12 ms·

Update on Pocket and Firefox Integration

75 points by nachtigall 9y ago

brailsafe 9y ago
Wow. Much altruism. Such revolution. TLDR; "First we enabled DRM, then we sideloaded an advertising extension, now we're an advertising platform, but don't worry because we're changing the world."
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  Perfect is the enemy of good. Snark is just bad.
  - jasonkostempski 9y ago
    Advertising software is the killer of good. Mozilla's situation is more like I'm having a perfect hair day, got the perfect outfit and in the best shape of my life, everything is literally perfect; I better just shit in my pants so things aren't too perfect.
    - brailsafe 9y ago
      Agreed, and hilarious. The new Firefox recently replaced Chrome as my default browser.
  - ihsw2 9y ago
    Important principles require inflexibility.
    - callahad 9y ago
      I went back and re-read the Manifesto at https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/ https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/, and I'm not seeing an obvious place where this specific project violates any of Mozilla's principles. Would you mind saying more about your concerns in this case?
      - brailsafe 9y ago
        I don't think it does, in part because the list is stuffed with platitudes. Except #9, which is awfully convenient.
- minikites 9y ago
  What Windows browser would you suggest instead? Chrome is made by a literal advertising company and Edge seems nice but relatively feature-poor.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    Sadly, Firefox is still the 'lesser of all evils', even though everyone continues to get more and more evil as time moves forward.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    Yep. We're down to Safari, Edge, FF and Chrome. Everything else is just a fork of one of those.
    - anfilt 9y ago
      Part of the problem is how complex the web stanards are these days. Try building a browser from the ground up today. Part of the issue is the stanards committees keep adding onto what was supposed to be a document format. We have added onto the spec so much that its a mess. Ironically, it was netscape that probably screwed up the web the most by adding javascript. That boat has sailed, but we keep adding more and more features to the specs.
    - majewsky 9y ago
      Chrome is a fork of Safari (is a fork of Konqueror).
  - abrowne 9y ago
    QupZilla (to be renamed Falkon in the next major version) is an option I like. Overall it is very Firefox-like, but it is a Qt app using Qt WebEngine, which is Chromium integrated into Qt. (I've only used it on Linux and briefly on Mac, but there is a Windows build too.)
    - majewsky 9y ago
      How fast do they get patches in when the Chromium part has a security issue? That's usually where all these "let's just fork the last good version of $browser" or "let's just fork their engine and build a new UI around it" endeavors come crashing down in flames.
- Feniks 9y ago
  They want to become a mainstream browser again. A less evil Chrome. Commendable I guess but I have no interest in supporting the internet economy.
gtf21 9y ago
I know there have been a lot of people who were quite angry about the Pocket integration (and more so about some of Mozilla's more recent experiments with Mr. Robot), but I don't think this is a bad thing (what is mentioned in the post). > While advertising is the business model of the web, it has evolved into one that doesn’t put the user first. We believe the current model of web advertising is broken because it doesn’t respect user privacy, isn’t transparent, lacks control, all the while trending towards click-bait and low-quality content. Well, they're right there. The problem is that things don't function without money (and I don't know that relying on Google paying a huge amount for being the default search provider is a good business model). If Mozilla really can do this while protecting the privacy of the user (and avoiding clickbait), then I think it might be a worthwhile experiment. For my part, I'm going to see how it works, but will disable if it's not satisfactory. Of course, someone will probably have to audit their code to ensure they really are protecting our privacy... > It’s important to us to get this right. Especially these days ;)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cpeterso 9y ago
  Here is more information (linked from the article) about how the sponsored stories are personalized while respecting user privacy. The client will download an unpersonalized list of sponsored stories and then filter the list on the client-side by comparing it to the user's browsing history. So the user sees relevant sponsored stories without Mozilla or publisher servers seeing personally identifiable information. https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-recommendations https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-reco...
  - NiceGuy_Ty 9y ago
    Huh. That's incredibly simple and seems pretty effective. Of course, the sponsored sites could try to track user preferences themselves by fingerprinting Firefox visitors across distinct sites, but at least Firefox does have some anti-tracking features enabled by default.
- 9y ago
cyborgx7 9y ago
I have become convinced that advertisers are a huge problem and not fixable. Helping to destroy the advertising industry might become my primary activistic ambition.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  You can probably buy ads to get the word out.
  - cyborgx7 9y ago
    ads against ads (like ads for installing ad blockers) is actually something I'm considering doing.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- madez 9y ago
  Count me in. But I'm not so much interested in destructive activity, but positive constructive change. Abandoning FireFox and spreading the word about it would be a good start to gain momentum for browsers that are loyal to the users independently of economic incentives. Let alone that Mozilla is using marketshare as a metric for FireFox tells me that they aren't the developer I want to have for my browser.
  - callahad 9y ago
