Mozilla is testing a new built-in “Review Checker” feature for its Firefox browser that rates how trustworthy customer reviews of a product are. The experimental feature was initially detected by MSPowerUser, and Firefox senior director of product management Byron Jourdan confirmed that the company is testing the functionality “with a limited audience in the United States,” in a statement given to The edge.
Firefox Review Checker is gearing up to give users the tools to remove untrustworthy reviews. Screenshots posted by MSPowerUser show how the tool can be accessed via a price tag icon in the browser’s URL bar, which displays a sidebar with details about the currently open product page. The tool gives product reviews a rating based on how trustworthy it thinks they are, offers a five-star “adjusted rating” with “untrustworthy reviews removed,” and extracts some highlights from existing reviews.
Review Checker feature is powered by Fakespot, a company that Mozilla acquired earlier this year. The company “uses a sophisticated artificial intelligence (ai) and machine learning (ML) system to detect patterns and similarities between reviews in order to flag those that are most likely to be misleading,” Mozilla said when announcing the acquisition, noting that planned to integrate the technology into its browser to “make Firefox customers better equipped to remove misleading reviews.”
Fakespot now offers its review verification services through their websitebrowser extensions like Chrome and Safariand iOS and Android Applications. When it announced the acquisition, Mozilla said Fakespot would continue to work “across all major web browsers and mobile devices.” But offering itself as a built-in Firefox feature could be a great promotional boon for Fakespot and attract the attention of many more users.
Although it is currently testing the feature, Mozilla’s Jourdan says the company has not yet announced an official release date for the feature. “We will continue to test and see if this is one of the ways we can help improve people’s online experience,” he said in a statement.
