Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#121

Post by hrjet » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:08 AM UTC

dblohm7 wrote: post #97

serf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the size, the problem is that it adds features which are outside the scope of 'a Browser'.

WebRTC is now a web standard and ships in multiple browsers. If you consider such technology to be outside the scope of a browser, then you're going to need to convince a whole lot of people.

The complaint is not about WebRTC, but about Hello.

The comments in this thread are going in loops.

  "Hello shouldn't be bundled with a browser."
    "But it is just a small wrapper around WebRTC."
     "Yeah, but it's out of scope for the browser."
       "WebRTC is a web-standard"

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#122

Post by derefr » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:09 AM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #110

azakai wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both features have near-negligible overhead if you don't use them. But having them in the product makes them accessible to the wide userbase, many of whom don't know what addons are or how to install them. Therefore it seems reasonable to add them to Firefox.

I'd much prefer them to improve the memory and performance reporting features over adding some features that goes against their core values. right now I have a firefox that uses tons of ram and slows down to a halt very frequently but there are no decent tools to diagnose what addin/plugin/webpage/bug might be causing trouble. it's very, very frustrating. edit: I am talking about multiple gigs of memory for firefox a…

I see this argument all the time in the form of "why are they working on the UI instead of the backend?" Well, because UI engineers and backend engineers are different people and don't share one-another's competencies, is why. The people who are adding these things probably don't know how to improve Firefox's performance. They're probably networked-multimedia engineers scratching their own itch.

(And it's not like Firefox's performance has any low-hanging fruit left; there have been years of performance improvements already, and only someone versed in those would know how to take them further.)

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#123

Post by browser » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:13 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #120

gluxon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Mozilla Manifesto and Pocket" email thread in the Firefox Dev mailing list gives some insight from the developers. [1] To paraphrase: it seems they wanted a reading list feature but found it pointless to re-implement an existing solution with many desired features. (Work which was started but appears to have been scrapped.) This rationalized piggy-backing on Pocket. It gives Firefox a reading list for its users…

It somewhat makes sense. If they want it that badly, though, maybe Mozilla should buy Pocket so that they can put it under the aegis of their license/philosophical charter. "Reading List" is currently right up there with "Web Browser" and "Email Client" as major programs that I would like to be neutrally owned by a public foundation.

I think you are confusing cause and effect. Pocket was not added to Firefox because Firefox users demanded a sophisticated offline reader. If that were all there is to it, Pocket would be an addon.

Pocket was added to Firefox because Mozilla wants the extra revenue from partnering with Pocket.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#124

Post by hrjet » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

azakai wrote: post #105

jkaptur wrote: post #16

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. [1] http://www.planet-libre.org/?post_id=18514

I think the reason is to make them available to users. If they were in an addon, most users would never hear about it, and even if they did, many users don't know how to install addons. There is data showing that Firefox users like the feature and benefit from it. Given that, adding it to the browser makes sense.

By that logic, why not bundle all the popular addons with Firefox? Why only a chosen few?

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#125

Post by Touche » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #57

wvenable wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servo, when it's done. And from there, who knows!

btw, browser.html is a Servo experiment with "future UI paradigms": https://github.com/mozilla/browser.html/

It says right on the page that it doesn't use Servo.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#126

Post by derefr » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

JonathonW wrote: post #114

yellowapple wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This wouldn't work, the majority of users don't read If they don't read, then they wouldn't be using Firefox, since all web pages (barring a few exceptions) would be gibberish to them :) > And showing message box every damn time one site has Javascript/SSL That's not what I'm advocating in that particular recommendation. I'm more advocating for some sort of heuristic analysis when Javascript is disabled. There are…

> If they don't read, then they wouldn't be using Firefox, since all web pages (barring a few exceptions) would be gibberish to them :) Not can't read; don't read. See http://blog.codinghorror.com/teaching-users-to-read/ , http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.... Users don't read material that's put in front of them. Modal dialogs get dismissed without reading, non-modal dialogs (Firefox's door…

In this case, though, the resulting page without Javascript would probably be entirely empty. Maybe Firefox could detect that and throw up a full-page-error kind of thing (like e.g. an SSL cert-failure error page) rather than a dialog. "There's nothing here. We detect tags on the page, so you probably need to [enable Javascript]. Don't do this if you don't trust the site, though—you disabled Javascript for a reason!"

Basically, a heuristic browser-chrome view in place of what used to be a site-author's view.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#127

Post by derefr » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:20 AM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #76

x0x0 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes me strongly believe you don't speak to end users. You can't get them to read prompts at all, let alone text on a page.

That's what sensible defaults are for. But in this case, we're dealing with users who somehow managed to disable JS, but are still surprised by the effects and don't read prompts. I'm pretty sure such users exist, however instead of directly basing your UI descisions on this scenario, why not trying to investigate where such behavior comes from and how frequent it is?

Imagine a user whose internet isn't working. They go into their web browser's Preferences and start fiddling with things at random "until it works again" (for entirely unrelated reasons.) Then they leave things however they just made them.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#128

Post by abrowne » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:25 AM UTC

GeorgeHahn wrote: post #109

abrowne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind using Pocket as the backend, but I want it to work more like Android's Reading List (and the reading list that was available briefly in desktop Nightly). I want articles to • be readable (and savable) offline; • open in Firefox's Reader View, not Pocket's site; • sync with Android Fx's Reading List, not (just) the Android Pocket app.

Do you know what happened to the reading list that existed in Nightly for a while?

A couple weeks ago I dug searched a bit through Bugzilla and the Mozilla wiki. My understanding is that it was cancelled while in progress in favor of Pocket. They also changed the Reading View styles to match Pocket's (the sepia style was better before, imo).

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#129

Post by fabrice_d » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:30 AM UTC

browser wrote: post #123

derefr wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It somewhat makes sense. If they want it that badly, though, maybe Mozilla should buy Pocket so that they can put it under the aegis of their license/philosophical charter. "Reading List" is currently right up there with "Web Browser" and "Email Client" as major programs that I would like to be neutrally owned by a public foundation.

I think you are confusing cause and effect. Pocket was not added to Firefox because Firefox users demanded a sophisticated offline reader. If that were all there is to it, Pocket would be an addon. Pocket was added to Firefox because Mozilla wants the extra revenue from partnering with Pocket.

Pocket is not paying Mozilla, as said already.

Also, anyone implementing a compatible backend can switch to it by changing a pref.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#130

Post by zobzu » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 2:40 AM UTC

Fuck yeah. Remove this crap. Never do it again.

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.

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.