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Mozilla Responds To Firefox User Backlash Over Pocket Integration
An anonymous reader writes: Last week, Mozilla updated Firefox to add Pocket integration — software that lets you save web articles to read later. Over the weekend, some Firefox users began to voice their displeasure over the move on public forums like Bugzilla, Google Groups, and Hacker News. The complaints center around Pocket being a proprietary third-party service, which already exists as an add-on, and is not a required component for a browser. Integrating Pocket directly into Firefox means it cannot be removed, only disabled. In response, Mozilla has released a statement saying users like the integration and the integration code is open source.
first for niggers??
ad block and no script baked in next?
Bunch of egomaniac, libtard sell outs
... telling the users what they like. Well done.
Seriously. Marketing spin on sellouts is so distasteful. But then people swallow it when fed by their governments too, so why not try the same?
Quoth Mozilla from TFA:
Pocket has been a popular Firefox add-on for a long time and we’ve seen that users love to save interesting Web content to easily revisit it later, so it was an easy choice to offer Pocket as a service in Firefox and we’ve gotten lots of positive feedback about the integration from users.
All the code related to this integration within Firefox is open source and Pocket has licensed all the Firefox integration code under the MPLv2 license. On top of that, Pocket asked Mozilla for input on how to improve their policy, based on early comments from Mozillians. After that discussion, Pocket updated their privacy policy in early May to explain more precisely how they handle data. You can read Pocket’s privacy policy here.
Directly integrating Pocket into the browser was a choice we made to provide this feature to our users in the best way possible. To disable Pocket, you can remove it from your toolbar or menu. If Pocket is removed from the toolbar or menu, then the feature is effectively disabled, though you can still find it again by accessing it in the Customize Panel. You can find detailed instructions here.
The "removal instructions" are just to drag the button out of sight, but the bug report asking for actual removal, quoth Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth]:
Pocket is just a bunch of API calls. Firefox UI code is lazy loaded. Put those two together, and yes, Pocket code is effectively "disabled". It will cause no extra baggage until viewed.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Want FireFox like it was back in the 3.x days?
Ship that by default if you dare!
Obligatory why is all this shit built into Firefox comment here. I don't even want the developer console, on some machines. It's just an annoyance when I accidentally pop it up. Why should I have features that bloat the install if I'm not using them? Make them all extensions. Wasn't that the point of the design? That it's a platform?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Mozilla should also integrate facebook, twitter, gmail, yahoo mail, outlook, pandora, itune..... etc. After all we all users like tight integration, don't we? I am sure this partners can provide minimal client side software under MPLv2.
Seriously, Mozilla should pull this out immediately. It can maintain a site for recommended extensions but should not directly integrate it.
Initially thought it was a new mozilla-run service, but when i clicked through to learn more, it was clear that it was a 3rd-party proprietary service. That's when i removed the 'Pocket' icon from the toolbar: Hamburger --> Customize --> drag it down and out. Kind of annoying that the plugin code bloat remains, but guess that's just something I'll live with for now.
I've been a big user and supporter of Firefox, even through all the performance problems, mis-steps, yahoo search shenanigans, but this is the first time I feel they blatantly went against their philosophy of an open web. Tsk tsk Mozilla.
Firefox was supposed to be a no nonsense browser only. It was supposed to be just a browser with all the "bloat" of the suite cut out. The odd thing is right away the first release of Firefox was a bigger download and took up more memory than Seamonkey. (Windows Platform) Firefox had been changed over to the generic UI framework and was on Gecko Runner. I assumed that these were the reason for the bigger size, but when Seamonkey changed over to these, its memory footprint and download size shrunk.
As it is Seamonkey download is 31MB and Firefox is 38MB. I personally like the old suite and all its options, but I also like that it feels faster.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
I dunno, just generally stating that users like it is.. well, it doesn't really mean anything. How many users? How many users don't like it? How many are ambivalent about it? What sort of method did Mozilla use in the first place to even come to this conclusion? Me, I have zero use for Hello and I certainly have no use for Pocket, either, and I would have preferred all such things to be left as addons. I do understand Mozilla's motivation, of course; getting kickback funding for such a large ecosystem definitely looks appealing from the economical standpoint and it is, obviously, true that they can't just continue to run everything on air and good-will. Still, I can't help but feel this was poorly handled.