    > browsers that are loyal to the users independently of economic incentives ...and how are those browsers possibly sustainable? Creating a browser is incredibly expensive[0]. If you want reasonable compatibility with the de facto Web you have to build atop Chromium, WebKit, or Gecko, the availability of which is predicated on the financial stability of Google, Apple, or Mozilla respectively. By all means, use a third party browser if it better suits your needs, but there's no escaping the hard dependency on the business models you so vehemently oppose. [0]: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/12/maintaining-independent-browser-is.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/12/maintaining-independent-...
subway 9y ago
I had a glimmer of hope when I saw this headline. "Oooh, I hope, they're going to move Pocket out to an optional extension!" If only.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  What difference would that make, compared to if it's there and you never click on it?
  - metalliqaz 9y ago
    I believe the answer to that question is that the user can't really be sure that the code is really disabled. Personally, I have had Pocket disabled since the moment it was deployed and I am happy enough with that. I don't really have any reason to think that they are still siphoning data off me, like Windows 10. At least, I trust that if they did I would read about it on HN.
  - vetinari 9y ago
    Why single out Pocket, then? Why not bundle other extensions, like uBlock or Privacy Badger, or TabMixTree or hundred of others. After all, you don't have click on them. Now only if hardware accelerated composition for Linux and hardware accelerated video decoding for Linux could be implemented using extensions...
    - sp332 9y ago
      Firefox users were asking for a read-it-later feature and Firefox devs were looking into implementing it. It was already something they were going to add to the product. They picked Pocket because it was a lot easier than making something from scratch, and they worked with Pocket to change their privacy policy and open-source the browser addon.
      - vetinari 9y ago
        If they had it as a priority, they could make it as an extension, so those asking for it would have it and those not wanting it would not. They already have (or had) APIs for that. No need to bloat the core product.
eitland 9y ago
Scary. They'll need to be very careful to get this right. But if they manage to get it right it might be a better deal than relying on revenue from Google?
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  They've bundled advertising software into a critical piece of software that should do only what its user wants it to do. They've already gotten it very wrong.
  - gregknicholson 9y ago
    It's a very fine line between content and chrome. Most people can't tell you where their browser ends and their OS begins, nor where a web page ends and their browser begins. It's all just “the computer is showing this to me”. This is why people put up with “Upgrade AVG!” notifications and click “Fix your computer now!” adverts. Most people see a computer as a service, not a tool: most services are annoying, but you have to put up with them if you want the service; all PCs are the same anyway (unless you can afford a Mac, which is somehow something other than a PC), so there's no better service you can get. My point is: unfortunately, most people don't care. We're very much in the minority.
starik36 9y ago
I actually liked the Pocket on the New Tab page. I've found genuinely interesting articles that I wouldn't have come across otherwise. As long as they keep it non-political and simply informative, I am checking it out.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
faitswulff 9y ago
I've been using Pocket's recommended articles a lot lately. They have solid article picks.
madez 9y ago
> While advertising is the business model of the web Come on Mozilla, stop spreading this bull! Is LWN.net not part of the web? Is tagesschau.de not part of the web? Are my personal pages not part of web? None of them have advertising as their business model. This statement really shows how derailed Mozilla is thinking. Mozilla should just make themselves honest, turn into a pure for-profit cooperation and do their business at least a little bit more honestly.
- owaislone 9y ago
  Your personal pages don't need millions of dollars just to survive like Mozilla does
  - madez 9y ago
    So, they are not part of the web or are they? A lot of pages on the web work by providing porn. Is porn the business model of the web? This is just ridiculous. There are many projects that need money to survive and don't sell their users. Mozillas need for money does not excuse in the slightest their choices, or is machiavellianism all the sudden accepted? I mean, your comment says that if you need millions to sustain your sites you are free to act shadey. Sorry, but no, that wouldn't make it okay. In the case of Mozilla it would just show their hypocritical inconsistency.
    - owaislone 9y ago
      Yes, it is accepted. What is so wrong about advertising? Why is it bad that someone making a product wants to market it? There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. The problem is how the ad-tech industry deals with advertising. There is no regard for privacy and no control for the consumers. It's become a shady practice because of lack of privacy, transparency and lack of regard for the end user. Mozilla is clearly saying these things are important to them and will be central to their mission so what's the problem here? It's not like they'll inject ads from Google or Facebook. Instead of dissing at their attempts to make themselves self-sustainable, we should be supporting them by giving them a chance. May be they'll do ads right, may be they'll fail but one thing I'm sure of is that if they fail to make it work without compromising the user, they'll just give it up. Mozilla is our biggest if not the only hope of an open and healthy web. I don't mind supporting them by seeing a couple of ads every now and then as long as I'm in control and they respect my privacy.
lakechfoma 9y ago
Anger abound regarding advertising etc but question: what's the alternative for Mozilla to be a viable company without depending on money from advertising either in the form of Pocket and new tab or via search engines paying for default? We can all pay a subscription to use Firefox instead. But of course Firefox is open source so... I mean I'd love for something like Facebook to cost $10 a year, I think that could work. But I don't see any other business model for Mozilla besides charitable donations.
- kibwen 9y ago
