<i>It is so unlike Mozilla to introduce something like that, I ran a virus scan and checked what programs had been installed recently -- I assumed it had been put there in the same way that IE users used to get the Ask Toolbar installed.</i><p>Exactly how I felt. What the hell were they thinking? I'm generally very supportive of Mozilla, I even supported their initiative to put advertisements on Firefox's start page. But bundling stuff like Pocket and Hello with Firefox is just ridiculous. Why not make it an official extension? That way users can easily disable or remove it.
I really like both Firefox and Pocket, but I can't imagine a good reason for them to be integrated at this level. I searched for what justification has been offered and found [1]. I'd love to read something more informative and convincing.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.planet-libre.org/?post_id=18514" rel="nofollow">http://www.planet-libre.org/?post_id=18514</a>
The Bugzilla ticket has been closed and people are instead being pointed at a corresponding post on the Mozilla Governance mailing list: <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.governance/2PYq2w8tejs" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.governance/2...</a><p>That's probably the most productive place to directly contribute to the official conversation.<p>BUT it also seems that the Pocket integration wasn't previously discussed on that mailing list. At least, that's what my cursory search seems to show: <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.governance/pocket" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.governanc...</a><p>It makes me wonder whether mozilla.governance is really where these sorts of decisions get made....<p>(Note: cpeterso already posted the mozilla.governance link but I felt it deserved a top-level entry.)
Since all of the comments on this page so far seem to be opposed to the integration:<p>I love Firefox's "Reader View". It's the only way that some pages are readable on my desktop or mobile device, because so many websites try to hijack scrolling, insert modal overlays and ads, or do all sorts of things that make it unbelievably frustrating to just <i>read static text</i>.<p>On the other hand, Reader View lacks a sync feature. There was one for a few days in Nightly, but it was buggy for the short time it existed, and it was removed.<p>I was hoping Firefox would improve the sync feature and bring it back eventually, but in all honesty, this is way better. The work that goes into making a seamless, syncing reader view is <i>not</i> trivial[0], and it makes more sense for Mozilla to focus on building a browser than to reinvent the wheel when Pocket already exists <i>and works incredibly well</i> with the same use case.<p>As for whether this should be "bundled" into the browser vs. an extension: I agree that it would be nicer philosophically if Pocket were a preinstalled extension. On the other hand, Firefox Hello is literally a preinstalled extension with no special integration or privileges (other than being preinstalled), and <i>still</i> some people made the same complaint about it when it launched[1]. So I take that complaint with a grain of salt.<p>And as for the performance impact of either, I'd have to see some data demonstrating that this actually leads to an appreciable (let alone measurable) increase in memory or CPU usage to be convinced that simply not using it is not an acceptable alternative.<p>[0] it may look that way, but there are a lot of corner cases<p>[1] From what I understand, Firefox Hello is simply an extension that leverages WebRTC features already built into the browser to enable video chat (with the assistance of a service provided by Telefonica, which assists in the routing).
This trend of Firefox increasingly bundling more services and features is an interesting paradox considering that Firefox started as a quiet project to make a slimmed down, no frills browser in comparison to the main Mozilla browser.<p>I’ve recently resumed using Firefox as my main browser partly driven by support of the project but also because Chrome was taking too much RAM and causing performance issues. Of course, when Chrome first came out it was a very slimmed down browser that used a lot less RAM compared to Firefox. Everything moves in cycles…
I opted-in on the basis that I thought it was a Mozilla thing. I'm always willing to try new Mozilla things because I trust Mozilla completely. Or, at least, I did trust Mozilla completely.<p>I didn't know I ever had to read the fine print with anything from Mozilla, and it turns out I was wrong.<p>Which, I think is why so many people feel so strongly about it. At least, it's why I feel uncomfortable with this decision. It was not at all clear to me that Pocket was a third party service; I'd never heard of it, and the text describing what I was opting-in to didn't (that I recall) explicitly state who ran the service or that it was not a Mozilla service.<p>I don't want to go overboard about this; this isn't like SourceForge shipping malware. And, I don't want to make it seem like Mozilla isn't a provider and organization that I trust. But, this chips away at my trust. I feel misled, and I never thought I would feel that way about something Mozilla would do, which maybe makes it worse.
A nicely written complaint about the inclusion of Pocket in the Firefox browser. The tone was respectful, but clear about the philosophical and technological flaws in the inclusion of Pocket.