This is why Firefox is losing market share. At one time, I could add whatever add-ons I felt was necessary to make Firefox look like what I wanted it to, and/or what I needed. However, for some time, Mozilla has been adopting a kitchen sink approach, where Firefox will have everything, and instead of being a lean browser, will be as bloated as IE.
If you do not like what the Mozilla Foundation is doing with Firefox, and they don't seem to care what you think - join the millions of us who've already switched to a different browser.
I was a loyal Firefox user for many years, but somewhere along the way Mozilla lost its focus. The things I used to need Firefox for (DOM Inspector, JavaScript debugging, Ad Block) are readily available with other browsers. So I bid adieu to their political agendas and bloated infrastructure (seriously - how much money do you need to develop a web browser?) and moved on.
#DeleteChrome
Let's see if their "Submit Feedback" add-on works... (menu icon -> question mark icon -> Submit Feedback)
What, they asked like 5 users if they liked it?
I'm betting more people do not care/do not want it than those who do.
If I want to save a web page, I'll use a damned bookmark.
Instead of putting this shit in the browser for the small fraction of people who care, how about we leave it as an add-on and those people who want it can add it themselves.
Why must Mozilla keep filling up Firefox with shit that most people have no interest in? Stop wasting my fucking memory with crapware I don't need.
Who the hell is in charge at Mozilla these days? I bunch of guys from marketing?
I hope someone is going to fork it and throw this crap out so we can have a simple web browser, not some swiss-army knife with crap in it we don't care about.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Mozilla is in the pocket of Big Pocket.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
First the video chat garbage and now this?! I think it's finally time for me to throw in the towel on Firefox. Any suggestions for a good alternative browser?
... Mozilla has released a statement saying users like the integration...
Maybe Mozilla should stop telling users what they want, and start giving users what they want.
There is a precedent with the "Hello" webrtc calling functionality, which also relies on a proprietary service. I wish Mozilla had invested in writing a decent WebRTC server, it's really something that is missing from the WebRTC ecosystem. Currently we only have MCUs (where all the media goes throught the server) and hosted services, but no good P2P WebRTC service.
Pocket should not be built in to Firefox as it is yet another third party that gets to capture your browser usage. Good old bookmarks have the same function without involving some unknown third party. I do not want the Pocket feature taking up resources on my computer! Leave it as an addon for folks that can't figure out how to use bookmarks.
>> Users: Quit adding unnecessary crap. Stick to the original mission of "leanest browser available."
>> Mozilla: F*** you. Here's some bloatware chasing down some rarely used media extensions.
>> Users: Quit adding unnecessary crap. Stick to the original mission of "leanest browser available."
>> Mozilla: F*** you. Here's a Mozilla "operating system."
>> Users: Quit adding unnecessary crap. Stick to the original mission of "leanest browser available."
>> Mozilla: F*** you. Here are some built-in ads.
>> Users: Quit adding unnecessary crap. Stick to the original mission of "leanest browser available."
>> Mozilla: F*** you. Here is some built-in crapware from Pocket.
>> Users: No, f*** you. We already switched ourselves and everyone we know still running Firefox to Chrome.
someone can build and provide a stripped down version. right?
So Stuart Parmenter removes MNG support from Firefox to save 40 kb of download bandwidth, but now we get bundled third-party apps that most Firefox users do not use just because? I don't buy it. Somebody at Mozilla got paid. It's time to dump Firefox for Chromium.
how come I have literally never heard of it?
(UN)Suprisingly it also sucks if you WANT pocket and you were registered with them and you have an account and all.
How? They said FF extension won't be supported anymore because Pocket is already in Firefox. Well, the "integrated" version just sends you to Pocket web page when you want to see what you want to read! It is nothing more, just a bookmark (it even shows under Bookmarks button).
While the extension would show your reading list directly, you could dismiss pages without going to pocket web page and so on. MUCH BETTER!