  By law, Mozilla can't use charitable donations to fund browser development. The rules around what charities can spend their donations on is pretty specific. Mozilla's charity funds are used for web-related education and outreach. Of course, Mozilla could use non-charitable (i.e. not tax-deductible) donations to fund browser dev.
  - lakechfoma 9y ago
    Ah I guess I meant non-charitable then! I'm pretty clueless on how the money aspect in a non-profit works.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    By law in which jurisdiction? In what jurisdiction can't you use donations to pay for programming effort?
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      The U.S. but not just the U.S. It's not programming per se; if the United Way wants some DB code done, that could be charitable since the effort isn't to build infrastructure but is part of, say, helping kids in hospital. I hope this rule/ruling goes away for BSD type open source, but it's real.
    - occamrazor 9y ago
      You can use donations of course, but they won’t qualify as charitable for tax purposes.
adamsvystun 9y ago
> we were excited to find that people used New Tab more when this feature was enabled. They say it like it's necessarily a good thing. When you add functionality to the page, it will most likely increase engagement time, but that does not mean that new feature is good(or bad), all it means that users spend more time on that page.
- deltaprotocol 9y ago
  Absolutely! And more, it may be that the users are getting more distracted and less productive, although it seems they don't recognize this possibility. I have tried to use the new tab with everything integrated (another search bar? most visited/pin without reordering, pocket articles) and Mozilla snarks and tips (which I like and find elegant) the feeling each time I open a new tab is the same as when I open my phone with the intent of doing something and, after being bombarded with icons and notifications, completely forget what I wanted to solve in the first place. It is horrible UX to me. At least I can disable it as I did and I love my empty new tab without any suggestions whatsoever. Just to dig a bit deeper, I believe browsers chrome should be removed (or greatly reduced) and we should try something new. I don't want to see an endless list of open tabs or your shiny buttons, I want to absorb content. Using Vimperator/Pentadactyl/qutebrowser,etc in the past without system borders opened my eyes to how websites can be beautiful when they are not in a cage and I can't unsee the bloat. The best Mozilla product of the past couple years, to me, wasn't FF Quantum, but Firefox Focus. I want Focus for the desktop. Amnesic, secure, fast, unbloatable.
slrz 9y ago
What's the current state for the release of the Pocket server-side and mobile app code?
zb3 9y ago
If you don't want these "features", then the easiest option is to delete .xpi files under "/usr/lib/firefox/browser/features/" directory. That's much easier than patching Chromium source code.
outsidetheparty 9y ago
So just gonna go through their list of bullet points about how this is Different™ (tl;dr: not very): * Privacy "Delivers personalization without needing to vacuum up all of your personal data or sharing it with others." But... > Your Firefox browser compares your browsing history with the list of related websites to sort and filter through each day’s stories and recommend the ones that are most likely to interest you... The entire process of sorting and filtering which stories you should see happens locally in your copy of Firefox. When Recommendations from Pocket are displayed on your new tab, we collect information about how many times they appear and whether or not you interact with them [1] So that's the exact same model the Brave browser was (is still?) pushing: FF will use your browser history to decide which ads (and "personalized stories") to show you; but will do it locally rather than serverside. This is good if your only concern was the collected private data leaking to third parties; it is less good if your concern is with the use of that private data in the first place. * Quality. "Rewards valuable content, worthy of your time. Not driven by clicks." I see literally nothing that supports this statement. They're selling native advertising slots in a push-model content stream, and tracking clicks on those ads just like the rest of the industry. The incentive is towards the highest bidder whose ads won't actively repel too much of the userbase too quickly. * Control. "If you see a story you’re not a fan of, you can hide it. Or you can disable sponsored content altogether." No snark on this one; this is good. The entire feature can be disabled, or the advertising slots can be disabled within the feature; the controls for this are clear and unobfuscated. * Transparency. "Sponsored stories will be clearly marked." Because that's the law, pardner * Openness. "As an open organization, all code in Firefox is open source" Shades of Brave, again, but fair enough. [1]https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-recommendations https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-reco...
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > This is good if your only concern was the collected private data leaking to third parties; it is less good if your concern is with the use of that private data in the first place. Can you go into more detail on this? Firefox uses private data locally every time you start typing in the address bar. What leads someone to object to this particular use (specifically for privacy reasons), but to leaving history on in the first place?
c3534l 9y ago
Firefox has absolutely lost it's mind. This is EA-level corporate double-speak.
condercet 9y ago
Mozilla's integration with Pocket is at direct conflict with their values: "Internet for people, not profit". I expected better of them.
awiesenhofer 9y ago
i may hold a minority opinion here but i love pocket and use the new tab suggestions a lot when reading on my commute for example. I am a bit worried about these personal recommendations tough - i rather liked that the suggestions weren't personalised and gave me articles i would never have found or searched myself, now it may become just another filter-bubble around me...
jononor 9y ago
Where is the source code for Pocket service? Announcement says everything is open source but I cannot find it...

