April 25 Tech news roundup: Firefox is testing a built-in ad blocker, Xbox Game Pass prices slashed, Brave launches a premium browser

Mozilla is testing a built-in ad blocker in Firefox

Mozilla has begun testing an ad blocker in Firefox. This native solution, is powered by Brave Browser’s ad block engine, which is called adblock-rust. Firefox has supported ad blocker extensions for a long time, and users have lots of choices to pick from such as uBlock Origin. If ad blockers can already function in Firefox, why is Mozilla bringing a built-in ad blocker. The reality is that there are a lot of people who don’t know how to use extensions, or which extension to use for blocking ads. Mozilla’s decision to ship a built-in ad blocker in Firefox will help non-tech savvy users block ads, trackers.

Firefox’s native ad blocker is currently in an experimental option that users need to enable manually. There is no UI, or options to customize the filter lists yet. But this is a good start, and hopefully the feature will be improved upon in the near future. Waterfox, a fork of Firefox, is also implementing Brave’s ad blocking engine in its browser.

Mozilla says it used AI to unearth and fix 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox

There was another surprise from Mozilla this week. The non-profit organization has revealed that it has been using AI models to identify security vulnerabilities in Firefox. Mozilla and Anthropic have collaborated for this purpose, to use Claude Mythos Preview to scan Firefox’s source code for issues. Opus 4.6’s scan had identified 22 security-sensitive bugs in Firefox 148, in February 2026. With the release of Firefox 150, the number of security issues detected by the AI shot up. In total, the AI has helped Mozilla fix 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox.

This use of AI is not merely vibe coding, i.e. simply allowing the LLM to scan and rewrite the code. Instead, Mozilla’s engineers use the AI to detect issues in the source code, after which the results are manually analyzed. Then the developers work on the code to fix the bugs, and test them, before they are released through an update. While this practice may not stop all 0-day threats, it could help reduce the number of such threats significantly. On the other hand, AI is being misused by hackers and cyber criminals, and some LLMs are being targeted by command injection attacks.

Microsoft reduces Xbox Game Pass prices

Microsoft has announced a price reduction for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. The move comes a week after Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, had admitted that Game Pass had become too expensive. Xbox Game Pass, which used to cost $16.49 per month, now costs $13.99 after a $2.50 price drop. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate sees a bigger change with a $7 drop from $29.99 to $22.99 a month.

However, there is a small setback for gamers. The Xbox Game Pass plans will no longer include Call of Duty games at launch. So players who wish to play the newer games as they are released will need to either buy them, or wait for a year for them to be added to Game Pass. This change does not affect Call of Duty games that are currently available for players.

Windows will let you pause updates forever, but you’ll need to re-pause them 

As part of improving the Windows 11 update experience, Microsoft has announced that users will be able to pause updates indefinitely. This means users can stay on a specific version of Windows forever. But, there is sort of a timer. You can choose to pause updates for up to 35 days. When you near the mark, you can choose to re-pause it. There are no limits on how many times you can do this. Users who have just bought a new PC or built one, can skip updates immediately during the out of box experience (OOBE) to speed up the Windows set up process.

In addition to this, Microsoft is also addressing a problem that has frustrated users for a long time. Sometimes, when Windows downloads an update, you may not be able to restart the PC or turn it off, because it would force you to install the said updates. So you had to wait for the updates to be installed before the system restarts or shuts down. The new experience adds 2 additional options to the Power menu, which will display the Shutdown and Restart buttons. It is up to the user to decide if they want to update and shut down, or update and restart, or reboot it, or simply turn off the PC.

Microsoft says that these changes are currently being rolled out to users who have opted in to the Windows Insider Program’s Dev Channel and Experimental Channels.

Brave launches a premium version of its browser

Brave has launched a minimalist version of its browser, and it’s called Brave Origin. For those unaware, the original Brave Browser comes with various features, many of which earn revenue for the company. These include the likes of Leo, News, Playlist (iOS and desktop Nightly), Rewards (which also disables browser-based Brave Ads), Speedreader, Stats like the daily usage ping, crash logs, and privacy-preserving product analytics (P3A), Talk, Tor, VPN, Wallet (which also disables Web3 domains), Wayback Machine and Web Discovery Project.

Brave Origin removes all of these revenue generating features, but it comes at a cost. And I mean that literally, users can gain access to it for 60. This is a one-time purchase, and it supports 10 activations across multiple devices. Brave Origin is supported on Linux, macOS, Windows, Android and iOS. On mobile devices, it is available as an upgrade, i.e. from the existing browser. On desktops, Brave Origin is available as a standalone app, and as an upgrade. However, there is one exception to this. Linux users can download and use Brave Origin for free. Instructions to download the browser on Linux distros can be found on the official website.

Having an optional, paid version of the browser could allow the company to earn additional revenue, and also attract users who did not like the extra features. But it remains to be seen whether this move will be a success.