Doesn't Ctrl-S save the page? Or is this something that saves the linked pages also?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Oh hacker news, where opinionated people with business degrees put "developer" on their resume. (srsly these people love self-promoting. follow the trail back to their linked-in pages or shitty blogs for a good laugh)
Its not part of the general discussion of the firefox backlash, but for those of us neckbeards that dont care for chrome or safari, Qupzilla provides a workable fork of Mozilla firefox with a functional adblock and a much, much slimmer disk footprint on the system.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Using Firefox has become like that relationship that used to be perfect and then out of nowhere your partner starts cheating on you and each time swears its going to be the last time.
And you keep falling for it.
"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
It's not like bookmarks or Save Page functionality hasn't existed for more than a decade.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
They would do an ask slashdot about how they've been treating the browser lately.
Isn't that called bookmarks?
Fuck off, we will do any sort of dumb shit that we want and you will like it!
Chome = Spyware
Firefox = Bloat
I'd rather deal with bloat than spyware.
Smells like the same argument as systemd...
Hey Mozilla! Why don't you write some open source code that links to other useful proprietary stuff that folks like, like the h264 capabilities that comes installed on most of the plattforms you are deploying on?
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
I use Firefox and have been using Pocket (from a bookmarklet) for ages. So I guess that makes me one of the FF users that likes Pocket. However even I don't think it's in the slightest bit appropriate to integrate the service into the browser.
As it happens, I have my FF UI so heavily customized (menus and status bars forever, man) that I don't see any visible trace of Pocket and didn't know it had been added in this way until this article popped up.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
Keep adding some features coming from some pet projects of the most vocal developers that a great part of the user base doesn't care... while products that gets bloated, slower and buggy at every interaction. Somehow this doesn't seem like a good business strategy.
Personal experience: Changed to Chrome about 3 months ago... since I learned to live with the definitively less advanced tab management, everything has been better. Much faster and less buggy.
1.about: config
2. Find browser.pocket.enabled preference and change its value to ‘false’.
3. To remove Reader view, change reader.parse-on-load.enabled preference value to ‘false‘.
4. Restart the browser to see the changes.
-S
some Firefox users began to voice their displeasure over the move on public forums like Bugzilla, Google Groups, and Hacker News
These forums may be technically "open to the public," but that doesn't make them visible, accessible or inviting to anyone but the geek.
Which is one of the principal reasons why the geek gets sandbagged every time the infinitely greater mass of users move in a direction he doesn't want or expect them to go.
Integrated DRM media play in or through the browser will serve as an example.
His defenses there have crumbled.
Of course we'll bundle Pocket with the new release of the browser! Our customers expect no less of us. We have never sought to become a monopoly. Our products are simply so good that no one feels the need to compete with us.
--Where do you want your Browser today?
CEO Nwabudike Morgan
I'd love it if Firefox integrated the Pocket add-on. The existence Firefox Pocket add-on is the primary reason I use Firefox!
The problem is what they integrated is the far inferior Pocket Firefox "service", and they announced that the add-on is no longer supported.
Features of the add-on, that were dropped from the service:
It's almost like the point of the service is to drive traffic to the Pocket site's page.
What's the point of Firefox integration if it is no better than a barely functional service? Integration from the browser vender should enable the function to be used transparently.
That way I can read it later when I have time.
Care to provide evidence of that?
I have no problems with Mozilla integrating 3rd party services when that client code is open source. Hey! a browser is already a client for millions of closed source services via HTTP. What I don't like is Mozilla putting buttons for those services by default on my toolbar, that is adware like behavior
However my stance on the issues with firefox changed very little
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
TLDR: The stability (under the 64bit waterfox build) is pretty much where I want it, it doesn't crash.
However,...the performance is atrocious compared to chrome, I don't know what kind of machine to throw at this browser but there needs to be a better way.
I've tried with / without the noscript, with / without adblock and flashblock - nope still no good.
It's sad.
Stop adding bloat, start trimming and tidying and optomising code.