75 points by nachtigall 9y ago

Wow. Much altruism. Such revolution. TLDR; "First we enabled DRM, then we sideloaded an advertising extension, now we're an advertising platform, but don't worry because we're changing the world."

Paul-ish 9y ago
Perfect is the enemy of good. Snark is just bad.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  Advertising software is the killer of good. Mozilla's situation is more like I'm having a perfect hair day, got the perfect outfit and in the best shape of my life, everything is literally perfect; I better just shit in my pants so things aren't too perfect.
  - brailsafe 9y ago
    Agreed, and hilarious. The new Firefox recently replaced Chrome as my default browser.
- ihsw2 9y ago
  Important principles require inflexibility.
  - callahad 9y ago
    I went back and re-read the Manifesto at https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/ https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/, and I'm not seeing an obvious place where this specific project violates any of Mozilla's principles. Would you mind saying more about your concerns in this case?
    - brailsafe 9y ago
      I don't think it does, in part because the list is stuffed with platitudes. Except #9, which is awfully convenient.
minikites 9y ago
What Windows browser would you suggest instead? Chrome is made by a literal advertising company and Edge seems nice but relatively feature-poor.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Sadly, Firefox is still the 'lesser of all evils', even though everyone continues to get more and more evil as time moves forward.
- Feniks 9y ago
  Yep. We're down to Safari, Edge, FF and Chrome. Everything else is just a fork of one of those.
  - anfilt 9y ago
    Part of the problem is how complex the web stanards are these days. Try building a browser from the ground up today. Part of the issue is the stanards committees keep adding onto what was supposed to be a document format. We have added onto the spec so much that its a mess. Ironically, it was netscape that probably screwed up the web the most by adding javascript. That boat has sailed, but we keep adding more and more features to the specs.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Chrome is a fork of Safari (is a fork of Konqueror).
- abrowne 9y ago
  QupZilla (to be renamed Falkon in the next major version) is an option I like. Overall it is very Firefox-like, but it is a Qt app using Qt WebEngine, which is Chromium integrated into Qt. (I've only used it on Linux and briefly on Mac, but there is a Windows build too.)
  - majewsky 9y ago
    How fast do they get patches in when the Chromium part has a security issue? That's usually where all these "let's just fork the last good version of $browser" or "let's just fork their engine and build a new UI around it" endeavors come crashing down in flames.
Feniks 9y ago
They want to become a mainstream browser again. A less evil Chrome. Commendable I guess but I have no interest in supporting the internet economy.

