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User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

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Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#61

Post by kaolinite »

soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

> Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier.

There's the problem you need to fix. It should be just as easy (easier, frankly) to build this as an add-on. I recently built a small extension[1] that targets Firefox, Chrome and Safari (with the same code-base) and found Firefox to be - by far - the most annoying to deal with. It's sad that the browser that championed add-ons is such a pain to develop for now.

[1] http://github.com/timdavies/hnprofile

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#62

Post by asquabventured »

soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

Great point, just like tons of users are using 30boxes.com starting with the Firefox v3.0 calendar integration feature.

Ohhhhhh, wait.

Why is something like gecko.handlerService.schemes.webcal.0.uriTemplate default string 30boxes.com and still even a part of the firefox core? This decision just seems like it will end up as abandonware bloat down the line.

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#63

Post by sp332 »

cscharenberg wrote: post #35
eli wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: would it be better if instead they rolled out a custom Firefox-only Read Later service, as was the original plan? Is the issue that they "picked a winner" or that Read Later shouldn't be built in to the browser, period?

Neither of those is a good choice. The custom Firefox-only would be a waste of developer resources. Similarly, picking a winner is also a waste of developer resources: there were already extensions that had far more functionality. Firefox should have added a more general "Experience Enhancements" feature that suggested great features that could be enabled and offered a few options. This same concept of periodically o…

Like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/?sort=fe... ?

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#64

Post by mlinksva »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #54
soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

>> "* There is no money involved in the Pocket thing." If there was money involved I would completely respect the decision. The fact that Firefox gets no money from this boggles my mind. It really does. If I was working at Pocket I'd be sitting at my desk laughing at how lucky we got.

Exactly! I recall earlier a thread in which Mozilla employees claimed there is nothing new about Pocket as proprietary search engine UI has long been bundled. But Mozilla gets hundreds of millions of dollars annually for that placement. If Pocket were paying at least tens of millions annually, advertising it by default would be comprehensible. As is, it is totally incomprehensible. It should be returned to addon status and Pocket should pay to advertise through the sponsored tiles/adsinnewtabs program (which I think is great BTW; I'm not a Mozilla basher).

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#65

Post by dd9990 »

soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

>If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you can click the "customize" menu item and remove that button.

That's extremely condescending. Program defaults, as you are aware, are very powerful. Pocket was shoved in millions of people's faces. Most won't bother or don't have the technical skills to remove it or understand the privacy implications of using it. Someone made that decision. Mozilla encouraged users to submit data to a closed source, US-based company, completely betraying its core principles on openness and freedom. If pocket was built on a generic API and I could host my own (like Sync server) I would maybe have been okay with it. Pocket, as rolled out, tarnishes Mozilla and its image.

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#66

Post by asquabventured »

jimmahoney wrote: post #32
asquabventured wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Type about:config in the browser's address bar and hit the enter-key afterwards. 2) Confirm that you will be careful if the prompt appears. 3) Search for browser.pocket.enabled. 4) Double-click on the preference to toggle its state from true to false. This disables Pocket in Firefox and the icon should be gone once you restart the browser. Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/14/how-to-disable-pocket-in-fi...

But this procedure leaves it in the booksmarks menu - far from ideal.

From the referenced link above:

Please note that you may end up with an "View Pocket List" entry in the bookmarks menu when you disable Pocket this way.

If you want to get rid of the bookmarks menu entry as well, you need to handle things slightly different.

1) Make sure Pocket is enabled in Firefox (browser.pocket.enabled is set to true). The icon should show up in the main Firefox toolbar.

2) Click on the Hamburger menu icon and select customize from the options.

3) Drag and drop the Pocket icon away from the toolbar so that it is not visible anymore.

4) This hides the bookmarks menu entry as well.

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#67

Post by toggle »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #31
blfr wrote: post #20

I don't understand the complaint here. Do people expect Mozilla to build everything themselves? Reader View is a great feature that was clearly missing. Adding a third party sync to it is really no different from picking a default search engine to serve location bar entries. Pocket is fine, best of the trio (Instapaper, Readability) IMHO. I actually switched to Pocket from Readability, which was getting buggier, a fe…

I love the pocket integration. The built-in functionality definitely works much better than the plugin, which was weirdly slow sometimes and had some glitches. Pocket has changed how I use the web. With a single click I send any substantive article to get automatically synced to my Kobo ereader, which also has built-in pocket integration.

It is definitely convenient -- in fact, using one system exclusively almost always provides the best user experience. (Apple has had great success with that idea.) Having Pocket bundled with eBook readers and browsers is convenient, but that doesn't fit the idea of an open web, which is what Mozilla is supposed to be supporting. I understand when Kobo does it, but Mozilla is supposed to operate under a different set of principles.

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#68

Post by soapdog »

kaolinite wrote: post #61
soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

> Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. There's the problem you need to fix. It should be just as easy (easier, frankly) to build this as an add-on. I recently built a small extension[1] that targets Firefox, Chrome and Safari (with the same code-base) and found Firefox to be - by far - the most annoying to deal with. It's sad that the browser that championed add-ons is such a pai…

I hear you there. People are aware of this problem. The main issue is that XUL/XBL and other gecko stuff used to build add-ons (and Firefox itself) are not the easiest techology to work with. There is an effort to change that but how to fix this without breaking every single add-on out there is tricky, still IMHO is something that must be done.

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#69

Post by soapdog »

scrollaway wrote: post #34
soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

Disclaimer: I am affiliated with Mozilla. I am not a Mozilla employee. I also care very little about the Pocket situation. Pocket was massively mishandled. You should have seen it coming from a mile away. And when you didn't and it happened anyway, you should have backtracked a lot faster and released a public statement. And damn it, priorities . You talk about partnerships creating opportunities etc; you have plenty…

I agree with you on the Persona topic. I've heard that it was quite hard to maintain and it got no traction and thats why it was turned into a community project. Apparently the federation part was the hardest thing (federating identity servers and keeping trust and security is non-trivial).

As for priorities, you know that there are many teams each one focusing on a different task. Pocket is not bookmark management, it is a "read later"feature for those that want it.

Re: User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla

#70

Post by lgp171188 »

soapdog wrote: post #28

Let me clarify some things: * There is no money involved in the Pocket thing. * Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier. * You don't become a Pocket user simply by using Firefox, you need to actually use the feature. * Mozilla helped Pocket create a new privacy policy * If you don't use it, then it is not doing you any harm. If somehow the presence of a button annoys you, then you ca…

> Pocket was added internally and not as an extension because it was easier.

Not sure how it was easier, since there is already a Firefox extension for Pocket which could have been shipped as an extension installed by default (but removable by users who do not want it)

> Instead of offering just a web view, Mozilla is trying to bundle features that the users find useful. None of the said features does you any harm if you don't use them.

A lot of privacy-aware users will expect Mozilla to provide a way to easily disable and remove what are essentially features tangential to the core functionality of the browser. By making it a feature integrated into the core Firefox, the users now have to jump through various hoops to come close to achieving that. Having it as an extension makes it much easier to do so.

Disclaimer: I contribute to Mozilla Input codebase but have no affiliation with Mozilla.

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