
User feedback on Pocket submitted to Mozilla - lgp171188
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/?q=pocket&date_start=2015-01-01#
======
soapdog
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 can click the "customize" menu item and remove that button.

Firefox Hello is a collaboration, developed by Mozilla with help from
Telefonica. Its videoconferencing without accounts. You don't need to create
any account and it doesn't track you, how that is not good is beyond me.

The Pocket feature is really useful for those using it and harmless for those
not using it. You can always remove the button or replace it with an add-on of
your choice.

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.

Before finishing this comment, let me leave you with a little nugget of
advise: Less war and more dating. Instead of being a critic and combating
every form of feature that somehow you dislike. Try to see how partnerships
and opportunities make things better for everyone.Lots of people are loving
the Pocket and Hello features and using them on a daily basis. Instead of
removing features we can think of scenarios where they are useful and
understand why they are there. And again, if you don't like them, you can use
the Customize feature to remove them from the toolbars.

~~~
kaolinite
> 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](http://github.com/timdavies/hnprofile)

~~~
brerlapn
As an aside to this discussion, your extension is quite excellent and saves me
the RAM of keeping profile windows open during some of the extended HN debates
where profile info/bio was helpful to understand where participants were
coming from, or even just to check things like karma/profile age before I
follow a link. Glad you mentioned it here, as I'm not sure it would have
occurred to me to go looking for a solution to that particular problem.

~~~
kaolinite
Thank you - that means a lot, I'm glad you find it useful :-)

------
gadders
I can remember when the whole point of creating Firefox was as a response to a
bloated Netscape that included an email client, newsreader, kitchen sink etc.

Now it seems they're trying to bundle everything back in again.

------
blfr
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 few weeks
before it was integrated.

Getting all that while bringing revenue for Mozilla to support further
development of Firefox is a win-win-win. Unlike Hello or "Share This Page"
which I have never seen anyone use.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
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.

~~~
toggle
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.

------
mariusmg
Mozilla is not a merry band of hackers anymore. They're a bona fida
corporation with its own agenda. Their agenda depends on having as many users
as possible so they're trying to make everything they can for that. The free
web, choice and all that become second place now.

PS : Look at their corporate HQ.

~~~
sp332
The Mozilla Corporation is completely owned by the Mozilla Foundation, a non-
profit with a manifesto [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/details/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/details/) that reads in part, "Individuals’ security and
privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional."

~~~
userbinator
What worries me more is that _freedom_ isn't mentioned as fundamental.

~~~
sp332
How could Mozilla restrict your freedom? I guess they could hire lobbyists or
something but that seems unlikely.

~~~
anon1385
I assume they are referring to software freedom as described by Richard
Stallman: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

------
k-mcgrady
When did they build in Pocket? I didn't like when they added Hello but this
seems even stranger. I guess they're getting money from Pocket for it in the
same way they get money from Google for search but users can opt-out of Google
search - from those complaints it doesn't sound possible for Pocket. (Please
let me know if I'm wrong).

~~~
asquabventured
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...](http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/14/how-to-disable-pocket-in-firefox/)

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

~~~
asquabventured
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.

------
SunShiranui
I didn't realize Pocket was a third-party service. Perhaps this should be made
clear when updating Firefox.

------
Dysprosium
The thing with Pocket is that it's basically an extension installed by
default. This is the first time Mozilla does such a thing to Firefox, and this
doesn't please the community, including myself.

I though that the whole point of integrating a new feature is to really
implement it into the software, where you can make it efficient and reliable,
where you don't rely on a third party to make it work and where users' data is
bundled to their Firefox profile only.

If they think it was not worth it to implement it, then they could just label
the extension "featured", make a blog post to advice it to the community and
call it a day. Otherwise they can just start integrating any popular
extension, call it a new "feature" and defend themselves by saying that people
use it so it's important.

------
donatj
Someone should fork Firefox with all this crap removed. Does IceWeasel have
Pocket and Sync and such?

~~~
kpcyrd
Iceweasel actually has a file somewhere in /etc that overrides the config to
disable some of those features.

------
lgp171188
Quoting the About page of the Mozilla Input site,

"Firefox Input is Mozilla's primary feedback mechanism for products.It is set
up to be a method of one-way communication about your experiences in using our
products, the Internet you view it through, and what Mozilla can do to make
that experience better"

So please provide do provide feedback on various Mozilla products on Mozilla
Input and not just limit it to this Pocket integration.

------
h1fra
These are mostly childish comment, not really HN worthy.

~~~
morganvachon
And yours is?

Most of the comments center around the same idea: Mozilla removed the choice
of which "read later" service to use by default, by baking it into the browser
itself instead of leaving it as an extension or add-on, where it and all the
other services like it belong.

So, now if you have a user who doesn't want a "read later" service, they have
to take the extra steps to disable the button and go into _about:config_ to
completely turn it off. For the users who do want a "read later" service but
don't want to use Pocket, they now have whatever they install via extension,
plus Pocket, which is redundant and silly.

Basically, all this integration has accomplished is bloating Firefox to serve
the single digit percentage of past Pocket extension users (many of whom will
continue to use the extension since that's what they are used to), and maybe
grab a few hundred more who see the new Pocket icon and decide to keep using
it after trying it out.

If they had gone with an open platform for this service, or even better, their
own homegrown solution, I wouldn't be upset by it. As it stands, Firefox was
supposed to be the open standard the other browsers should strive to imitate;
instead, it is steadily spiraling downward. This is becoming a pattern, and
it's not a pretty one.

~~~
eli
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?

~~~
cscharenberg
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 offering enhancements to users could be
presented periodically and offer any number of things over time.

My complaint is the Mozilla folks missed a more general, better capability
they could have built.

~~~
sp332
Like [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/extensions/?sort=fe...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/extensions/?sort=featured) ?

------
realusername
Yes sure, It's really negative feedback here but the majority of users
commenting there have technical knowledge as you can see in the comments and
most people are only commenting when they don't like things anyway, you never
have any thanks if they like things (if you ever created something used by
other people, you know what I'm talking about).

So we can see that technical people (including me) don't like so much this
feature but it does not help to know if the average user is finding it useful,
I would bet on my case average users are not even using it since you need to
create a separate account, but anyway, we will see.

And also, in my opinion, Firefox became a great product by trying new things.
And as always, when you change things, sometimes it does not work, sometimes
you explore in other directions, you need to experiment a bit.

PS: Downvoting-me does not change these facts.

~~~
jszymborski
very much agree. I honestly don't see what the hubub is all about.

Re: privacy, Firefox maintains it's commitment and integrity. The pocket
integration is very transparent (pocket has agreed to open-source it), and the
tech-saavy people that seem to be the only people this offends can disable
with about:config.

Honestly, it seems that people seem to be upset about the idea that Firefox is
raising money outside of donations. I for one am very happy about them finding
revenue sources that also add functionality for users, all while maintaining
user privacy as a main interest.

~~~
lagadu
Allow me to quote the Pocket ToS[1]:

> We may work with trusted third parties that we refer to as internal service
> providers to facilitate or outsource one or more aspects of the products and
> services that we provide to you, and we may provide some of your personal
> information directly to these internal service providers.

I feel that speaks for itself.

[1] [https://getpocket.com/privacy](https://getpocket.com/privacy)

~~~
jszymborski
That's the Pocket ToS... you only agree to it when you use Pocket, not
firefox.

------
DrinkWater
This is a bit off-topic, but some of the user feedback (esp. in German) is
really childish.

