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Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
171–180 of 196 posts
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#172This 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.
At least in my opinion, it's unnecessary bloat - just like that video chat thing they added a couple months ago. Remember when Firefox, the lean, scrappy browser, first came out and ran circles around the bloated Netscape browser/HTML editor/IM client/mail client/newsreader? The Firefox team seems to have forgotten. If anyone is maintaining a "Firefox: Browser Only Edition" fork, I'd love to know about it so I could…
This is not about bloat. Mozilla was already developing read-it-later functionality for Firefox. In fact it's already on mobile versions. Hello and Pocket have almost no overhead because they are just APi calls to external services. This is about Mozilla endorsing thrid-party proprietary services.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, no, Pocket's client side code is open. The most you need to be worried about is Pocket reading the list of sites saved to your Pocket.
Would Pocket be required to secretly turn over my reading list to law enforcement and not let me know? No warrant canaries on their site. I don't know how well a startup could fight the courts in this matter, as even the 'big boys' don't seem able to.
Mozilla could be just as easily compelled to turn over user data as Pocket, they're both US companies bound by US law.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really start to wonder what pot they are smoking over there at Mozilla. Standard things you would expect from a browser, like a way to easily disabling javascript are apparently left to third-party extensions, because oh you don't want to bloat the browser. But hey, video conferencing on the other hand is such an essential part of the browsing experience.
They don't let users easily disable JS because that breaks so many webpages, and they didn't want to deal with supporting users who complained that Firefox wasn't working. http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/
TL;DR: fck power users.
Well, fair game, given that those power users can switch browsers in the blink of an eye (). All my hopes go to the Vivaldi browser now.
The only problem is that these power users promote your browser and installed it on grandma's computer, and who make your precious extensions on occasion, often for free. Don't be surprised if you need partnerships now.
(*) Well, thinking about it normal users can also switch browsers in the blink of an eye, too. All it takes is Flashplayer update that sneakily install Chrome as the default browser. Just sayin'.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#175Okay, 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.
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.
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.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#176What is the difference between using Pocket and a bookmark?
A reading list, be it a feature or service, has a workflow suited to easily add and remove articles and view them as a simple list. You can do this with bookmarks — and I do at the moment because it's the best way I've found to sync between Fx on desktop and Android — but there's more friction when managing articles.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#177What is the difference between using Pocket and a bookmark?
Surveillance of the users' reading lists, obviously.
Thats what a very large part of the computer industry means when they talk about "monetizing" all of the "big data" they suddenly have. Go back over the last ~decade of goods and services made by internet-related businesses, and you can see a clear trend towards turning features that used to be stand-alone (browser bookmarks), into "free" services. Often this makes the product mildly worse (latency, uptime), which is then lampshaded with a minor feature like bookmark-syncing (which could be done in other ways that do not betray the contents to a 3rd party).
If you have any doubt about anything I just said, I recommend watching the talk I've been suggesting lately by Aral Balkan ( https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html... ). If it wasn't obvious why Pocket was being pushed instead of improving bookmarks, then Aral's talk might just terrify you.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would Pocket be required to secretly turn over my reading list to law enforcement and not let me know? No warrant canaries on their site. I don't know how well a startup could fight the courts in this matter, as even the 'big boys' don't seem able to.
Mozilla could be just as easily compelled to turn over user data as Pocket, they're both US companies bound by US law.
I know, that why I said that the big boys can't seem to fight it, but maybe Mozilla would try, whereas a startup would just get immediately rolled over by the justice department.
But couldn't an alternative be something encrypted which Mozilla has no access to?
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There are a lot of people working on performance - it's just less press-worthy than new features, so less noticed I guess. But bugs do exist, of course. Do you see anything odd in about:memory that can help diagnose your specific issue?
Sorry to say that, but about:memory is useless to me. When memory runs low and system starts swapping (slowing down to a crawl) my first priority is to get computer running again, so I have to close firefox. That helps, but about:memory no longer has the data that would lead to the culprit.
Even if I could look at histotic data, the UI of about:memory is just plain awful. Charts anyone? My main question is how the consumption of memory for each tab is changing through time and I haven't found a nice way to see that yet.
Also, browser should protect me from pages which use too many resources. Why should some random page be able to stop my computer from working? I am seriously considering running firefox inside docker container just so I can limit its resources.
Note that I am a huge fan of ff and use it everywhere, but this has been a sore point for me for ages.
Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe not monetary incentive, but perhaps this was a condition to get Pocket to integrate with Firefox Accounts?
Mozilla wanted users to be able to use Pocket without needing to create an additional account.
It also encourages users to create a Firefox account to use Pocket.
I suspect a lot of people are wary of "signing in" to browsers.....