Count me in the group of people sad to see it go because it made it very easy to get articles onto my Kobo e-reader. There are other ways, but they’re all too labour intensive to be practical. Probably should have seen the writing on the wall, though.
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 2 months ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/
Comments
buffaloseven@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
slampisko@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If you use KoReader, you can use Wallabag for the same purpose.
buffaloseven@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I’ll have to see if I want to go to the rigamarole of setting up Wallabag on my home server or if I just fall back to using GoodLinks on iOS exclusively and forgo articles on my e-reader.
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Why don’t they just open it up to let people run their own Pocket services? The usual “proprietary code” excuses make no sense for an organization like Mozilla and it’s being end of lifed anyway. Just dump it on a repo somewhere and let people hack on it if they want to. Why isn’t this part of the sunsetting plan?
lime@feddit.nu 2 months ago
code has been open for about 10 years. it was a binary blob to begin with but nowadays it’s all here
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Fair enough, last I heard it wasn’t, and they certainly continue to talk like it isn’t. It feels like maybe the shutdown post might’ve been a good place to try to spread some awareness of this fact as it might be something people losing access to the service might be interested in.
jeena@piefed.jeena.net 2 months ago
Good.
2910000@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Mozilla should fire their non-technical staff, strongly make the case for how they’re fighting for a free and open internet, and use a subscription model for Firefox to pay the bills
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nobody is paying a subscription to use a browser they can get for free.
2910000@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Enough internet users are familiar with the adage “if a product is free, you are the product”, through personal experience
I’d be OK with paying for Firefox if it meant that it was stripped of all association with advertisers. And presumably, if Mozilla were freed from that association, they’d be able to make a stronger case for how they’re protecting a free internet
TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Patreon and Wikipedia are things people pay for that they can get for free. I have long wanted a way to directly find Firefox development and sustainability.
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 2 months 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.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Shutting down two things that had no business being built in their browser, to replace them with more stuff that have no business being built in their browser.
Mozilla really embraced the “corporation must corporate” motto.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
to replace them with more stuff that have no business being built in their browser.
what stuff do you mean? I mean, certainly not vertical tabs because they are useful, lots of firefox users like it. not me, but the world does not revolve around me, so…
cley_faye@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ll grant you vertical tabs. Unfortunately, the new focus of Mozilla is AI everywhere and advertisement, so I’m mildly concerned.
JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The real Pocket is the Google money they made along the way.
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Good, I never used pocket and I never heard of the other thing.
ratzki@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
An recommendations for Pocket-Alternatives? I save articles on my phone and desktop and read on my tablet…
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Wallabag and Karakeep are popular open source apps
SulaymanF@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Instapaper is still going strong.
keegomatic@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Just started using Linkwarden, been cool so far.
k0e3@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I wanted to like pocket, but I never really understood the point of it when I was already using Reddit or Google News to curate what I liked to read about. Was it more privacy oriented?
embed_me@programming.dev 2 months ago
I found that articles in pocket were actually well written and didn’t make you pull your hairs out
yarr@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Mozilla has tried so many things: I wonder if anyone there has considered releasing and maintaining a browser. They might have some luck against Chrome.
Scrollone@feddit.it 2 months ago
Finally! I couldn’t wait for Pocket to shut down. One useless icon less in my Firefox.
kaidenshi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s not just that it was useless to some people, it was a genuine security risk. OpenBSD’s port of Firefox has it disabled by default, and LibreWolf strips it out of the browser entirely.
toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
part of me thinks “great, those things were annoying”
another part of me thinks it’s a harbinger
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I wouldn’t disagree that firefox is about to get enshittififed but I hope its not true.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Is this cause of the money they lost from the google thing?
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well no one fucking likes or asked for pocket so good riddance.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well, now you know otherwise. I use it daily.
GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Good. I’ve been disabling this shit in about:config for one decade too many.
letsgo@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I tried pocket a couple of times but couldn’t get past the “we think you’re on a phone so you’re only getting three items on the screen at once”. Well I’m not on a phone, I’m on a desktop with a 32" monitor and three T-Rex sized items on my screen is just terrible design.
kazerniel@lemmy.world 2 months ago
fuck, I’m using the Pocket plugin a lot :[
not for bookmarking, just to mark where I was in longer videos and webcomics, 1 click on/off, easy
Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 months ago
FF is technically backed by GOOGLE advert money.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
My LLM says this is what’s known as a “MORAL HAZARD”
Zacryon@feddit.org 2 months ago
Taking evil Google money to make something good out of it seems fair enough.
desmosthenes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
shame about pocket - wonder how much of a hole that really burned in their pocket - if much
arararagi@ani.social 2 months ago
Welp, guess I better start up the calibre extension to send pocket articles as a file for ebook readers.
turkalino@lemmy.yachts 2 months ago
I never used Pocket itself, but I do like having the grid of news articles on the new tab page, which I believe is powered by Pocket in some shape or form. Anyone know if that feature is going away too?
0xD@infosec.pub 2 months ago
It’s just a fancy history, it has nothing to do with pocket.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Pocket absolutely would suggest you articles (and ads) by default unless you explicitly told it not to in your settings. This is separate from the tiles of frequently visited pages from your history.
The second slider down is your history/pinned shortcuts on the home screen. The third one is recommended junk, “Powered by Pocket.”
More info on that here, for however long this will do anyone any good:
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Mozilla! Stop doing stupid stuff!
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I try to support Mozilla (and more obscure open source projects we take for granted) through donations and subscriptions. But I never used Pocket or Fakespot.
I don’t think it should be a forced payment but I’d pay a few bucks a month for a true developer edition. The current one is essentially just the early beta for extension developers but something really developer focused with no bullshit and developer tools at the forefront. I don’t know if that’s something other people would pay for but I feel like it’s easier to shell out cash when I’m using it for work. A lot of people could probably expense it.
It likely wouldn’t replace the Google money but it’d be a start.
prototact@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
I hope they don’t remove Mozilla accounts too, I have all my bookmarks and sync between devices there. Zen browser that I use relies on this and I assume other browsers based off Firefox do too. Mozilla does not have a good managing team and they deserve to go down but there should be a transition period.
wewbull@feddit.uk 2 months ago
How can they sell your details if you don’t register for an account?
I’d personally much rather sync was done with no account. More like synching where clients connect directly to each other with a QR code (or cut&paste code)
JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I’d prefer a self-hosted option. They could even do it the KeePass way where it just saves to a file and you’re responsible for syncing it.
Madbrad200@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
i literally JUST installed fakespot lol
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I hated it at first but then I started to leave pocket on and click links every now and then since I figured they got revenue out of it. I don’t use it often but its a shame to see it go now that I kind of like it.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Pocket is basically a chumbox, but it’s a pretty good chumbox.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Bummer. I can see pocket going, I tried to use it but it’s basically a place to put stuff that you plant to but never actually get around to reading, a bookmark does the same thing. Fakespot I’m not sure about. I’ve used it, but there’s no way to verify how right it is.
gerowen@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Pocket is one service of theirs I did use from time to time. Save an article you want to read later without committing it to a bookmark.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Wish they’d make bookmark not suck so much that using them felt like a commitment to organisationnal chores. The bookmark system is largely unchanged since the netscape days.
You cant search texts inside bookmarks because they only store the url. Which will break. Instead of saving the html itself, as if we still only has hundreds of gigabytes.
It should have a library level search system, capable of not just symbol text but intelligent summarization, categorization, search by relecant, content discovery algorithm, rss feed support all fully local, offline capable.
The whole thing, metadata, html, inages, video, files, code, replay of the changes over time. Yes I should be able to replay clicking “read more” as I expand comments on facebook. I should not lose my work to a page reload ever again. And no that’s nor “too much space”. Web pages are largely text sent super efficiently it is not that much information even compared to a gigabyte.
mr_satan@lemm.ee 2 months ago
What you’re describing is so much more difficult from a technical standpoint than you give it credit.
Static pages – sure, the plague of single page applications – oof, that’s a challenge.
bufalo1973@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Now imagine having google, bing, qwant, duck duck go and ecosia bookmarked.