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.
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.
Why would you need a saas solution if it’s for offline reading? Seems like a contradiction
…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-reader sync it, and then read it offline while on a train.
what OS does your ereader run? can it run syncthing? can it open HTML?
it’s a jailbroken Paperwhite, so I could look into setting up a Syncthing KOReader plugin, but my current setup works perfectly fine for me.
oh, I realized you have been using wallabag nowadays. but syncthing, plus pages saved with the singlefile or the webscrapbook addon could work fine
Pocket always saved the page as both the regular website and a converted article view.
Obsidian with the readitlater plugin is good, and actually stored in a standard format entirely on your devices, so truly offline.
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.
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.
if you happen to be an apple person Safari’s Reading List can save pages offline.
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.
Same. I’ve done pocket and omnivore but now both dead :(
I’ve heard good things about karakeep (also requires self hosting) https://github.com/karakeep-app/karakeep
Check out LinkedIn for this
Edit: multiple days later… Linkwarden not linkedin…
How does all this compare with something like Goodlinks?
well, for starters I can’t install Goodlinks on Linux, Android, or a jailbroken Kindle.
Gotcha
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 used to use it before it got acquired by Firefox to store my read it later list.
they’re focusing on AI instead, it seems
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.
We did, internet! We killed Pocket!
As a Kobo user who sends articles to my Kobo via Pocket A LOT, this is some hefty bullshit.
Yup, just got a Kobo and absolutely love the Pocket integration… I hope some alternative is implemented…
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.
the fact that it suggests (pushes) the idea each time I use the website is just maddening
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this suggestion. IDK where I clicked “STFU” but I only ever remember seeing something about it once.
I clear cookies often, so it could be a cookie setting, maybe.
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.
Huh. Ok, cool. I just go to the address bar and enter QR to it, which triggers some search engines to generate a qr code for the following text. I, then, scan that code to my phone, and open the page on it to read later.
Pocket is the sort of shit that makes me embarrassed to recommend Firefox.
Nobody cared to use Pocket so its not surprising, btw what was that Fakespot thing?
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.
It tried to show how authentic a product review was
cant say if it was accurate or not
YES! No more Pocket button sticking out like a sore thumb!
It literally takes 5 seconds to remove it.
No time, need to shit post
But you can’t remove pocket from firefox just disable it. Given that it wa also a close source binary blob that made firefox not completely open source I’m glad it’s going.
Wasn’t it possible to remove that button?
Possible: yes
Convenient: no
It’s literally in the same place as all other UI customising, though. I consider that as convenient as it gets.
“Oh no, I have to move the mouse for about 10 cm!”
with every fucking install on every machine. for years.
a waste of space and time. always has been. but did moz listen? no. because fanboys like you mock the user and give them the confidence to do stupid shit. lame CEOs, failed TB, fxa servers…geez the list of absolute wrong directions moz went is so long.
praising freedom and a decentralized internet, but store links, passwords etc on their shit american servers. the only good idea moz has was to start coding a browser…after that it just went downhill…according to the decline of users of the years. what is their market share today and why?
with every fucking install on every machine. for years.
Multiplied by all the other annoyances you have to turn off, via either gui or
about:config, each and every time. I feel you.I hop machines fairly frequently, use multiple browsing profiles, and often create discardable profiles, so I eventually just went ahead and spent some time tracing all the
about:configequivalents of the settings that I typically change every time and then put them in auser.jsfile that I can just drop into my profile directory.…which is pretty smart. but many of my installs unfortunately include osx and even still windows. not for me, but but for work and ppl that want alternatives. and i just dont have the time for these shenanigans every time. and as much as i hate it to say: a chrome install feels cleaner. so for myself i rsync my ffprofile folder to a remote storage. but i will consider your method now. thanks.
Wasn’t it in about:config? Or maybe it used to be.
Yes, to completely turn it off, it’s an
about:configsetting:extensions.pocket.enabledRemoving it from the toolbar just hides it, but keeps it running.
Could have been back when the button was part of the address bar. But that was forever ago.
That’s what I’m thinking of them. Good on them for removing it in the meantime.
?
You can just right click on it and hit “remove from toolbar.” That’s all it takes.
