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Mozilla Acquires Pocket

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#351

Post by bartvk »

FatalBaboon wrote: post #215
anexprogrammer wrote: post #48

Mozilla is growing, experimenting more, and can acquire startups. Mozilla doesn't have the resources to continue with Thunderbird. I am increasingly baffled by their decisions and how they relate to the strategic plans [0] they've been producing for a while. Despite the worthy words in their plan they seem to have no sense of direction. That saddens me. That said I'm happier having Pocket as an open source part of Mo…

I cannot understand the need for a thing like Pocket. Much less why Mozilla prefers to keep it close, and even less for money. I mean, what is wrong with bookmarks and sharing links? Firefox can even send tabs to other computers I got linked via ff sync. Iterate on a bad idea, give it a social spin, and voilà! You have a sellable startup. Except you should not buy that.

I'm a very heavy Pocket user. Here's how I use it. When I browse the web and see something I'd like to read, I hit the Pocket button in Firefox.

When I get home, I take out my Kobo eReader, which has Pocket built-in. It's very nice to read articles on an eInk display, without the distractions of an iPad or a computer.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#352

Post by bartvk »

randkyp wrote: post #344
hobarrera wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any official source for this?

I don't think this counts as official, but a Mozilla employee replied to a Reddit comment stating that it'll be open source too. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/5wio45/mozilla_acq... [edit] also nnethercote is a Mozilla employee :)

Wow, that will include a Linux client because Pocket also runs on the Kobo eReader. I'm curious if they open source that one. It should be doable to port to desktop Linux.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#353

Post by bartvk »

dredmorbius wrote: post #349
apetresc wrote: post #32

Something I've always wished Pocket would do is download an offline copy of videos I add to the list (using, say, youtube-dl [1]), so I can watch them on the subway, etc. But they never did this, presumably either for legal reasons, or because it was a giant waste of bandwidth considering a huge percentage of Pocketed articles never get read. Now that Mozilla is promising to open-source this, I eagerly await adding t…

If you're on Android, I've found a set of tricks which work for this pretty well. Ingredients: 1. Termux App. 2. Termux API App. 3. Termux CLI utilities. apt install termux-api 4. Python: apt install python 5. youtube-dl: pip install youtube-dl 6. VLC App. Install from app store. 7. A set of shell functions for clipboard and application access: alias xc='termux-clipboard-set' alias xp='termux-clipboard-get' open () {…

Seconding this for macOS. If you haven't installed Homebrew, do so: https://brew.sh/

Then install youtube-dl as follows:

  $ brew install youtube-dl
And download videos as follows:

  $ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#354

Post by bartvk »

pcnix wrote: post #128
wirddin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem got solved when YouTube started allowing offline videos. Idk if it is available in your country, but in India you don't need to be a paying customer to save offline videos.

That's only on mobile afaik. How do you deal with it on the desktop?

On macOS, do something like this:

  $ brew install youtube-dl

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#355

Post by bartvk »

toyg wrote: post #199
wodenokoto wrote: post #16

I've always liked Pocket, but felt queasy about its integration with Firefox. I consider this a great move for a better bookmarking experience in Firefox as well as a better pocket service.

It is ridiculous though. Mozilla already had a sync infrastructure, it didn't need another service just for bookmarks, "only" a decent additional UI. To me, the whole Pocket thing always smelled of cronyism. Someone is friend with someone else, and lo, Pocket appears. People get all angry, Pocket's hockey-stick fails to materialise, and lo, Mozilla bail them out...

This is far more powerful than just bookmarks. Pocket succeeded in getting clients everywhere, even on eReaders.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#356

Post by pjmlp »

M_- wrote: post #316
kibwen wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of Slack Slack has a standalone app? I've only ever used the web version. What more does it do? > Discord Likewise, I never even realized Discord had a non-browser implementation. > WhatsApp I never even realized that WhatsApp had a non-mobile implementation. > they definitely need native access to local APIs Which ones? > And now they are arguably failing to push it to themselves Er, the whole point of Moz…

> Likewise, I never even realized Discord had a non-browser implementation. Can't give an answer on slack, as it's not something I use (and I wouldn't use any of the three services if I had a choice, but you don't get to make choices for entire communities as an individual and chat apps are about communities..), but I can say something about discord. Custom keybindings, ability to do things like push to talk while yo…

> Why would they retain a competitive edge when other platforms like electron are attracting all the developers to enhance their application with native access goodness, why indeed.

Be careful with generalizations, I am surely not part of that list and know quite a few others that want their computers Electron-free.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#358

Post by icebraining »

Endy wrote: post #338
kobayashi wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. I appreciate the values for which Mozilla stands, and those values are entrenched in their products.

It doesn't feel that way anymore.

In what way? I'm wary of some of Mozilla's decisions, but their allegiance to their mission & manifesto doesn't seem at stake.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#359

Post by icebraining »

flukus wrote: post #297
criddell wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does being maintained count as being actively developed? I think it should. As long as Thunderbird gets security patches, and maybe even the occasional bug fix, I'm happy with it. I wish more pieces of software would get to the finished state and would slip into maintenance mode.

Probably not. Developers are fickle and few like to do maintenance only work. So even if it's still getting security patches they are likely to be losing the institutional knowledge to continue that in future, not to mention keeping up with things like API changes for gmail integration.

Which Gmail APIs? Has there been an update to IMAP that I'm not aware of?

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#360

Post by flukus »

icebraining wrote: post #359
flukus wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. Developers are fickle and few like to do maintenance only work. So even if it's still getting security patches they are likely to be losing the institutional knowledge to continue that in future, not to mention keeping up with things like API changes for gmail integration.

Which Gmail APIs? Has there been an update to IMAP that I'm not aware of?

I haven't used thunderbird in a while, have they not added an easy setup for people using the popular online mail servers yet?
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