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Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#71

Post by x0x0 »

yellowapple wrote: post #64
sp332 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

The vast majority of the described problems would be solved if Firefox provided more/better documentation and help text alongside such options. Or better yet, they could be solved by Firefox displaying warnings if pages appear to rely on certain settings. Javascript disabled and a site relies on it? "Hey, this site would probably work better if you enabled Javascript, but you have it disabled. Would you like to enabl…

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.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#72

Post by ploxiln »

dblohm7 wrote: post #62
Animats wrote: post #61

I keep turning all that stuff off, and wonder if I missed anything. I don't want Firefox "social integration". I don't want "Pocket" in the browser. I don't want "Hello" snooping on my contact information. I don't want Yahoo (Yahoo? They just resell Bing) as the search provider. Someone may have to fork Firefox. It's still open source, more or less.

Hello snooping on your contact information? Where on earth did you get that idea from?

He probably just assumed it did, like all other chat services.

Whether it does or doesn't, if it's not installed, then you don't need to worry about it. I'm quite annoyed that firefox is adding more cruft, more buttons, more features. Just like phones and operating systems, I now first go to the hidden places necessary to turn off apps/buttons/features that aren't needed and needlessly clutter and the interface, slow down the system, and cause unexpected issues. Then I add the extensions required to get the power-user settings/tweaks which actually should be there.

It is VERY FRUSTRATING that the trend is solidly in the direction of removing "scary" relevant settings and adding crap features, and in many areas, there is no longer a good option for people like me who know what the fuck they're doing. Modern "products" waste more and more of my time.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#73

Post by foobargarply »

Animats wrote: post #61

I keep turning all that stuff off, and wonder if I missed anything. I don't want Firefox "social integration". I don't want "Pocket" in the browser. I don't want "Hello" snooping on my contact information. I don't want Yahoo (Yahoo? They just resell Bing) as the search provider. Someone may have to fork Firefox. It's still open source, more or less.

I'm switching to IceCat. It's a GNU maintained fork, but is a few versions behind. I trust GNU more than Mozilla, but you still have to trust Mozilla to some extent if you use any Firefox fork.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#74

Post by mccr8 »

me_bx wrote: post #36
scott_karana wrote: post #24

Add yourself to the CC list to endorse this ticket, without cluttering up the thread with needless "I agree" posts! :-)

Too bad I'm reading this after commenting. I saw the CC list, but I assumed this would subscribe me to email notifications about this bug, which I don't want to receive. I'd like to fix this, but it seems like cutting-edge bugzilla doesn't have a "delete comment" feature...

Yes, the CC list will subscribe you to email notifications about the bug, and does not really indicate support, only interest in receiving email notifications about the bug.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#75

Post by [deleted] »

dblohm7 wrote: post #44
ethana wrote: post #11

What I don't understand is that Firefox also include its own read later service that sync to Firefox users account. Are they planning to drop its own implementation and partner with Pocket?

I answered this on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/388ryl/pocket_and_h...

[deleted]

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#76

Post by xg15 »

x0x0 wrote: post #71
yellowapple wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of the described problems would be solved if Firefox provided more/better documentation and help text alongside such options. Or better yet, they could be solved by Firefox displaying warnings if pages appear to rely on certain settings. Javascript disabled and a site relies on it? "Hey, this site would probably work better if you enabled Javascript, but you have it disabled. Would you like to enabl…

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?

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#77

Post by jtgeibel »

MisterWebz wrote: post #5

It is so unlike Mozilla to introduce something like that, I ran a virus scan and checked what programs had been installed recently -- I assumed it had been put there in the same way that IE users used to get the Ask Toolbar installed. Exactly how I felt. What the hell were they thinking? I'm generally very supportive of Mozilla, I even supported their initiative to put advertisements on Firefox's start page. But bund…

This completely captures my response as well. I run on the beta channel, so the day after 38.0 stable hit, this got rolled out the the beta channel. I checked the plugin/addon page and my user profile directory at least a dozen times, assuming that something unwanted had done this behind my back. I probably wasted half an hour looking into this. Finally, I took a (second) look at the release notes before actually realizing that this was something build in. (I missed it the first time because it didn't even register that they would be doing this.) What really shocked me was that it was added by default to standard toolbar, which seemed rather rude and presumptuous. (Maybe they rolled this out differently to the stable channel, I don't know.)

Worst of all, there has been almost no communication on this. I subscribe to Planet Mozilla and read everything that seems interesting to me, and I still didn't know this was coming. There still hasn't been much public discussion on this. On top of that, they did a weird 38.0.5 release cycle that I haven't seen before with the release train. It was almost like someone said: "there is no way we can introduce this to enterprise with an ESR release, so lets tweak the whole release model so we can shove it in everyone else's face once we spin the ESR release."

I've been a huge Mozilla supporter since back in the Pheonix days. I'm even okay with their ad ambitions (so far) and think that they made the right pragmatic decision with regards to DRM support. However, with this move I've now felt it necessary to take a step back and seriously question their motives. It just seems so far out of character. I've been thinking and reading about this for the last 3 weeks and I still have no idea what they are thinking.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I'm a huge Firefox Sync fan. The fact that they took such a user focused approach to encrypting everything client side, and minimizing their server-side exposure to user data seemed like such a principled approach and is probably the only thing that kept me from taking the leap to Chrome at a time when there were noticeable performance benefits to doing so. This integration seems like the exact antithesis.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#78

Post by xg15 »

dblohm7 wrote: post #40
MisterWebz wrote: post #5

It is so unlike Mozilla to introduce something like that, I ran a virus scan and checked what programs had been installed recently -- I assumed it had been put there in the same way that IE users used to get the Ask Toolbar installed. Exactly how I felt. What the hell were they thinking? I'm generally very supportive of Mozilla, I even supported their initiative to put advertisements on Firefox's start page. But bund…

Hello is just a thin wrapper around WebRTC. That's why Chrome can receive Hello calls without an extension. There's barely anything to add on in that case.

Not many resources perhaps, but a lot of additional UI surface, which clutters up the menus with irrelevant options.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#79

Post by serf »

dblohm7 wrote: post #40
MisterWebz wrote: post #5

It is so unlike Mozilla to introduce something like that, I ran a virus scan and checked what programs had been installed recently -- I assumed it had been put there in the same way that IE users used to get the Ask Toolbar installed. Exactly how I felt. What the hell were they thinking? I'm generally very supportive of Mozilla, I even supported their initiative to put advertisements on Firefox's start page. But bund…

Hello is just a thin wrapper around WebRTC. That's why Chrome can receive Hello calls without an extension. There's barely anything to add on in that case.

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

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#80

Post by yellowapple »

x0x0 wrote: post #71
yellowapple wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of the described problems would be solved if Firefox provided more/better documentation and help text alongside such options. Or better yet, they could be solved by Firefox displaying warnings if pages appear to rely on certain settings. Javascript disabled and a site relies on it? "Hey, this site would probably work better if you enabled Javascript, but you have it disabled. Would you like to enabl…

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.

My comment actually comes from lots of speaking to end users. I cut my teeth on help desk and desktop support roles; understanding end-user needs is baked pretty damn hard into my blood.

And from those discussions, and from my observations of those users, 99% of the problems discussed would be resolved if it was clear what options actually did. Users don't know or care what "Javascript" or "TLS" are, but you can bet your ass that if the relevant checkboxes had at least a basic explanation of why they should be checked (i.e. "Don't uncheck this box unless you know what you are doing; doing so will cause a lot of websites to break"), the vast majority of end-users will happily leave that box unchecked until they ask someone more knowledgable about it.

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