gtf21 9y ago

I know there have been a lot of people who were quite angry about the Pocket integration (and more so about some of Mozilla's more recent experiments with Mr. Robot), but I don't think this is a bad thing (what is mentioned in the post). > While advertising is the business model of the web, it has evolved into one that doesn’t put the user first. We believe the current model of web advertising is broken because it doesn’t respect user privacy, isn’t transparent, lacks control, all the while trending towards click-bait and low-quality content. Well, they're right there. The problem is that things don't function without money (and I don't know that relying on Google paying a huge amount for being the default search provider is a good business model). If Mozilla really can do this while protecting the privacy of the user (and avoiding clickbait), then I think it might be a worthwhile experiment. For my part, I'm going to see how it works, but will disable if it's not satisfactory. Of course, someone will probably have to audit their code to ensure they really are protecting our privacy... > It’s important to us to get this right. Especially these days ;)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cpeterso 9y ago
Here is more information (linked from the article) about how the sponsored stories are personalized while respecting user privacy. The client will download an unpersonalized list of sponsored stories and then filter the list on the client-side by comparing it to the user's browsing history. So the user sees relevant sponsored stories without Mozilla or publisher servers seeing personally identifiable information. https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-recommendations https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-reco...
- NiceGuy_Ty 9y ago
  Huh. That's incredibly simple and seems pretty effective. Of course, the sponsored sites could try to track user preferences themselves by fingerprinting Firefox visitors across distinct sites, but at least Firefox does have some anti-tracking features enabled by default.
9y ago

cyborgx7 9y ago

I have become convinced that advertisers are a huge problem and not fixable. Helping to destroy the advertising industry might become my primary activistic ambition.

craftyguy 9y ago
You can probably buy ads to get the word out.
- cyborgx7 9y ago
  ads against ads (like ads for installing ad blockers) is actually something I'm considering doing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
madez 9y ago
Count me in. But I'm not so much interested in destructive activity, but positive constructive change. Abandoning FireFox and spreading the word about it would be a good start to gain momentum for browsers that are loyal to the users independently of economic incentives. Let alone that Mozilla is using marketshare as a metric for FireFox tells me that they aren't the developer I want to have for my browser.
- callahad 9y ago
  > browsers that are loyal to the users independently of economic incentives ...and how are those browsers possibly sustainable? Creating a browser is incredibly expensive[0]. If you want reasonable compatibility with the de facto Web you have to build atop Chromium, WebKit, or Gecko, the availability of which is predicated on the financial stability of Google, Apple, or Mozilla respectively. By all means, use a third party browser if it better suits your needs, but there's no escaping the hard dependency on the business models you so vehemently oppose. [0]: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/12/maintaining-independent-browser-is.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/12/maintaining-independent-...

subway 9y ago

I had a glimmer of hope when I saw this headline. "Oooh, I hope, they're going to move Pocket out to an optional extension!" If only.

ZenoArrow 9y ago
What difference would that make, compared to if it's there and you never click on it?
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  I believe the answer to that question is that the user can't really be sure that the code is really disabled. Personally, I have had Pocket disabled since the moment it was deployed and I am happy enough with that. I don't really have any reason to think that they are still siphoning data off me, like Windows 10. At least, I trust that if they did I would read about it on HN.
- vetinari 9y ago
  Why single out Pocket, then? Why not bundle other extensions, like uBlock or Privacy Badger, or TabMixTree or hundred of others. After all, you don't have click on them. Now only if hardware accelerated composition for Linux and hardware accelerated video decoding for Linux could be implemented using extensions...
  - sp332 9y ago
    Firefox users were asking for a read-it-later feature and Firefox devs were looking into implementing it. It was already something they were going to add to the product. They picked Pocket because it was a lot easier than making something from scratch, and they worked with Pocket to change their privacy policy and open-source the browser addon.
    - vetinari 9y ago
      If they had it as a priority, they could make it as an extension, so those asking for it would have it and those not wanting it would not. They already have (or had) APIs for that. No need to bloat the core product.