My personal, non software developer, layman opinion is almost every web site, almost every application, almost every game and almost every operating system - almost all software in existence really should have **national optomisation week** where NO FEATURES ARE ADDED, NO UI'S CHANGED and for 1 week a year they simply try to speed up their old code.
Seriously.... developers are still behaving like it's 1995 -> 2008 or so, when everything endlessly doubled in performance. Hint: PC performance increase have slowed. Start coding cleaner.
1 week a year, think about it devs, please.
Firefox is still the greatest browser, and if new features bother you too much, it's always dead easy to disable them. You only have to do it once per install. about:config Disable Firefox Hello loop.enabled = false Disable Pocket browser.pocket.enabled = flase Disable One-Click Search Bar (revert to old search) browser.search.showOneOffButtons = false Enable Firefox Tracking Protection (Disconnect) privacy.trackingprotection.enabled = true
Is there one?
Moz put some crap chatty-thing on my toolbar without asking which I had to remove, why can't I have wither a no-bloat add-on or an about:config no-bloat setting (=false in my case)
about:config
Disable Firefox Hello
loop.enabled = false
Disable Pocket
browser.pocket.enabled = flase
Disable One-Click Search Bar (revert to old search)
browser.search.showOneOffButtons = false
Enable Firefox Tracking Protection (like Disconnect)
privacy.trackingprotection.enabled = true
Bonus: replace Adblock with the Open-Source and superior uBlock: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...
>"Mozilla has released a statement saying users like the integration"
I don't know any such users. In fact, most people I know agree that Mozilla needs to stop this trend of adding things to Firefox; it goes completely contrary to the Firefox mission (or what I thought it used to be, anyway)- to be small, open, cross-platform, and fast.
So please remove it. And then remove Hello. In fact, remove the developer stuff too (which 99.999% of users never use). Please use Addons/Extensions for these things. And while you are at it- LISTEN TO YOUR USER BASE who want full control over the UI options (Should I mention tabs-on-bottom? Or status panel? Or traditional file menus?). Stop trying to be Chrome!!!
I almost get the feeling they are intentionally trying to destroy FF. It is not just that they added pocket there have been a number of ridiculous UI tweaks, bugs and performance issues that is forcing me off Firefox. With this update I figured it was just another idiotic customization to undo whatever they changed. But now it hangs on some webpages (pretty consistently) on both my phone and PC. So now I am at the point where it is unusable too many times a day and effecting my productivity. I'm done.
They were paid a kickback by pocket to include it. Nothing else makes sense. A poster above listed pocket downloads at 275k. That's worldwide. Not even statistically significant imho.
As somebody who has used FF since Phoenix, the most annoying functionality break in recent FF builds is the search box. You can no longer pick your search engine before typing, defeating the benefit of any predictive auto-complete.
I like Pocket. I use Pocket. It's a nifty way to have a bunch of articles categorized so when people say stupid things like black people loot and white people band together. I can pull together the many articles showing people looking and rioting over pumpkins so regularly it's expected. When someone wants to talk about how scary the rise of false rape allegations is I can pull together the numerous articles I've saved on that subject to explain to them why they're wrong. I think Pocket is great. I use pocket to keep design links that I'll find useful. Videos of people spending hours just creating graphics for games that I find compelling and educational. I keep links to brushes and background and resources for various projects. Pocket is in my opinion pretty awesome even though I use it not as intended most of the time. I still don't want it integrated into my browser.
Just another second banana
So Mozilla crapped on the 38.x ESR release in two ways:
- Adobe's DRM crap was integrated right from the start
- 38.0.5 integrated Pocket
Since support for 31 ESR will run out soon, there are really not many choices here. Either make a custom build or move to another browser. Or perhaps there is a third way: use Tor browser (without Tor), they seem to be good at removing crap from the Firefox.
Luckily there are some emerging alternatives:
http://fifth-browser.sourceforge.net/
http://otter-browser.org/
I don't understand the point of this Pocket stuff (or Wallabag, which someone mentioned as similar). Would someone please explain what use it has?
For Pocket, I read "If it's in Pocket, it's on your phone, tablet or computer. You don't even need an Internet connection."
OK, but how is that different from Ctrl-S (Save page)?
