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> Firefox Quantum enhances Firefox’s integration with Pocket, the read-it-later app that Mozilla acquired last year. When you open a new tab, you’ll see current

by magnat 9y ago

> Firefox Quantum enhances Firefox’s integration with Pocket, the read-it-later app that Mozilla acquired last year. When you open a new tab, you’ll see currently trending web pages recommended by Pocket users so you won’t miss out on what’s hot online, as well as your top sites. That doesn't sound good. What are the reasons for having bloatware bundled in instead releasing them as separate add-on or installation option?

msla 9y ago
Because to a lot of people, it's useful functionality, not bloatware. Truly, "bloat" can only be defined as "a feature I personally do not use right now".
bradyd 9y ago
Thankfully there is a gear icon on the new tab page that opens New Tab Preferences. This has an option to disable "Recommended by Pocket".
baby 9y ago
Pocket is definitely useful for me.
craftyguy 9y ago
In addition, there's still no simple way to kill pocket without having to dive into about:config...
Brakenshire 9y ago
Pocket is now owned by Mozilla, and is going to be open sourced. What separates that from any other functionality built into the browser, for instance Firefox Sync or Autocomplete?
- magnat 9y ago
  Sync, Pocket, Dev tools, Screenshots etc are not required to display and interact with HTML pages. They are useful and it's nice they exist, but I don't see a reason to have them installed if I don't need them - just as I don't install every package available in OS just in case I'll need later it. Even if they don't use resources when not being actively used (no way to test since there is no way to remove them), they increase attack surface and clutter UI.
  - staticassertion 9y ago
    > just as I don't install every package available in OS just in case I'll need later it. But your OS does come with lots of packages and features you may not use.
    - magnat 9y ago
      > But your OS does come with lots of packages and features you may not use. Sure does. And I can remove them if I want to. I can apt-get remove libc6 if I really really want to and I accept the consequences. I can't remove non-essential parts of the Firefox, though.
      - drdaeman 9y ago
        Technically speaking, you (still) can. Delete /usr/lib/firefox/browser/features/firefox@getpocket.com.xpi (or - better - rebuild the .deb package to not include this file) and the Pocket will be gone. Same for screenshots@mozilla.org.xpi. Sync and DevTools are tightly integrated, though. I'd really really wish it would be realistically possible to remove Sync and replace it with something else.
    - drdaeman 9y ago
      There are users who value OSes where things are "just working", out of the box. Even more, there are users who value if OS has lots of stuff pre-installed. There are users who value OSes for being absolutely minimal, so they can install only the stuff they want. There are users who build their OSes from scratch, compiling each piece from source, fine-tuning every option they want to touch, manually defining every aspect of their system. None of those approaches are wrong. And each of users may voice their discontent if things are not the way they prefer them to be (and that's good).
    - nebabyte 9y ago
      Not necessarily, depending on their OS
- drdaeman 9y ago
  1. Firefox Accounts & Sync is a terrible mess. Its security is still broken[1] and it's insanely over-engineered[2]. I really wish it shouldn't have existed, and instead Mozilla would've focused on providing an API to build a synchronization service upon. And then, whatever - their services could've been an pre-bundled extension. 2. I believe all of those SaaSes (i.e. Firefox Screenshots, too) shouldn't belong to the browser's core. Those could be distributed as pre-bundled extensions (which they actually are, but in a special way), but not as a part of the browser itself. This is highly opinionated, though. I just feel that rather than a browser, Firefox is becoming something like a service platform. I don't like it for the same reasons I tend to value self-hosting over the dependence on others' services, and Free Software over non-free options. I recognize others may feel very differently and possibly even welcome that. --- [1] Authentication pages are still served from network, so if you use it - you trust Mozilla to not steal (or, better say, not be forced to steal) your password and the encryption keys. The protocol is stable for quite a while so I really don't know why they're still not fixing this. [2] I wrote an alternative self-hosted Accounts & Sync implementation, so while I'm biased I sort of know what I'm talking about here. Four different authentication protocols (BrowserID, Hawk, OAuth2 and JWT), multiple non-standard HTTP headers, and the whole system just reeks of the NIH syndrome.
  - nebabyte 9y ago
    > I just feel that rather than a browser, Firefox is becoming something like a service platform Isn't it? Wasn't this the crux of the whole dev team controversy/split years ago? (This is all sounding like rehashed news to me, but I admit I don't go out of my way to keep up with browser community drama, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
  - snaky 9y ago
    Add to this things like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812348 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812348 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814801 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814801 to make the whole picture even worse. Did you open-sourced your alternative self-hosted Accounts & Sync implementation?
- CrystalGamma 9y ago
  That is news to me, and https://getpocket.com/about https://getpocket.com/about doesn't mention Mozilla at all … do you have a link to some official announcement?
  - glandium 9y ago
    https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-po...

