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Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#81

Post by xg15 »

gcommer wrote: post #55
dblohm7 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla employee here: That is incorrect. There is limited public information available about this deal, but the best quote so far is in this article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2930532/reading-service-pocke...

This makes even less sense... I also assumed the Pocket integration was a paid placement, in which case I was fine having to spend the time removing the button and disabling it in about:config, since I saw it as a cost of actively developed free software (same with having to change my default search engine away from Yahoo all the time). Integrating a third party API for free when plenty of browser-centric features ar…

I also assumed the Pocket integration was a paid placement, in which case I was fine having to spend the time removing the button and disabling it in about:config, since I saw it as a cost of actively developed free software

Apologies for being slightly off-topic, but I'd argue this would be questionable even if it were an openly announced partnership like with Yahoo. Yes, Mozilla is free software and is doing some enormous contributions to the open web. Which is why we should support them with donations and code contributions. (And I'd also fully endorse usage of paid services from them should they develop any).

However, what they are doing now is basically selling their good reputation and their wide user base to force some features on their users that they don't need in return of (presumably) payment. That strikes me as deeply unethical.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#82

Post by yellowapple »

m45t3r wrote: post #68
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 wouldn't work, the majority of users don't read so they would blame Firefox either way. And showing message box every damn time one site has Javascript/SSL (and considering that almost every site nowadays has one or another) would infuriate the users that really want to use this feature. It's a lose-lose option. I think it's fine to have these options as extensions or even inside about:config, where the user wou…

> 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 lots of sites that do silly things like rely entirely on Javascript for rendering text (for example); those should be easy-to-detect as scenarios where a warning would appear.

Also, most similar warnings presented by Firefox already (usually about outdated plugins and such) have a way to permanently dismiss, or to remember a setting for a particular website, or some other way to mitigate the understandable annoyance of always throwing warnings. A "don't ask me again" would immediately resolve the problem you identified.

> I think it's fine to have these options as extensions or even inside about:config, where the user would never disable by accident.

I think that's fine, too. My comment was more about identifying the correct cause of various effects - i.e. that the harmfulness of the checkboxes being criticized is due to their non-obviousness rather than their existence.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#83

Post by yellowapple »

cwyers wrote: post #66
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…

Documentation only makes software easier to use if it is read. People don't read it.

By "documentation" I mean actually making the checkboxes better explained in their visible descriptions, or accompanying those descriptions with "a lot of websites rely on this box being checked" or somesuch. By no means am I calling for more things to be buried away in never-read manuals.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#84

Post by fredoralive »

dblohm7 wrote: post #53
fredoralive wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do love the way Mozilla basically say "Bugzilla isn't the place to discuss things like this, you should discuss this down in Usenet, behind the sign that says 'beware the leopard'" for any controversial decision.

Umm, it has always part of the general Bugzilla etiquette guidelines. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

Mozilla is all about the web, except our governance discussions which use something that isn't the web and hasn't been relevant for about 15 years.

The basic problem for me is that Usenet doesn't usually turn up on a vanilla Google search, websites do. If Mozilla really is open it should really use something more appropriate to the 21st century to decide policy and governance.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#85

Post by zanny »

cpeterso wrote: post #46
firasd wrote: post #18

This trend of Firefox increasingly bundling more services and features is an interesting paradox considering that Firefox started as a quiet project to make a slimmed down, no frills browser in comparison to the main Mozilla browser. I’ve recently resumed using Firefox as my main browser partly driven by support of the project but also because Chrome was taking too much RAM and causing performance issues. Of course,…

Phoenix/Firefox was Mozilla's own lightweight alternative to SeaMonkey. Then Chrome was the lightweight alternative to a memory-hogging Firefox. Now Chrome is seen as sluggish and a memory hog. Where do we go next?

There are a lot of alternative browsers, though almost all of them use Blink.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#86

Post by pc2g4d »

The Bugzilla ticket has been closed and people are instead being pointed at a corresponding post on the Mozilla Governance mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.governance/2...

That's probably the most productive place to directly contribute to the official conversation.

BUT it also seems that the Pocket integration wasn't previously discussed on that mailing list. At least, that's what my cursory search seems to show: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.governanc...

It makes me wonder whether mozilla.governance is really where these sorts of decisions get made....

(Note: cpeterso already posted the mozilla.governance link but I felt it deserved a top-level entry.)

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#87

Post by zanny »

chimeracoder wrote: post #27

Since all of the comments on this page so far seem to be opposed to the integration: I love Firefox's "Reader View". It's the only way that some pages are readable on my desktop or mobile device, because so many websites try to hijack scrolling, insert modal overlays and ads, or do all sorts of things that make it unbelievably frustrating to just read static text . On the other hand, Reader View lacks a sync feature.…

Firefox Hello is not the integration of a proprietary 3rd party service.

My problem with pocket is that I can trust Firefox Sync, because its code is open and if I were to doubt its security, I could audit it, either myself or contribute to an official audit.

I can never do that to pocket. Its a black box to me, I have no idea what they are doing with my browsing history, and therefor I can never trust it.

Its a huge sin on Mozilla's part, a company who keeps promising privacy, to sell off some of our most personal data - browser sync data - to a third party proprietary web service.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#89

Post by hobarrera »

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?

They already have the infrastructure and the tech. It'd just be like syncing bookmarks. Only less metadata. I can't think this would take more than a couple of days to implement for someone already on that proyect.

Re: Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration

#90

Post by madeofpalk »

dblohm7 wrote: post #38
IshKebab wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly.

Mozilla employee here: That is incorrect. There is limited public information available about this deal, but the best quote so far is in this article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2930532/reading-service-pocke...

Maybe not monetary incentive, but perhaps this was a condition to get Pocket to integrate with Firefox Accounts?
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