedly launching an AI-powered browser soon, to compete with Chrome, and in turn with Google Search.

Proton launches Lumo, an AI that respects your privacy

Proton, the company behind Proton Mail, Drive, VPN, etc., has launched an AI called Lumo. And just like its other products, Lumo is a privacy-friendly service.

The AI has 4 Large Language Models: Nemo, Mistral Small 3, OpenHands 32B, OLMO 2 32B (Allen Institute for AI).  The AI does not have real-time capabilities, such as fetching the latest news or information. Instead, it is designed to assist users with specific tasks such as writing assistance, file analysis (documents only). It can’t analyze images and videos, nor can it generate images and videos.

Unlike other chatbots, Proton Lumo does not train its AI language model based on your chats. It does not store any logs of your conversations, either. All data that is saved is encrypted and stored on your computer/phone. Proton says it won’t share user data with third-parties. You don’t need an account to try Lumo. Head over to https://lumo.proton.me/guest to chat with the bot for free. There are some limitations for free users, but you may choose to subscribe to Lumo Plus for additional features.

WhatsApp Desktop is switching to a web wrapper

WhatsApp is killing its UWP Desktop app on Windows, in favor of a web wrapper version. Meta shifted the original WhatsApp web app to a UWP app, and now it is moving to a web app again. We have come full circle. Users had praised the UWP app because it was fast, and the interface was well-designed.

There are some advantages in having a web app, a single version is easier to maintain for developers, and new features/fixes can be added to it quickly. On the other hand, native apps offer faster and more efficient performance. The web app has a clunky design as well, which adds to the list of disadvantages that one may face with it. But one thing that the desktop app lacked was the ability to make calls, which should not be a problem with the web app.

The new WhatsApp Desktop version runs on EdgeView, which is essentially Chromium, and uses a ton of resources. WhatsApp hasn’t announced the news yet, but it has been met with criticism from users, and rightfully so. The new app is currently in beta, and could replace the UWP app soon.

Microsoft Store no longer lets you buy Movies and TV Shows

Microsoft has shuttered its Movies and TV Store without a prior announcement. In 2006, the Zune Video Marketplace debuted. The Redmond company rebranded it as Xbox Video in 2012. Three years later, it was renamed to Movies and TV in 2015.

Users on Windows PCs and Xbox consoles were able to buy movies, TV shows from the store. Now that is no longer possible. Though the store no longer sells the media, users can continue to watch their purchased content using the Microsoft Movies and TV app on Xbox and Windows. Some movies are eligible for Movies Anywhere. It is unclear why Microsoft shut down it Movies and TV Store, though one possibility is that the store didn’t have many users. That is likely because the service was only available in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada.