Comment on Mozilla is shutting down Pocket, their read-it-later and content discovery app, and Fakespot, their browser extension that analyzes the authenticity of online product reviews.

FireWire400@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• JTskulk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Fakespot was kinda nice, whenever I looked at something on amazon I’d get a sidebar showing which reviews are real and summarizing them. It’s actually pretty useful. Definitely will not miss Pocket.

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  • danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Is camel camel camel still useful for Amazon?

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    • pirat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’ve found it useful enough not too long ago, mostly for comparing Amazon’s pricing differences for identical products between various EU countries.

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    • Psythik@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yes CamelCamelCamel is still useful. I check it every time before a major purchase.

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    • ToffeeIsForClosers@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Keepa is better, and depending on whether you’re conspiratorial, not compromised as 3Camels was accused of some years ago.

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      • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Compromised?

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    • JTskulk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Never heard of this. Sounds useful, except I’m really only buying something from them because I need it quickly most of the time. I don’t have the convenience of waiting for price drops like I do with Steam games haha. Thanks for sharing!

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  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Fakespot became defeated years ago and became useless on Amazon.

    The best method I’ve had is to ignore any off brand looking product that’s been for sale for less than a couple months, but has tons of reviews, and when I pick something, sort the reviews by newest first and read those ones.

    Usually the most paid reviews and fake reviews are close to when a product first starts selling. If the thing has been for sale for a little while, odds are that the most recent reviews are mostly from real people. Also, sometimes they will sale a higher quality item the first few weeks it’s for sale, and then start selling the item with cheaper parts on the inside. Like earbuds with good innards getting swapped out for cheaper drivers and processors.

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  • bufalo1973@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ve found a better way to use Amazon: not using it and fuck you, Bezos.

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    • JTskulk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      based

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  • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    didn’t fakespot only work in the USA?

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    • JTskulk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Never tried it outside of the USA, couldn’t tell ya.

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• orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I use Fakespot but wasn’t aware it was a Mozilla product.

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  • Tim_Bisley@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The bought it out. It was originally an extension.

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    • orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      still is as far as I know. I am using it.

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      • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Not for much longer

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• dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Regardless of whatever it did or however it did it, the way Pocket was suddenly shoved in everyone’s faces by default definitely left a bad taste in a lot of mouths (including mine) and everybody just considered it more unasked-for adware. Especially since in its default configuration about a quarter of what it serves you is indeed flat out ads, when most of us are using Firefox with uBlock or similar specifically not to see ads.

  Pocket provided a feature I suspect few people actually used, and in the process had an obnoxious presentation that a lot of people actively disliked. Add me to the list of people who won’t be sad to see it go.

  I want my browser developer developing browsers, not other ancillary side projects.

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  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    well they are terminating it for a reason.

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• GuyDudeman@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  OMG I JUST started using Pocket because my work banned Firefox and made us all switch to Edge!!

  Now how am I going to sync bookmarks and pages I want to read later on my personal devices??

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  • catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I generate a QR code and scan it with my phone. Don’t sync work and personal devices.

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  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’d be very tempted to install Firefox in my local appdata folders (which doesn’t require admin rights to install), then install a theme to make FF look like Edge with something like this..

    Still use real Edge browser for work stuff, but FF for less-than-work stuff.

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    • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They are probably scanning for the binary file executable.

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    • GuyDudeman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They literally have control of and log every app that’s installed and will bug you until you uninstall it.

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      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Unless they’re doing app signing, some of the methods to “log every app” literally look for an executable name. Renaming “firefox.exe” to “explorer.exe” (an obviously allowed executable name) and then executing it will still run Firefox.

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  • drspod@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If your work doesn’t care about your productivity then give them what they deserve for the tools they provide.

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  • Cossty@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I forgot what it is called but there is an extension that syncs bookmarks between Firefox and Chromium browsers.

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  • ToffeeIsForClosers@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There’s Instapaper and once upon a time they even gave you an email address to send links into. Maybe they still do that.

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• Scrollone@feddit.it ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Yeah, me too. I hate that useless Pocket icon in the toolbar. It’s the first thing I disable on every Firefox installation.

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• M137@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Bookmarks and services like pocket are for different things. Bookmarks are for websites you come back to often. Pocket and other services like it are for saving link to stuff you want to remember and/or come back to once or a few times. Bookmarks are not made for having thousands of, while “read later” services are for saving anything and easily have hundreds, thousands tens or hundreds of thousands of things saved.

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  • bufalo1973@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “Read once bookmark”. Problem solved.

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• killerscene@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  i used to use pocket all the time back in the day. slowly realized there arent many articles worth saving for later let alone reading at all.

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• state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I used to use Pocket a lot, it was my main way to read long form articles. I somehow stopped doing that years ago as a way to preserve my mental health. Since then I haven’t used Pocket once.

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• tamal3@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Didn’t some articles have the pocket icon, and some were without? I remember trying it a number of years ago and being completely flummoxed by not being able to save things I wanted to read. Though it could have been user error.

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