Sad news, but trimming the fat is what people wanted Mozilla to do. Anyone know a good alternative to Fakespot? I absolutely don’t trust amazon’s own review summaries, and expect other alternatives would be for-profit data harvesters.
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.
Submitted 1 day ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/
Comments
Piwix@lemm.ee 18 hours ago
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 day ago
bUt iT’S jUSt bOoKmARkS
- people who are privileged enough to never have experienced multiple days without an internet connection.
it’s a shame to see it go, it’s been the first read-it-later service that I was aware of and used. I’ve moved away to Omnivore (RIP) and then Wallabag (wallabag.it for 11€/year, but you can self-host it or find someone else to host it for you for a lower fee), but I’ve still been thinking fondly of it, despite Mozilla clearly trying to force people into social reading rather than just serve as a convenient offline storage of articles.
TheBlackLounge@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Why would you need a saas solution if it’s for offline reading? Seems like a contradiction
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 day ago
…so that you can read it on a device other than the one you’ve initially opened the link on? I can save a link to Wallabag from my laptop’s browser at home, have my e-readet sync it, and then read it offline while on a train.
MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Obsidian with the readitlater plugin is good, and actually stored in a standard format entirely on your devices, so truly offline.
cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
I have ended up using Zotero for this, which takes a snapshot of the webpage for offline reading (and preservation). Synced to other clients through my WebDAV server. Originally only used Zotero as a reference manager for academic journal papers, but liked using it more broadly.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
people who are privileged enough to never have experienced multiple days without an internet connection.
I have, and if you need an SaaS for that, I am sorry for you. Pocket was great for getting around paywalls for a while.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
if you happen to be an apple person Safari’s Reading List can save pages offline.
Artopal@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
I hear you. I discovered Omnivore and was in the process of migrating from Pocket to it until less than a year later Omnivore was gone.
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 hours ago
Same. I’ve done pocket and omnivore but now both dead :(
aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I’ve heard good things about karakeep (also requires self hosting) github.com/karakeep-app/karakeep
mac@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Check out LinkedIn for this
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 day ago
How does all this compare with something like Goodlinks?
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 day ago
well, for starters I can’t install Goodlinks on Linux, Android, or a jailbroken Kindle.
cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 18 hours ago
Nobody liked Pocket so its not surprising, btw what was that Fakespot thing?
Vorticity@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I used fakespot a lot. It used huristics to attempt to determine how authentic a product’s reviews are. It analyzed the reviews for things like repeated phrases, odd review activity like bragading, and other things. It then gave a letter grade to the veracity of the reviews and an “adjusted” aggregate review score after removing any reviews that it considered to be suspicious.
I’m going to miss fakespot. I don’t know how accurate it was but it definitely informed my decisions.
ghostBones@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Alternative? 11Labs Reader will let you build an article library and will read them to you with superior voicing then pocket ever had.
MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Fakespot was somewhat accurate at catching when Amazon sellers take a well-reviewed item and swap out the product for another, by changing the title, description, and pictures. We’ve probably all read a review on Amazon that feels like the reviewer is posting a review of a completely different product, like a review that seems to be about a kitchen utinsil on a listing for an unusually affordable camera. It’s a pretty common scam that Fakespot was pretty good at catching. It didn’t seem as good at adjusting ratings for legit products and seemed to kind of randomly knock off a a half to one and a half stars on pretty much every listing, even on quality products.
Little8Lost@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
It tried to show how authentic a product review was
cant say if it was accurate or notSCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
I feel like that’s a critical function lmao
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 hours ago
Pocket was silly, just use tabs and buy more RAM.
trepX@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
The point was to have stuff to read when no connection, such as airplane. Which browser doesn’t try to refresh the tab? Any setting that allows to cache to HDD on a mobile browser you know of?
azvasKvklenko@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
You don’t need to. Modem browsers will suspend unused tabs, cache them on drive and free up the memory, while quickly restoring as soon user activate them. On at least moderately fast systems this happens so quickly it’s hardly noticeable.
noxypaws@pawb.social 15 hours ago
great way to run into rate limits tho
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
with that plus auto tab discard i can have plenty of tabs :)
Majestic@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Never cared for pocket and always disabled it as spyware. Fake spot will be missed though.
