How to Enable or Disable Firefox Labs to Try Experimental Features

Mozilla Firefox 130.0 and later version come with a new secret section called “Firefox Labs” on Settings page which lets users enable and early test upcoming experimental features in the web browser. This article will help you in enabling or disabling the new Firefox Labs feature or section in Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Table of Contents

What is Firefox Labs Section on Firefox Settings Page?
How to Access and Use Firefox Labs Feature in Firefox Web Browser?
How to Add or Remove Firefox Labs Section on Firefox Settings Page?
More Features to Add to Firefox Labs Section in Upcoming Versions

What is Firefox Labs Section on Firefox Settings Page?

Firefox Labs tool is a new addition to Firefox web browser which will assist advanced users and experts in activating and enabling new features in their web browser that are under development and testing and not ready for public release. Advanced users can early test those upcoming features and provide feedback and suggestions to Mozilla team to improve those features.

Since these features are not finalized, they might contain bugs and issues, that’s why those features are not enabled by default and interested users are required to manually activate and enable them using new Firefox Labs page.

Following screenshot shows Firefox Labs tab or section available on Firefox Settings page:

New_Firefox_Labs_Section_Settings_Page_Test_Experimental_Features.png

How to Access and Use Firefox Labs Feature in Firefox Web Browser?

The new Firefox Labs feature appears as a tab or section added to the left-side pane of Firefox Settings (about:preferences) page. Users can also directly access the Firefox Labs page using about:preferences#experimental URL in the address bar.

Once you open Firefox Labs section, you can turn on/off several experimental features by just checking/unchecking their checkbox.

Right now following options are present on Firefox Labs page to enable and test:

AI chatbots in sidebar such as Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat and Le Chat Mistral. (How-to Guide)
Picture-in-Picture: auto-open on tab switch. It opens active videos in Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode automatically when switching tabs.
Address Bar: show results during IME composition
Developer Tools: Service Worker debugging

Following screenshot shows AI chatbot enabled and added to Firefox sidebar using Firefox Labs tool:

Enable_AI_Chatbots_Experimental_Feature_Using_Firefox_Labs_Section_Settings_Page.png

NOTE: You can also enable and test new experimental features using Featuregate preference/flag as mentioned in following article:

Firefox Featuregate: Hidden Secret Key to Turn On/Off New Features

How to Add or Remove Firefox Labs Section on Firefox Settings Page?

Mozilla team has added the new Firefox Labs section to all users starting with Firefox 130.0 stable version. If you haven’t received the Firefox Labs feature yet, you can enable and add Firefox Labs right now using the steps given below. These steps will also help you in enabling Firefox Labs section on older versions of Firefox web browser.

Similarly, if you have received the Firefox Labs section but don’t want to try new experimental features. You can safely disable or remove Firefox Labs section from Settings page with the help of this article.

Mozilla team has provided a hidden secret preference/flag that can be used to show or hide the Firefox Labs section on Settings page.

Following steps will help you in adding or removing Firefox Labs section on Firefox Settings page:

STEP 1: Open Firefox and type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

STEP 2: Now type experimental inside the preference search box and look for following preference:

browser.preferences.experimental

STEP 3: To activate and enable new Firefox Labs feature, double-click on the above mentioned preference and change its value to True. Alternatively, you can click on the Toggle icon given next to the preference name to modify it.

To disable and remove the new Firefox Labs feature, double-click on the above mentioned preference and change its value to False.

Enable_Disable_Firefox_Labs_Section_Option_Settings_Page.png

That’s it. Open or refresh Firefox Settings page and the new Firefox Labs section will appear or disappear based upon the preference value.

More Features to Add to Firefox Labs Section in Upcoming Versions

Mozilla team will keep adding new features to test drive on Firefox Labs page. The latest Firefox Nightly build comes with new options to enable/disable redesigned sidebar and Vertical Tabs features on Firefox Labs page as shown in following screenshot:

Enable_Revamped_Sidebar_Vertical_Tabs_Mozilla_Firefox_Labs_Nightly.png

Firefox Nightly builds are testing builds of Mozilla Firefox web browser which contain new experimental features. Once these features are finalized, Mozilla releases the final build to public stable channel.

If you remember, the Firefox Labs feature was added long time back to Firefox Settings page with the name “Nightly Experiments“. It was available on Firefox 79.0 testing version and we told about it in our exclusive Nightly Updates article.