This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Pocket was always among the first things I disabled when setting up Firefox and apparently, I wasn't the only one doing that.... I'm sure it had its users but I always found normal bookmarks to be more convenient.
Never even heard of Fakespot, though.
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.
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.
From the 404media article on the subject:
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.
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.
100%. And companies don't seem to realize this. I'll use fakespot, but there is absolutely no use for it to be an inbrowser app, and the fact that it suggests (pushes) the idea each time I use the website is just maddening. That said, I appreciate that service.
Pocket can stay or leave. I don't care one way or the other. I never understood its usecase.
I never understood its usecase.
I used to use it when I was browsing the web at work. If I was reading something at the end of the day, or if it was something I didn't want to read at work, I'd give it a pocket bookmark. Then I could pull out my phone and finish right where I left off during my train commute.
fuck, I'm using the Pocket plugin a lot :[
not for proper bookmarking, just to mark where I was in longer videos and webcomics, 1 click on/off, easy
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.
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 (https://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.
edit: this post isn't a request for advice, I'm very happy with my current Wallabag setup.
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? With a web UI and not self hosted?
Never used pocket, how does this differ from just having a bookmarks folder called "stuff to read while you're taking a shit"?
Pocket saved an offline searchable archive of all of the article text. Multiple times I found articles I saved that were no longer online. So no, it's not the same as bookmarks
The difference is in convenience.
On the one hand, you can add a page to your bookmarks, after choosing the correct folder, of course.
On the other hand, you can click a button and a page gets automatically saved in your "read later" storage, with a description, summary, and a preview of the content.
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.
To be fair, I think they both existed as separate products first, before Mozilla bought them. I used both, but they should have never been integrated as a part of a browser...
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.
I liked it at first until the recommendations became more-and-more advertorial slop.
I used it like 3 times before deciding my read later functionality is already and better served by the 206 tabs I will never look at.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I liked Fakespot. Amazon obviously doesn't care whether reviews are legit.
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
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!
This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs
T o I
h f n
e t
t e
F h r
u e n
t e
u t
r
e
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.
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)