What is the "Background Removal" extension and how does it work?

This extension serves as a tool for eliminating unwanted background areas from images. You can access the extension by pressing its toolbar button or a customizable keyboard shortcut. It may initially be hidden in the extensions popup post-installation in which you can optionly pin it to the toolbar area if needed. Upon clicking the action button, the interface opens in a new browser tab. Users can either drag and drop their image or use the file manager to select the desired image file. Upon selection, a preview of the image is displayed, along with a "Please wait..." message indicating background removal is in progress. Once completed, the image with a transparent background is presented next to the original image. At this point, a download button becomes available for downloading the modified image.

What's new in this version?

Please check the Logs section.

How does this extension remove background portion of an image?

This extension employs the RMBG V1.4 machine learning model developed by BRIA AI for efficient image removal tasks. Renowned for its precision, this model effectively identifies the background area within an image, allowing the extension to replace it with a transparent layer. To use this model in a browser extension, we leverage the "Transformers.js" library. By using WebGPU mode, the model achieves significantly faster processing speeds compared to running it with WASM on the CPU.

Is it safe to use this tool for personal images?

Absolutely. This tool operates entirely offline within your browser, ensuring that no data is stored or transmitted to any server. You can confidently use this tool privately.