I am a Firefox user and also a Pocket user.
I am on the same lines as the author. Pocket should not be bundled into Firefox. It should be an extension (hint: featured extension).
Fuck yeah. Remove this crap. Never do it again.<p>Colleague working at mozilla showed me an internal email where the CEO says they checked metrics and Tiles and Pocket did not affect Firefox, and that their survey indicates people are okay with it.<p>This seems like total bs... I don't know anybody - including fx devs - that think its a good idea. In fact earlier versions of fxnightly had their own, not-pocket version that used sync as a backend.
I keep turning all that stuff off, and wonder if I missed anything. I don't want Firefox "social integration". I don't want "Pocket" in the browser. I don't want "Hello" snooping on my contact information. I don't want Yahoo (Yahoo? They just resell Bing) as the search provider.<p>Someone may have to fork Firefox. It's still open source, more or less.
Okay, develop a free/open source version. This is how it's been done in the past; you use a proprietary version of something until there's a free software version and then you work on the free software version until it's good enough.<p>Mozilla is in a heated competition with Google and other proprietary players. It isn't a niche product, it isn't made for a small part of the population. If adding Hello or Pocket to the browser gets more people to use Firefox or stick with it and spurs people to create free/open source replacements then it's alright.<p>The only thing I dislike is the underhanded way these changes have showed up. As if they knew the loud minority of users/devs wouldn't like it.
why stop there?<p>- telefonica service for voice chat.<p>- google scam site checker, phone-home component for every site you visit<p>- google services (the things responsible for ads no less) just so you can stream videos on android (can't even build firefox without including that SDK)<p>- adobe binary blob for DRM on netflix. (who even uses netflix on the browser?)
What I don't understand is that Firefox also include its own read later service that sync to Firefox users account. Are they planning to drop its own implementation and partner with Pocket?
I want to love Firefox like I used too but shit like this keeps putting me off. It is the little things that are annoying me now. Pocket integration without asking. Lack of a decent EN_GB dictionary (and I have to go and hunt for the damn thing myself).<p>It is just depressing the state of browsers today. Sure they are more standard compliant but they all suck.
This page <a href="http://help.getpocket.com/customer/portal/articles/1999137-how-to-disable-pocket-for-firefox" rel="nofollow">http://help.getpocket.com/customer/portal/articles/1999137-h...</a> purports to tell you how to disable Pocket for Firefox, yet all it does is remove the button from the toolbar. Searching "pocket" in about:config reveals numerous preferences that can be edited, including <i>browser.pocket.enabled</i> which remains set to <i>true</i> after following Pocket's instructions.
> Bugzilla is not for discussion of product decisions.<p>That sounds like a very arbitrary distinction, and an argument of convenience. Every line of code that gets into a software is a product decision one way or another...
What happened to the native Reading List? It was in Nightly for a time, but it appears to have disappeared recently.<p>I love Pocket, but I was looking forward to migrating to a setup where my data was kept private.
What's the best way to make this more prominent for Mozilla to see?<p>I made a bugzilla account and added my name to the CC list, but is there anything else I can do to help this get more recognition?
This bug report has been closed, we have been told to report this elsewhere. There are already many posts on their feedback forum, I haven't seen one on their governance forum.
I don't like the latest trends at Mozilla at all. I used to use Firefox for privacy. It was small and fast and stable. I don't want to disable all the bloatware like share, sync, Mozilla account, tab ads, pocket, chats whatever. Mozilla is on a big sellout trip. When Mozilla is not different to Google we can equally use Chrome - it's better anyway.
Why couldn't it have been a bundled extension? Heck, add the option to turn it on to the update page.<p>At the very least it would allow people to remove it easily and entirely.
I did my part: <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172218" rel="nofollow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172218</a><p>Even though it will cost me a buttload of time to rebuild all my cookies: fuck Mozilla, when did they turn into SourceForge?
No one needs Pocket. To save anything for later viewing, simply drag & drop the URL's icon to your desktop. When you are ready to read, click the icon.
This bug report is not really clear. Does the submitter consider it bloat, or a privacy violation, or what? It should be obvious that the way it appears in Developer Edition (two releases ahead of "release") is not the way it will appear in the final version. This report should be about the way the feature is explained to the user, or about how hard it is to disable the feature, so that it can be improved.