eitland 9y ago

Scary. They'll need to be very careful to get this right. But if they manage to get it right it might be a better deal than relying on revenue from Google?

jasonkostempski 9y ago
They've bundled advertising software into a critical piece of software that should do only what its user wants it to do. They've already gotten it very wrong.
- gregknicholson 9y ago
  It's a very fine line between content and chrome. Most people can't tell you where their browser ends and their OS begins, nor where a web page ends and their browser begins. It's all just “the computer is showing this to me”. This is why people put up with “Upgrade AVG!” notifications and click “Fix your computer now!” adverts. Most people see a computer as a service, not a tool: most services are annoying, but you have to put up with them if you want the service; all PCs are the same anyway (unless you can afford a Mac, which is somehow something other than a PC), so there's no better service you can get. My point is: unfortunately, most people don't care. We're very much in the minority.

starik36 9y ago

I actually liked the Pocket on the New Tab page. I've found genuinely interesting articles that I wouldn't have come across otherwise. As long as they keep it non-political and simply informative, I am checking it out.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

faitswulff 9y ago

I've been using Pocket's recommended articles a lot lately. They have solid article picks.

madez 9y ago

> While advertising is the business model of the web Come on Mozilla, stop spreading this bull! Is LWN.net not part of the web? Is tagesschau.de not part of the web? Are my personal pages not part of web? None of them have advertising as their business model. This statement really shows how derailed Mozilla is thinking. Mozilla should just make themselves honest, turn into a pure for-profit cooperation and do their business at least a little bit more honestly.

owaislone 9y ago
Your personal pages don't need millions of dollars just to survive like Mozilla does
- madez 9y ago
  So, they are not part of the web or are they? A lot of pages on the web work by providing porn. Is porn the business model of the web? This is just ridiculous. There are many projects that need money to survive and don't sell their users. Mozillas need for money does not excuse in the slightest their choices, or is machiavellianism all the sudden accepted? I mean, your comment says that if you need millions to sustain your sites you are free to act shadey. Sorry, but no, that wouldn't make it okay. In the case of Mozilla it would just show their hypocritical inconsistency.
  - owaislone 9y ago
    Yes, it is accepted. What is so wrong about advertising? Why is it bad that someone making a product wants to market it? There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. The problem is how the ad-tech industry deals with advertising. There is no regard for privacy and no control for the consumers. It's become a shady practice because of lack of privacy, transparency and lack of regard for the end user. Mozilla is clearly saying these things are important to them and will be central to their mission so what's the problem here? It's not like they'll inject ads from Google or Facebook. Instead of dissing at their attempts to make themselves self-sustainable, we should be supporting them by giving them a chance. May be they'll do ads right, may be they'll fail but one thing I'm sure of is that if they fail to make it work without compromising the user, they'll just give it up. Mozilla is our biggest if not the only hope of an open and healthy web. I don't mind supporting them by seeing a couple of ads every now and then as long as I'm in control and they respect my privacy.

lakechfoma 9y ago

Anger abound regarding advertising etc but question: what's the alternative for Mozilla to be a viable company without depending on money from advertising either in the form of Pocket and new tab or via search engines paying for default? We can all pay a subscription to use Firefox instead. But of course Firefox is open source so... I mean I'd love for something like Facebook to cost $10 a year, I think that could work. But I don't see any other business model for Mozilla besides charitable donations.

kibwen 9y ago
By law, Mozilla can't use charitable donations to fund browser development. The rules around what charities can spend their donations on is pretty specific. Mozilla's charity funds are used for web-related education and outreach. Of course, Mozilla could use non-charitable (i.e. not tax-deductible) donations to fund browser dev.
- lakechfoma 9y ago
  Ah I guess I meant non-charitable then! I'm pretty clueless on how the money aspect in a non-profit works.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  By law in which jurisdiction? In what jurisdiction can't you use donations to pay for programming effort?
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    The U.S. but not just the U.S. It's not programming per se; if the United Way wants some DB code done, that could be charitable since the effort isn't to build infrastructure but is part of, say, helping kids in hospital. I hope this rule/ruling goes away for BSD type open source, but it's real.
  - occamrazor 9y ago
    You can use donations of course, but they won’t qualify as charitable for tax purposes.