This is an ill omen however. They’re cutting back dramatically in anticipation of their Google funding being lost forever and perhaps as some suggest in anticipation of enshitifying. These were both sold originally as additional revenue streams for Mozilla.
sheogorath@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I used to use it before it got acquired by Firefox to store my read it later list.
zeppo@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
they’re focusing on AI instead, it seems
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 day ago
Pocket is the sort of shit that makes me embarrassed to recommend Firefox.
pastermil@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
YES! No more Pocket button sticking out like a sore thumb!
drmoose@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It literally takes 5 seconds to remove it.
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 1 day ago
No time, need to shit post
ptu@lemm.ee 1 day ago
On Firefox? I’ve used it for years and this is the first time I hear of Pocket
Alaknar@lemm.ee 1 day ago
On Firefox? I’ve used it for years and this is the first time I hear of Pocket
And then people get all pissy when Google or Microsoft show a pop-up of a new feature…
cascadia99@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I liked Fakespot. Amazon obviously doesn’t care whether reviews are legit.
lemmyingly@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Fakespot has always felt inaccurate to me. Once every 6 months or so I gave it a go to see if any of the updates have improved it but it never felt like it did to me.
Furthermore, I don’t see the point in Fakespot since Amazon bends over backwards to accept returns for any reason.
CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Furthermore, I don’t see the point in Fakespot since Amazon bends over backwards to accept returns for any reason.
Why go through that hassle if you can avoid it in the first place?
spector@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I stopped trusting it much when I noticed there’s a huge difference between the same product on amazon.ca and amazon.com. On one domain it can give something an F grade while on the other domain it will have an A grade.
It’s a nice idea but when you think it about it’s actually kind of hard to determine the quality of a particular listing apart from the obvious checks you can do yourself. Like if the seller is some random drop shipper or actually Amazon or the manufacturer.
Judging reviews with whatever AI system they use is not very accurate anyways.
Empricorn@feddit.nl 20 hours ago
Your 2nd point doesn’t make any sense. Sure, you can spend the time returning things. If they’re bad and you know they’re bad. But what if they’re just bad enough?
Take guitar pedals, for example. I know nothing about guitar pedals. I don’t know the brands, I don’t know the features I should look for, what they should cost, nothing. A company can purchase thousands, tens of thousands, or more fake reviews from a bot farm run by wage slaves. I might buy their subpar pedal based on the good review score. It’s fine, it works well enough from my initial testing and doesn’t die…
But what I wanted was to purchase one of the better ones, which the false reviews told me it was! I could have spent the same or less for a better product, that rewarded the company that made the superior product. And I might not even know it, at least until it’s too late to return. That’s (one of) the problems with how bad fake reviews have gotten.
cascadia99@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I’ve also wondered about Fakespot’s accuracy. I just viewed it as one tool when doing online shopping. I’d prefer not to order crap in the first place than try to return something later.
dinckelman@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I’ve never known about it until just now, but I wish I had, because my mom definitely needs something like that. Quite a shame
Empricorn@feddit.nl 20 hours ago
I think it’s a good tool. I also think people and companies learned how to circumvent it and avoid being too obvious. And that was before AI! Plus, Firefox (who I didn’t even know owned it before today!) doesn’t want to enough time/money into it in a perpetual arms race…
lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
The Distilled announcement post says the company made the choice to shut down these products because “it’s imperative we focus our efforts on Firefox and building new solutions that give you real choice, control and peace of mind online.” It also says the choice will allow Mozilla to “shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way.” Which is what everyone wants: more AI bloat in their browsers.
(The monkey paw turns, and) we got our wish.
We did, internet! We killed Pocket!
mjhelto@lemm.ee 22 hours ago
Switched to LibreWolf after seeing the message about Fakespot. It was a heavily used browser add-on I used almost religiously since 2020. Mozilla acquired them in 2023 and then did nothing with it, letting it die. I’m so tired of this bullshit.
malin@thelemmy.club 19 hours ago
Is it free software?
Then anyone can make the improvements they want for it.
DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 22 hours ago
As a Kobo user who sends articles to my Kobo via Pocket A LOT, this is some hefty bullshit.
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
The moment I setup an Omnivore account, it gets acquired and dies, the moment I switch to Pocket it’s dead lol, I think I’ll just move to some open source self hosted read it later app like Karakeep
52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
Owning things like Pocket is fine as long as each product stands on it’s own. Melding them together is what upsets their user base.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 hours ago
well shit, i loved pocket. i guess time to make my own del.icio.us social bookmarking/saving app like i’ve been wanting to for years.
