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Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

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Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#751

Post by timvdalen »

xandrius wrote: post #640
timvdalen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, I hope there will be a replacement with the same low friction. I've been using IFTTT with RSS feeds to add serialized stories to my Kobo as they release.

Could you share the flow if someone wanted to replicate it for their own Kobo?

Yes, but it currently depends on Pocket working.

I have an RSS feed from RoyalRoad that new episodes come in on. Using IFTTT, I have an action set up to, whenever a new item comes in on that feed, add the _URL_ of it to my Pocket account. Then, Kobo just syncs the Pocket articles automatically, and the new episode is added.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#752

Post by bayindirh »

andrepd wrote: post #705
bayindirh wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial idea was nice: do not lose what you want to read later (the list), keep a list of what you read (archive). Then it became better with “Permanent copies”: never lose content you want to read again later. That number is a combination of all three, plus more than a decade of active use.

Damn, any alternatives in mind for that workflow? My killer feature that led me to start using Pocket was Kobo integration: I could hit a button on my computer and continue reading an article on my ereader, duly cleaned up.

Since I'm slowly moving to self-hosting, I'll be installing Wallabag[0] most probably.

I also integrated my Kobo with Pocket with glee, but it turned into gloom when my saves ate all of the free memory of the reader :)

[0]: https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#753

Post by Vinnl »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #309
pouulet wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tags are exported : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/exporting-your-pocket-l... What is contained in the export file? Your export file will include links (URLs) of your saved items. The export does not extract the text of saved links. Additionally, the export does contain tags or highlights.

The page was "Last updated: 24 minutes ago". Someone at Mozilla saw this HN post and modified it (unsure if the export feature itself was changed or not). You can tell it's a rushed edit as "Your export file will include links (URLs) of your saved items. The export does not extract the text of saved links. Additionally, the export does contain tags or highlights." reads very unnatural. Via Wayback Machine, it can be…

Yep sorry, I saw this post, brought it up internally because I remember hearing they updated the export functionality in preparation of the shutdown, and then they fixed it while I was out. So here's your notification that the docs were updated :)

Edit: and I see now other folks noticed and shared it as well.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#754

Post by bayindirh »

mikemcg0 wrote: post #374
bayindirh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have another theory, actually. I'm also a very old user, since the first days of the service, and I don't know how many saves I have it inside (will see when my export arrives). The latest iteration's search was abysmal , and I normally refrain from using strong words. It failed to find exact matches from titles, the words or excerpts I know that exist in the article I'm searching for, and as a result, it became a…

Agree on search being abysmal - I'm surprised that none of these readings apps realized that the right approach to this space is building an aggregator and solving discovery/search for all writing on the internet. perch.app is the newest entrant to this space, and it's the closest I've seen to getting this right.

> the right approach to this space is building an aggregator and solving discovery/search for all writing on the internet.

This is not the right solution for me. Pocket was the perfect one, even in the first iteration. I don't want discovery. I want a personal box/shelf which keeps a list of what I want to read and what I have read. Permanent copies was a great add-on while it lasted too. Because I want the version I have seen. Not the edited/updated one.

Perch doesn't work the way I want. In fact, it's the direct opposite of what I need.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#755

Post by bayindirh »

trinsic2 wrote: post #597
bayindirh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have another theory, actually. I'm also a very old user, since the first days of the service, and I don't know how many saves I have it inside (will see when my export arrives). The latest iteration's search was abysmal , and I normally refrain from using strong words. It failed to find exact matches from titles, the words or excerpts I know that exist in the article I'm searching for, and as a result, it became a…

I used to use Rain.drop, not the same a pocket, but similar. I imported the data into Obsidian and I now use that for information I want to save online using the clipper plugin. It's changed my life. If you like customizing the searchability and displaying content from saved pages, is the best IMHO.

Looks like neat workflow. I use Obsidian too, but not in that way. I don't want a collage of what I have read, I want a database which I can dig, like Pocket.

Looks like my future lies in a self-hosted Wallabag instance.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#756

Post by bayindirh »

E39M5S62 wrote: post #731
GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO search is garbage in all Mozilla products. E.g. Thunderbird ignores potential matches in quoted mail text. That's utterly useless if one remembers a certain mentioning by the other side. Plus, now and then repairing the index suddenly leads to matches -- when is the right time to repair? I don't now -> always if it's seriously important...

Thunderbird search is bad enough that I just open up the Gmail website to find an email. At this point I don't even know why I use a local email client, except maybe 25 years of muscle memory.

I kindly disagree. Yes, Thunderbird's search is not revolutionary, but when I direct it to a box containing ~20 years of e-mails, it returns instantly, searching for the words that I want.

...and I'm not even downloading the e-mails to the system to save disk space. I have explicitly disabled that.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#757

Post by major505 »

thesuitonym wrote: post #384
major505 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is more occupied this days paying multi milionary bonus to its executives and begging users for money they waste on useless projects. Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

I'm curious what the governance structure of Mozilla is that keeps things this way. People have been upset for quite a while at the direction Mozilla is going in, yet there seems to be no coalition to oust the current leadership. Is this impossible for some reason?

The problem seen to be that they give power to activists instead of engineers. What the fuck they know about improvements to their core product? The only thing they do is create pretty slogans, borrow money from big capital to grown on top of debit, and seek "new sources of income". This is what it made Mozilla turn from a company that does a super badass browser from a company that sells shit advertisements, infringing on users rights, and claims to be a "international conglomeration of activists" or some shit like this.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#758

Post by major505 »

0xEF wrote: post #605
binkHN wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live. Ugh. This sounds so horrible, but this is probably the truest statement on this entire page.

What's even more wild is that many users, even on HN, don't seem to pick up on the fact that the alternatives to Firefox are either Chrome or Chrome in different colored trenchcoats. Firefox is like the last bastion of user choice when it comes to deciding how we interact with the Internet, a choice that has been subtly but steadily stripped from us for years. My question to the FOSS community is why Firefox is not u…

My guess is that browsers like ice weasel, libre wolf, while good pieces of software, they dont have a whole company behind them.

Libre wolf "about us" page, dont even have the developers real name, only their online handle.

The closest of a "professional" port of firefox is pretty much Zen Browser.

Is what I been using, alternatin with Brave Browser.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#759

Post by major505 »

doubled112 wrote: post #274
major505 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is more occupied this days paying multi milionary bonus to its executives and begging users for money they waste on useless projects. Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

And Thunderbird?

My guess. is going to be sold to a tech giant, and probably extinct. Maybe Microsoft buy it and rename as outlook for Linux.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#760

Post by major505 »

ImJamal wrote: post #658
Vilian wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla ≠ firefox

Who is going to fund Firefox if not Mozilla? Maybe a new organization can pop up or maybe a new one won't.

Guess it falls back to us, the users. To fix the crapshow Mozilla has done. There are a bunch of small different iniciatives that use Firefox codebase. We just need to wait and see who will prevail.
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