Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

I've been a massive user since Read It Later. I used to get year-in-review emails telling me I was in the top 1% of users. For a period of several years, I read an astounding amount via Pocket. It is very tightly intertwined with my time on HN, as most headlines I'm interested in get immediately saved to Pocket.

My usage dropped a lot when I stopped commuting via the subway (where offline was critical), and a lot of my media consumption switched to podcasts, over time. I always thought Pocket could have gone multimedia, and in a world in which they supported podcasts, I would have loved to have everything in one spot. Newsletters, too.

But, I'm not surprised that the end has come, considering they stayed in their lane. Also, if the Google default search gravy train is about to disappear, this is one of the consequences. The idea that Tab Groups are a replacement is laughable.

I wonder if this is the sort of thing that could live on as a community project?

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#8

Post by foray1010 » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

Seems Obsidian Web Clipper is a good alternative, it can save as markdown so you own the data offline. Anyone tried it? What is your experience?

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#9

Post by vinayan3 » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

I'm very sad about this. The one feature that I really like is that you could read articles offline. Any good alternatives?

(saves this HN post to Pocket to come back to it later to see replies)

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#10

Post by JaggedJax » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/

Thank you for the link. I didn't realize Fakespot is also getting shut down. I guess these acquisitions didn't work out so well profit-wise, but it's good to see more focus on their core browser.