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Good. I never trusted those integrated apps and thought of them as spyware. Mozilla should go back to focusing on making a lean browser and whatever apps they want to offer should be optional instead of hard coded into their flagship product.
CannedYeet@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Noo! I loved Pocket. It’s integrated into my Kobo eReader. It was the only good way to get articles easily synced on to an eReader. I hope Kobo buys Pocket. Or Rakuten, since that’s a tech company and they own Kobo.
TAG@lemmy.world 1 day ago
As an occasional user, I am sad to see it go. Are there any other sites out there to maintain a list of links that I may find useful in the future?
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
“Firefox is the only major browser not backed by a billionaire”
This is a misleading statement. 86% of Mozilla’s funding is from google. Modern web browsers are a fucked landscape designed to perpetuate googles dominance
Artopal@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
I use Pocket since before Mozilla bought it. In combination with my kobo ereader, it changed the way I read the Internet for the better. Self hosting is no option for me and as far as I know Pocket was the best free read-it-later service. And the only one that worked seamless with Kobo. I really hope Rakuten buys it.
xiao@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Brewchin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Pocket won’t be missed. Self-hosted alternatives like Wallabag are better and private, so switched to it many years ago. Integration (and enabled by default, requiring about:config to disable) ensured I’d never use it out of principle.
Fakespot (the website) was genuinely useful to help ID scams on Amzn Marketplace, though I never used the extension. But I think that enshittified in recent years, so (in the style of Stephen King’s Misery) it’s probably for the best.
Related, the Keepa extension is useful as a price rigging detector, but I expect that will “number must go up!” soon enough, too…
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Welp, I’ve taught my parents to use the fakespot site before doing a purchase on Amazon. Fakespot was never a perfect tool, but it was easy to use and better than not checking review quality at all.
Bali@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The first paragraph is not true. Mozilla is backed by a billionaire or billionaires, for example Google and Microsoft where the majority of Mozilla revenues comes from them. Stop deceiving people!
JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 19 hours ago
The real Pocket is the Google money they made along the way.
zeppo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I enjoy pocket for the articles that come up on the new tab page. I’ve never once saved an article for later with it.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Is this cause of the money they lost from the google thing?
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 hours ago
Good, I never used pocket and I never heard of the other thing.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 day ago
I liked it at first until the recommendations became more-and-more advertorial slop.
kratoz29@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Wait, I didn’t know Mozilla actually owned Pocket, I thought they just had a partnership or something…
I used to main Pocket back in the days when I had an iPod Touch 4G and older iPhone models, nowadays… It is storing articles from those days that I bet I haven’t gotten to read 😂
Man, one gets a backlog of everything these days.
FireWire400@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Pocket was always among the first things I disabled when setting up Firefox and apparently, I wasn’t the only one doing that… Never even heard of Fakespot, though.
JTskulk@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day 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.
danc4498@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Is camel camel camel still useful for Amazon?
bufalo1973@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I’ve found a better way to use Amazon: not using it and fuck you, Bezos.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
didn’t fakespot only work in the USA?
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I use Fakespot but wasn’t aware it was a Mozilla product.
Tim_Bisley@piefed.social 1 day ago
The bought it out. It was originally an extension.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
well they are terminating it for a reason.
GuyDudeman@lemmy.world 1 day 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??
catloaf@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I generate a QR code and scan it with my phone. Don’t sync work and personal devices.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
drspod@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
If your work doesn’t care about your productivity then give them what they deserve for the tools they provide.
Cossty@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I forgot what it is called but there is an extension that syncs bookmarks between Firefox and Chromium browsers.
ToffeeIsForClosers@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
Scrollone@feddit.it 1 day ago
Yeah, me too. I hate that useless Pocket icon in the toolbar. It’s the first thing I disable on every Firefox installation.
M137@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
TheNamlessGuy@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Idk man, my “To watch later” YouTube bookmark folder has a couple of hundred videos in it at this point.
bufalo1973@lemm.ee 1 day ago
“Read once bookmark”. Problem solved.
killerscene@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day 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.
state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 20 hours 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.
tamal3@lemmy.world 21 hours 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.