For Wallabag, apparently you still need an Internet connection: "when you open your wallabag, you can comfortably read your articles. [...] you can install it on your web server or you can create a free account at Framabag.
So how is that different from just bookmarking the page?
I'm asking nicely.
See subject "Forrest" & this -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
systemd/Firefox integration.
First off, I'd fire most of the useless people (except devs)...
* Designers will all be fired - replace that will design suggestions from the community, and use voting to pick out the best that users WANT;
* HR - all fired, and instead use the senior dev and the ceo as people who hire;
* Accounts - leave only 1 person to deal with the non-profit paperwork, and paperwork / contracts associated with external funding from Yahoo / Google / Microsoft;
* Marketing - all fired - get the open source community to once-again evangelise Firefox like the good-old-days;
Secondly, improve the core browser...
* Assign ALL devs working full speed on implementing electrolysis (multi-process Firefox) as the number-one priority;
After that..
* Remove all the bloated features not used by 99% of normal people (Pocket / Hello / dev tools / share / sync / etc) - all downloadable as extensions;
* Hire all the ad-block team in-house and integrate ad-block in the browser with the 'acceptable ads policy' so as not to annoy my primary source of funding (Yahoo)... and then get companies to COMPLY with MY demands on acceptable ads and get them to pay Firefox to add themselves to the 'acceptable ads list';
(this will have all the retarded ad / beacon companies running around in havoc, just like when Mozilla wanted to implement 'no 3rd party cookies').
As time went on...
Implement a voting system, and get the community to vote on the biggest priority issues and features that they wanted - perhaps even have the voting on the homepage of Firefox.
Perhaps also, if Firefox OS was taking too much toll on the devs, and little or no income as a result of it, then I'd dump the entire project.
This is why I use Seamonkey! :-)
Well, speaking personally, this Firefox user doesn't want it.
Keep it simple. Keep it small. Keep it from Embrace/Extend/Extinguish!
Something I've always wondered about a handjob: Why is it called a hand "job" when sex acts for hire are illegal in the jurisdictions where most of Slashdot's audience reside?
How do you plan to do P2P WebRTC when both parties are behind network address translation (NAT)?
uBlock
Would you care to highlight some of the features of uBlock, especially vis-a-vis uMatrix?
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Why aren't they packing the stuff, which annoys the user, in like 40 extensions (pocket, sync, apps integration, personas, australis theme, js console, mobile developer tools, hello, ...) and preinstall them?
- They still have many users, who use the default
- The annoyed users disable the addons
- They can benchmark the small firefox to show how fast it is instead of the current monster in the next benchmarks.
chromium: Lean and not spyware.
BUT not very extenable compared to firefox
how is that different from Ctrl-S (Save page)?
Pocket saves your pages in the cloud so that more data about you can be mined.
"The main difference between uBlock and uMatrix is that uBlock uses pattern-based filtering while uMatrix matrix-based filtering which gives you more control over the filtering process....In comparison to NoScript, it is offering finer controls when it comes to content types to block. While NoScript does support custom site exclusions, it is not as easy to setup, and as far as RequestPolicy is concerned, it is more of a allow or deny type of program with little granularity.
The extension works like a firewall basically that gives you control over what is loaded when you connect to web pages in the browser.'
I haven't used uMatrix, but found that info at: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/...
Any article I want to read later I drag to the bookmark toolbar. Done! Can even stuff a folder with multiple links in there. With sync enabled I can access it on any one of my systems. Not sure what the need is for yet another tool? Is it because people do not know how to bookmark pages? Or is it that by default all the helpful UI controls are hidden and turned off? The Mozillas should work on getting a handle of the still excessive memory leaks in FF. That would do everyone more good than some 3rd party proprietary service.
Please be aware that I'm not asking you to agree with it, I just want to know that you understand that content creators need revenue even if you think this is not the way it should be done.
I take great pleasure in starving your type of the revenue you "need." I hope you literally starve to death in a ditch, so that your idiot ideas and worthless shit web sites/browsers will disappear into oblivion, never to re-emerge.
Free clue: We DO NOT need you.
Die slowly in a fire.