The performance gap between frontier AI models from US tech companies and the best open-weights models from Chinese companies has closed to just 4.4 months, according to a Mozilla report. That explains why many companies are shifting to the significantly cheaper open models for routine work—and helps reveal a narrow band of workloads where frontier models are worth the cost.

Most organizations should ideally be using open models as the default for the majority of their work, according to the latest State of Open Source AI report from Mozilla, published on September 15 and shared with Ars prior to publication. The report highlights how a leading open model, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, achieves a composite AI performance score on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index that is just three points behind Anthropic’s Fable 5 closed frontier model, all while costing just 30 percent of the latter.

“[A Closed model] earns its premium in a few places: expert professional work, high-intensity retrieval, and long context,” Raffi Krikorian, chief technology officer at Mozilla, said in an email to Ars. “We see the decision to pay for closed [models] as workload-specific rather than organization-specific.”

Read full article

Comments

© Imen Ben Youssef / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images

Firefox is getting its biggest makeover in years—but Mozilla has already backed away from some of its boldest ideas. Project Nova reveals what happens when modern design trends, millions of opinionated users, and the internet’s unstoppable obsession with rounded corners collide.

Love Firefox enough to drop $200 on a branded keyboard? Tough, it’s sold out Mozilla is flogging a full-sized, 108-key mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches. It has a unique keycap colour scheme and branding with Firefox logo super/meta key and the new Firefox mascot Kit on Esc. It works wired, via Bluetooth or 2.4g wireless. “Clean, clicky and finished in Firefox colors”, reads the Mozilla Store description, “this is a keyboard that looks good, feels better and sneaks in a little personality where you least expect it” (unaware the personality is exactly where one would expect it: on the […]

You're reading The $200 Firefox mechanical keyboard sold out [update: or not?], a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Love Firefox enough to drop $200 on a branded keyboard? Tough, it’s sold out Mozilla is flogging a full-sized, 108-key mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches. It has a unique keycap colour scheme and branding with Firefox logo super/meta key and the new Firefox mascot Kit on Esc. It works wired, via Bluetooth or 2.4g wireless. “Clean, clicky and finished in Firefox colors”, reads the Mozilla Store description, “this is a keyboard that looks good, feels better and sneaks in a little personality where you least expect it” (unaware the personality is exactly where one would expect it: on the […]

You're reading The $200 Firefox mechanical keyboard sold out [update: or not?], a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

More widgets are coming to Firefox’s New Tab page, including an interactive crossword puzzle powered by the AI news reader Particle. The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle‘s AI has ingested and summarised that day, and links to articles you can read to help deduce crossword answers. You click on a square to activate the row or column (clicking on it again switches between “Across” and “Down”). You read the clue at the bottom, and then you type in your answer. Use the hint button if you get stuck. If you just want […]

You're reading Firefox’s new tab page adds AI-powered daily crossword widget, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

More widgets are coming to Firefox’s New Tab page, including an interactive crossword puzzle powered by the AI news reader Particle. The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle‘s AI has ingested and summarised that day, and links to articles you can read to help deduce crossword answers. You click on a square to activate the row or column (clicking on it again switches between “Across” and “Down”). You read the clue at the bottom, and then you type in your answer. Use the hint button if you get stuck. If you just want […]

You're reading Firefox’s new tab page adds AI-powered daily crossword widget, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla has released Firefox 153 with built-in containers, QR code generation and more quick actions in the address bar. This is the the penultimate “monthly” stable release, as Mozilla moves to a faster release cycle following next month’s Firefox 154 release. It’ll put out new versions of Firefox every two weeks in an effort to get new features out to users, sooner. On a not-entirely-related note, but coinciding with this update Firefox has resumed posting to X (formerly Twitter) after a year of no activity. It says it is ‘glad to be back’ to connect with its fans/users directly. Firefox […]

You're reading Firefox 153 enables containers, GTK rounded corners by default, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla has released Firefox 153 with built-in containers, QR code generation and more quick actions in the address bar. This is the the penultimate “monthly” stable release, as Mozilla moves to a faster release cycle following next month’s Firefox 154 release. It’ll put out new versions of Firefox every two weeks in an effort to get new features out to users, sooner. On a not-entirely-related note, but coinciding with this update Firefox has resumed posting to X (formerly Twitter) after a year of no activity. It says it is ‘glad to be back’ to connect with its fans/users directly. Firefox […]

