{"id":81518,"date":"2025-10-15T10:53:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T17:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/?p=81518"},"modified":"2025-10-21T10:43:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T17:43:33","slug":"firefox-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/firefox\/firefox-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox Recap: A student-built tool that analyzes your browsing habits\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What would your browser history say about you? Whether you were getting things done this week or just collecting tabs, a new Firefox extension helps you reflect on your digital habits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designed as a personal productivity tool, Fox Recap<\/a> is a capstone project<\/a> from a group of college seniors at California State University, Monterey Bay. It categorizes your browsing history, shows how much time you\u2019re spending on different sites, and turns that data into simple visual reports. Everything happens locally on your device, so your information stays private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related story: Developer Spotlight: Fox Recap<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Gradient<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Browser<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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How Fox Recap works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once you download<\/a> and open the extension on Firefox for desktop, click on settings and grant permission to run the ML engine. From there, you can choose to view your browsing history for today, this week or this month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox Recap then lays out your activity in simple charts and categories like technology, shopping, education and entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a tool for you to know how you use your browser,\u201d said one of the student developers, Taimur Hasan. \u201cMaybe you want to lessen the amount of time you spend on entertainment, and see that you use more education sites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kate Sawtell wanted to create a tool that helps people see how they spend their time on the internet. \u201cAs a busy mom with a bunch of side projects, I love how it shows where my time online actually goes,\u201d Kate said. \u201cAm I researching, streaming shows or slipping into online shopping holes? It\u2019s not super serious or judgmental, just a quick snapshot of my habits. Sometimes it makes me feel productive, other times it\u2019s like, wow okay maybe I should chill on the shopping tab.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Four
Members of the Fox Recap team at California State University, Monterey Bay, presenting their capstone project. Pictured (left to right): Taimur Hasan, Mozilla community manager Matt Cool, Kate Sawtell, and Diego Valdez. Not pictured: Peter Mitchell.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018Useful AI and strong privacy can coexist\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Firefox machine learning engineer Tarek Ziad\u00e9 served as a mentor for the project. He was struck by how quickly Taimur, Kate, Diego and Peter internalized both the technical challenges of building AI features and their privacy implications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had assumed younger developers might treat privacy as an afterthought,\u201d Tarek said. \u201cI was wrong. They pushed for privacy by design from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taimur, who trained the model himself rather than using an existing one, explained: \u201cIt\u2019s not an off-the-shelf model that I pulled off the internet. I trained it myself using my gaming computer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Browser<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Tarek believes that what the group built reflects the direction in which privacy-focused technology is headed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIntelligence should be local by default, data should be minimized, and anything that needs to leave the device should be explicit and consented,\u201d Tarek said. \u201cAs AI capabilities become a commodity, the differentiator will be trust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s exactly where Mozilla should be leading, Tarek added: \u201cmaking high-quality, on-device AI the default, and proving that useful AI and strong privacy can coexist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A glimpse of the next generation of web builders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For team member Diego Valdez, the project\u2019s value is personal and practical: \u201cI hope people who use Fox Recap can learn about their browsing activity in an engaging way, in hopes [of helping them] improve their productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mozilla community manager Matt Cool sees it in a larger frame. \u201cIt\u2019s a scary and exciting time to enter the tech industry,\u201d Matt said<\/a>. \u201cThe next generation of open web builders is already stepping up. Right here in Monterey, they\u2019re building real-world projects, contributing to open-source, and tackling some of the toughest problems facing the future of the web.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox Recap is one of several student projects showcased at this spring\u2019s Capstone Festival by the School of Computing and Design at Cal State Monterey Bay. Professor Bude Su, who chairs the department, emphasized the value of mentorship as students prepare for what comes next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMozilla’s involvement brought an added layer of motivation for our students,\u201d Professor Su said. \u201cThe opportunity to work on a real-world project under industry mentorship has been invaluable for our students\u2019 learning and professional growth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collaboration shows what can happen when education, mentorship and Mozilla\u2019s values of openness and trust come together. Fox Recap helps make sense of the tabs we collect, but it also points to something bigger: a new wave of developers building tools that respect the people who use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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Take Firefox with you<\/h3> Download Firefox mobile<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/a>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would your browser history say about you? Whether you were getting things done this week or just collecting tabs, a new Firefox extension helps you reflect on your digital habits.  Designed as a personal productivity tool, Fox Recap is a capstone project from a group of college seniors at California State University, Monterey Bay. 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