Putting it back in my toolbar for the purposes of taking this screenshot was actually more clicks.
You can actually do this with most, but not all, of the toolbar items. You can even 86 the refresh button that way if you’re feeling truly perverse.
On Firefox? I’ve used it for years and this is the first time I hear of Pocket
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…
In a world without dark design patterns, there would be a single pop-up when you first install the application, to ask if you want notifications and/or suggestions for new features. If you click “no”, it should never bother you again unless you go into a menu and opt in. Anything beyond that is inherently predatory.
Ideally, that pop-up wouldn’t even exist. They could just have a collective “don’t bother me again” checkbox on every non-essential notification, so you can easily disable it the first time they become relevant. If your user has already indicated that they are not interested, any further pestering is essentially harassment.
In a world without dark design patterns, there would be a single pop-up when you first install the application, to ask if you want notifications and/or suggestions for new features
This is exactly how it works in things like Office or Edge.
If you click “no”, it should never bother you again unless you go into a menu and opt in
Yup. Or unless a new feature is introduced, in which case a new pop-up appears. That’s precisely how it works.
Ideally, that pop-up wouldn’t even exist. They could just have a collective “don’t bother me again” checkbox on every non-essential notification
Edge, most of the time, just opens a new tab with “Your Edge was updated” and a list of new things.
If your user has already indicated that they are not interested, any further pestering is essentially harassment.
If it was about the same feature that you already dismissed - yeah, I get the sentiment. If it’s about completely new things - it’s a really weird thing to say. How are users supposed to know that something new was introduced? Sift through thousands of lines of changelogs…?
If the user has indicated that they are not interested in new features, it means they do not care about new features. They don’t want to know about them, or they prefer to find out proactively in their own time. If you still insist on ramming notifications down their throat at that point, you’re not doing it for the user. You’re doing it for yourself.
Right. And then we see comments like the one that started this thread: “whoa, there was a Pocket integration??”
Yes, Microsoft is especially bad in this regard. For this whole spring have I clicked hundeds of times that I’m aware that my trial is ending. They also introduced a new feature that they promote on a space that takes literally half the screen. And youtube premium, oh boy.
For this whole spring have I clicked hundeds of times that I’m aware that my trial is ending
This is… not quite related to the topic, no? Trial ending warning is not a “hey, here’s a new feature you might want to try out”.
They also introduced a new feature that they promote on a space that takes literally half the screen
Could you elaborate? I used to use Edge as my daily driver, now it’s my secondary browser. I have no clue what you mean here.
Not speaking of edge here, but the Microsoft fabric/power platform. They tried to sell me some feature for months and eventually i missclicked and started the trial. Now they are notifying that the trial ends in x days and they’ve been extending it so it never ends
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.
Is it free software?
Then anyone can make the improvements they want for it.
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 eSerious question. Do people generally use vertical tabs? I work in IT and have seen countless people’s screens and browsers in all my years, and not one was using vertical tabs (though one put their start menu at the top).
I use them. My screen has much more horizontal real estate than vertical.
I’ve switched my setup to vertical tabs (without groups), and I like it quite a lot. It was a bit of a shock to the muscle memory at first, but now I very much prefer this
i have seen a few do it. i don’t get it either.
I use vertical tabs because horizontal tabs use more screen in wide aspect ratios (16:9 or greater) and I want to optimize my screen usage for the actual content, rather than the tabs.
Nice. How long did it take you to write this comment? Whenever I attempt stuff like this, it takes far longer than expected because I overcomplicate things
The trick is to use a text editor with a fixed-width font.
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…
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.
I used it extensively on my Kobo as well. So nice to be browsing on my phone and see long articles to read and just save them to enjoy on a nice eink screen later when I have time.
Supposedly Wallabag works Kobo readers. Most people self host Wallabag but I think they do have a hosted option as well.
Similarly, I used p2k (Pocket to Kindle). My use case was to clip things with Pocket, which would then automatically send them to my Kindle, where I prefer reading longer articles and books. Retroactively, kind of my fault for being an earlier adopter of a locked-down device like the Kindle from a massive corporation and never moving on from it…
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
No! Use your power for good! Switch to Facebook and X!
I know what I need to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it!
Pocket was silly, just use tabs and buy more RAM.
