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Firefox's beta feature "Smart Window" shared browsing and search history to AI models without prompting
(www.omgubuntu.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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Much like Adobe‘s Acrobat which I also have to use for work. At least from what I can tell when it suddenly summarizes a PDF. There‘s no way in hell that happens locally. But the fact that it seemingly automatically processes potentially sensitive data from customers didn‘t even do as little as raising eyebrows when I brought it up.
I use Firefox as a PDF reader at work. it's better than Adobe Reader or Chrome, and it's good enough, so I haven't bothered finding something else.
I deal with secure information sometimes, in PDF form. I haven't even considered that this information might not remain local.
Sumatra is the notepad++ of pdf readers (minus the state sponsored hackers https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/hijacked-incident-info-update/)
https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf
Looks interesting! I can't see it in their docs, can it display the font type and size of a selected text? I've been using PDF-XChange Viewer mostly for that feature. (Lol I just noticed it has been discontinued since 2018 😬)
I've been using it for ages whenever I need to open PDFs on Windows. Though nowadays browsers handle them too. And I avoid Windows.
It is genuinely excellent software.
I use KDE's PDF reader Okular
No way in hell? My understanding is that an NPU could perform that type of processing locally. I welcome info & correction!
(I know other types of local ai processors could too, but there’s little chance Acrobat would be geared to look for them - even GPUs - unlike NPUs.)
Now if we switch to talking about policy instead of capability, I don’t think Adobe would miss a chance to be evil. So yeah they’re probably stealing all the data they possibly can.
few computers have an embedded NPU
True! More all the time, unfortunately. (Unfortunately because we’re paying for tech we don’t want.)
Also doesn’t negate my argument. He said no way in hell, yet… not only is there a way but it’s already out there.
oh I mostly agree, but forgot to include the quote. I wanted to say, all that AI processing probably does not happen locally
If your company has an enterprise/privacy agreement with Adobe, it might be considered addressed, similar to the millions of companies using Microsoft 365 and Sharepoint.
If, OTOH, it's a "free" feature of Adobe, it could be eating your company's data without constraints.
If the latter, let us know your company's name so that we can avoid it.