by magnat 9y ago

msla 9y ago

Because to a lot of people, it's useful functionality, not bloatware. Truly, "bloat" can only be defined as "a feature I personally do not use right now".

bradyd 9y ago

Thankfully there is a gear icon on the new tab page that opens New Tab Preferences. This has an option to disable "Recommended by Pocket".

baby 9y ago

Pocket is definitely useful for me.

craftyguy 9y ago

In addition, there's still no simple way to kill pocket without having to dive into about:config...

Brakenshire 9y ago

Pocket is now owned by Mozilla, and is going to be open sourced. What separates that from any other functionality built into the browser, for instance Firefox Sync or Autocomplete?

magnat 9y ago
Sync, Pocket, Dev tools, Screenshots etc are not required to display and interact with HTML pages. They are useful and it's nice they exist, but I don't see a reason to have them installed if I don't need them - just as I don't install every package available in OS just in case I'll need later it. Even if they don't use resources when not being actively used (no way to test since there is no way to remove them), they increase attack surface and clutter UI.
- staticassertion 9y ago
  > just as I don't install every package available in OS just in case I'll need later it. But your OS does come with lots of packages and features you may not use.
  - magnat 9y ago
    > But your OS does come with lots of packages and features you may not use. Sure does. And I can remove them if I want to. I can apt-get remove libc6 if I really really want to and I accept the consequences. I can't remove non-essential parts of the Firefox, though.
    - drdaeman 9y ago
      Technically speaking, you (still) can. Delete /usr/lib/firefox/browser/features/firefox@getpocket.com.xpi (or - better - rebuild the .deb package to not include this file) and the Pocket will be gone. Same for screenshots@mozilla.org.xpi. Sync and DevTools are tightly integrated, though. I'd really really wish it would be realistically possible to remove Sync and replace it with something else.
  - drdaeman 9y ago
    There are users who value OSes where things are "just working", out of the box. Even more, there are users who value if OS has lots of stuff pre-installed. There are users who value OSes for being absolutely minimal, so they can install only the stuff they want. There are users who build their OSes from scratch, compiling each piece from source, fine-tuning every option they want to touch, manually defining every aspect of their system. None of those approaches are wrong. And each of users may voice their discontent if things are not the way they prefer them to be (and that's good).
  - nebabyte 9y ago
    Not necessarily, depending on their OS
drdaeman 9y ago
1. Firefox Accounts & Sync is a terrible mess. Its security is still broken[1] and it's insanely over-engineered[2]. I really wish it shouldn't have existed, and instead Mozilla would've focused on providing an API to build a synchronization service upon. And then, whatever - their services could've been an pre-bundled extension. 2. I believe all of those SaaSes (i.e. Firefox Screenshots, too) shouldn't belong to the browser's core. Those could be distributed as pre-bundled extensions (which they actually are, but in a special way), but not as a part of the browser itself. This is highly opinionated, though. I just feel that rather than a browser, Firefox is becoming something like a service platform. I don't like it for the same reasons I tend to value self-hosting over the dependence on others' services, and Free Software over non-free options. I recognize others may feel very differently and possibly even welcome that. --- [1] Authentication pages are still served from network, so if you use it - you trust Mozilla to not steal (or, better say, not be forced to steal) your password and the encryption keys. The protocol is stable for quite a while so I really don't know why they're still not fixing this. [2] I wrote an alternative self-hosted Accounts & Sync implementation, so while I'm biased I sort of know what I'm talking about here. Four different authentication protocols (BrowserID, Hawk, OAuth2 and JWT), multiple non-standard HTTP headers, and the whole system just reeks of the NIH syndrome.
- nebabyte 9y ago
  > I just feel that rather than a browser, Firefox is becoming something like a service platform Isn't it? Wasn't this the crux of the whole dev team controversy/split years ago? (This is all sounding like rehashed news to me, but I admit I don't go out of my way to keep up with browser community drama, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
- snaky 9y ago
  Add to this things like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812348 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812348 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814801 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814801 to make the whole picture even worse. Did you open-sourced your alternative self-hosted Accounts & Sync implementation?
CrystalGamma 9y ago
That is news to me, and https://getpocket.com/about https://getpocket.com/about doesn't mention Mozilla at all … do you have a link to some official announcement?
- glandium 9y ago
  https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-po...