How to turn Ollama from a terminal tool into a browser-based AI with this free extension

The idea of querying a remote LLM makes my spine tingle — and not in a good way. When I need to do a spot of research via AI, I opt for a local LLM, such as Ollama.

If you haven’t yet installed Ollama, you can read about it my guide on how to install an LLM on MacOS (and why you should). You can also install Ollama on Linux and Windows, and, given that the Firefox extension works on all three platforms, you can be sure that whatever desktop OS you use will work.

Also: My 5 favorite web browsers – and what each is ideal for

Using Ollama from within the terminal window is actually quite easy, but it doesn’t give you such obvious access to other features (such as LLM/Prompt selection, image upload, internet search enable/disable, and Settings).

The free extension I will point out works on Firefox, Zen Browser (one of my favorites), and others.

Let’s get to that extension.

How to install the Page Assist extension in Firefox

What you’ll need: To make this work, you’ll need Ollama installed and running, as well as the Firefox browser. That’s it. Let’s make some magic.

How to use Page Assist

Before you actually use Page Assist, you need to ensure that Ollama is running. If you’ve already installed it, you can run a local LLM with a command like this:

ollama run  llama3.2

If you see the >>> prompt, the LLM is running and ready to accept queries.

Also: This terminal app uses AI to help you understand the command line

1. Pin the extension

The first thing I would do is pin the Page Assist extension to the Firefox toolbar. To do that, click the puzzle piece icon and then click the gear icon associated with Page Assist. From the drop-down, click “Pin to toolbar.” You should now see the Page Assist icon in the Firefox toolbar (which looks like a tiny thought balloon).

2. Open the extension

Click the Page Assist icon, and a new tab will open with the Ollama UI.

3. Select your model

Before you can run your first query, you need to select a model. Click the “Select a Model” drop-down and choose the model you’ve installed (such as llama3.2:latest).

4. Type your query

You can now type your query in the bottom section labeled “Type a message.” Hit Enter on your keyboard or click Submit, and Ollama will go to work.

5. Adding a new model

You can also add new models with Page Assist. To do that, click the gear icon in the upper right of the Page Assist window. Click Manage Models in the left sidebar, and then click Add New Model. In the pop-up window, type the name of the model you want to add and click Pull Model. For a complete list of models available to Ollama, check out this page.

And that, my friends, is how you can more easily interact with Ollama, thanks to a simple-to-use Firefox extension.