I don't see how it's shady. It's quite similar to other browser integrations. For example, Chrome integrates with Google services like Google Translate. All modern browsers do some amount of by-default enabled extra services. Of course, Search is the most familiar such service (google.com, bing, yahoo, etc.).
Firefox is, has always been, and always will be, open source. The Mozilla server side is similarly also open source. But Mozilla is quite small compared to Google and Microsoft, and so must partner with external parties for things like Search and Pocket.
Your search comparison is a good one. The bundled search providers are installed as removable. If Pocket was distributed in this manner (as an extension that was enabled by default, but removable via standard UI) there would probably be less of an uproar.
Um, no. Chrome prompts you to login, and uses the same login for your browsing session and the browser, but if you don't log in then you won't be logged in.
What are you asking for, exactly? That the browser should force you to login twice?
I think TheLoneWolfling explained it well, but I'll give you an example:
I want to be logged in in Chrome so that my bookmarks sync between devices. But I want to be logged out of my Google session so that my searches aren't tied to my Google account.
On Mobile Chrome, if you log into Chrome, you log into your Google account. There's no way to separate the two.
No. What I am asking for (although note I am not the author of the grandparent comment) is to be able to be logged into Chrome without being logged into a browsing session if I so choose. And as far as I know there currently is no way to do so.
It's nowhere near my only problem with Chrome, but it's one of the big ones.
This is similar to integrating with a search provider, which all browsers do, for better or for worse. And all search providers are closed source and for-profit: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, etc.
however the precidence of selecting a closed source search provider already exists and is a strong expectation (this was something championed largely by firefox to begin with, as an interesting sidepoint)
There is no expectation of an integrated closed source "cloud reader" and attempts to paint this like "aww gee shucks it would be great it we could do something about this but thats just the way they world is" come off as extremely disingenious, especially as the mobile version of firefox had this feature baked in with no reliance on any third party at all.
> It's quite similar to other browser integrations.
"Online advertisements with active content aren't shady, almost all networks use them!"
Except for course, what you said it's identical are a notoriously shady group of activities, which has led to much abuse my market leaders at various times (Google, Microsoft), and we see no difference here. For that matter, neither do you.
I get that Firefox benefits from shipping the integration, but you haven't provided any good technical reasons for it not being fundamentally a shift in the way you do business and kind of exploitative.
Holding up a bunch of famous exploitations as "me too!"ing is tonedeafly missing the complaint.
Historically, the binary blobs provided as "browser integrations" are both major attack vectors and used by market leaders to exfiltrate inappropriate data under the aegis of "they didn't opt-out of our totally optional service!".
So yes, the market is fundamentally shady for "browser integrations".
There are no binary blobs involved here. The API endpoint is closed source, but the Firefox-side code is not. This is true for Pocket, Hello, and Search.
Ok, I think I understand your objection now. I can sympathize with your position - browsers would be purer without such integrations. It would be a better world.
I do think, however, that to compete with other browsers, such integration is necessary. If Firefox doesn't integrate with search, users will not find it useful, because they are so used to using google.com and so forth.
So I agree browsers would be better with no such integrations. It's a necessary, sometimes painful compromise.
> If Firefox doesn't integrate with search, users will not find it useful, because they are so used to using google.com and so forth.
This is a particularly weak case, because what's really needed for this feature at the browser level is an API for search providers, backed by several plugins which take advantage of the feature and offer various providers.
However, that's not what Firefox did here, as far as anyone can tell. Why not? No technical reason has been provided, and the replies have been so completely off topic as to cause a long debate thread over that very reasonable concern.
Firefox tightly coupled a technology to their platform rather than providing a service API and plugins, and we have no understanding of why a group committed to openness would make such a fundamentally close source move.
Historically speaking, the reasons groups do that is malice.