You're reading Firefox 153 enables containers, GTK rounded corners by default, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla is changing Firefox’s release schedule from September, with new stable versions planned every two weeks instead of once a month. The faster release cadence will, Mozilla says, make the schedule more predictable and allow features and improvements which are ready to ship to do so sooner. But in its message to developers, Mozilla describes the change as an experiment, one it says it plans to “closely monitor” to make sure the impact is positive and, if needed, adjust the speed of releases. Firefox 154, due for release on 18 August, will be the final stable version released under the […]

You're reading Firefox will update twice as often from September, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla is changing Firefox’s release schedule from September, with new stable versions planned every two weeks instead of once a month. The faster release cadence will, Mozilla says, make the schedule more predictable and allow features and improvements which are ready to ship to do so sooner. But in its message to developers, Mozilla describes the change as an experiment, one it says it plans to “closely monitor” to make sure the impact is positive and, if needed, adjust the speed of releases. Firefox 154, due for release on 18 August, will be the final stable version released under the […]

You're reading Firefox will update twice as often from September, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla has released Firefox 152 with revamped Settings and faster ways to share web content – plus, a peculiar way to mute noisy tabs. The update is available from today (15 June, 2026) on Windows, macOS and Linux, as well as for Android and iOS (mobile versions have different features and are not covered in this post). Firefox 152’s headline change is the revamped Settings page. We knew this was coming as Mozilla’s been teasing it for over a year. The company says the new look offers “streamlined organisation, clearer groupings, and improved navigation for easier customisation”. Since many users find […]

You're reading Firefox 152 debuts with new-look Settings, odd way to mute tabs, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla has released Firefox 152 with revamped Settings and faster ways to share web content – plus, a peculiar way to mute noisy tabs. The update is available from today (15 June, 2026) on Windows, macOS and Linux, as well as for Android and iOS (mobile versions have different features and are not covered in this post). Firefox 152’s headline change is the revamped Settings page. We knew this was coming as Mozilla’s been teasing it for over a year. The company says the new look offers “streamlined organisation, clearer groupings, and improved navigation for easier customisation”. Since many users find […]

You're reading Firefox 152 debuts with new-look Settings, odd way to mute tabs, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

You can now use Firefox’s free built-in VPN without a monthly data limit – but only until August 31, 2026. Mozilla is also temporarily expanding the list of VPN server locations available to proxy your browsing traffic via, up from the current set of 5 locations to a more generous 28. The extra server locations during the promotion: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Thailand. The Firefox 151 release in May added the option to select from a list of VPN servers (though it’s […]

You're reading Firefox’s free VPN lifts data limit, offers 28 server locations, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

You can now use Firefox’s free built-in VPN without a monthly data limit – but only until August 31, 2026. Mozilla is also temporarily expanding the list of VPN server locations available to proxy your browsing traffic via, up from the current set of 5 locations to a more generous 28. The extra server locations during the promotion: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Thailand. The Firefox 151 release in May added the option to select from a list of VPN servers (though it’s […]

You're reading Firefox’s free VPN lifts data limit, offers 28 server locations, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla has added support for Google’s Play Integrity API, known for blocking users of custom ROMs from accessing banking apps, to Firefox for Android. Per a resolved issue in Mozilla’s public tracker, a new lib-integrity-googleplay library was added to Firefox’s Android codebase. It requests a Play Integrity token which is then passed to Mozilla’s MLPA (Machine Learning Proxy) server. The token is used to access Firefox’s server-side AI tools, like Smart Window, for rate-limiting purposes, ensuring only unmodified, Play-installed copies of Firefox on Google-certified devices use Mozilla’s compute infra. Per documentation for the API, developers can: “…call the Integrity API […] to […]

You're reading Firefox for Android’s Play Integrity check hits custom ROMs, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla has added support for Google’s Play Integrity API, known for blocking users of custom ROMs from accessing banking apps, to Firefox for Android. Per a resolved issue in Mozilla’s public tracker, a new lib-integrity-googleplay library was added to Firefox’s Android codebase. It requests a Play Integrity token which is then passed to Mozilla’s MLPA (Machine Learning Proxy) server. The token is used to access Firefox’s server-side AI tools, like Smart Window, for rate-limiting purposes, ensuring only unmodified, Play-installed copies of Firefox on Google-certified devices use Mozilla’s compute infra. Per documentation for the API, developers can: “…call the Integrity API […] to […]

You're reading Firefox for Android’s Play Integrity check hits custom ROMs, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.