adamsvystun 9y ago

> we were excited to find that people used New Tab more when this feature was enabled. They say it like it's necessarily a good thing. When you add functionality to the page, it will most likely increase engagement time, but that does not mean that new feature is good(or bad), all it means that users spend more time on that page.

deltaprotocol 9y ago
Absolutely! And more, it may be that the users are getting more distracted and less productive, although it seems they don't recognize this possibility. I have tried to use the new tab with everything integrated (another search bar? most visited/pin without reordering, pocket articles) and Mozilla snarks and tips (which I like and find elegant) the feeling each time I open a new tab is the same as when I open my phone with the intent of doing something and, after being bombarded with icons and notifications, completely forget what I wanted to solve in the first place. It is horrible UX to me. At least I can disable it as I did and I love my empty new tab without any suggestions whatsoever. Just to dig a bit deeper, I believe browsers chrome should be removed (or greatly reduced) and we should try something new. I don't want to see an endless list of open tabs or your shiny buttons, I want to absorb content. Using Vimperator/Pentadactyl/qutebrowser,etc in the past without system borders opened my eyes to how websites can be beautiful when they are not in a cage and I can't unsee the bloat. The best Mozilla product of the past couple years, to me, wasn't FF Quantum, but Firefox Focus. I want Focus for the desktop. Amnesic, secure, fast, unbloatable.

slrz 9y ago

What's the current state for the release of the Pocket server-side and mobile app code?

zb3 9y ago

If you don't want these "features", then the easiest option is to delete .xpi files under "/usr/lib/firefox/browser/features/" directory. That's much easier than patching Chromium source code.

outsidetheparty 9y ago

So just gonna go through their list of bullet points about how this is Different™ (tl;dr: not very): * Privacy "Delivers personalization without needing to vacuum up all of your personal data or sharing it with others." But... > Your Firefox browser compares your browsing history with the list of related websites to sort and filter through each day’s stories and recommend the ones that are most likely to interest you... The entire process of sorting and filtering which stories you should see happens locally in your copy of Firefox. When Recommendations from Pocket are displayed on your new tab, we collect information about how many times they appear and whether or not you interact with them [1] So that's the exact same model the Brave browser was (is still?) pushing: FF will use your browser history to decide which ads (and "personalized stories") to show you; but will do it locally rather than serverside. This is good if your only concern was the collected private data leaking to third parties; it is less good if your concern is with the use of that private data in the first place. * Quality. "Rewards valuable content, worthy of your time. Not driven by clicks." I see literally nothing that supports this statement. They're selling native advertising slots in a push-model content stream, and tracking clicks on those ads just like the rest of the industry. The incentive is towards the highest bidder whose ads won't actively repel too much of the userbase too quickly. * Control. "If you see a story you’re not a fan of, you can hide it. Or you can disable sponsored content altogether." No snark on this one; this is good. The entire feature can be disabled, or the advertising slots can be disabled within the feature; the controls for this are clear and unobfuscated. * Transparency. "Sponsored stories will be clearly marked." Because that's the law, pardner * Openness. "As an open organization, all code in Firefox is open source" Shades of Brave, again, but fair enough. [1]https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-recommendations https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-reco...

Dylan16807 9y ago
> This is good if your only concern was the collected private data leaking to third parties; it is less good if your concern is with the use of that private data in the first place. Can you go into more detail on this? Firefox uses private data locally every time you start typing in the address bar. What leads someone to object to this particular use (specifically for privacy reasons), but to leaving history on in the first place?

c3534l 9y ago

Firefox has absolutely lost it's mind. This is EA-level corporate double-speak.

condercet 9y ago

Mozilla's integration with Pocket is at direct conflict with their values: "Internet for people, not profit". I expected better of them.

awiesenhofer 9y ago

i may hold a minority opinion here but i love pocket and use the new tab suggestions a lot when reading on my commute for example. I am a bit worried about these personal recommendations tough - i rather liked that the suggestions weren't personalised and gave me articles i would never have found or searched myself, now it may become just another filter-bubble around me...

jononor 9y ago

Where is the source code for Pocket service? Announcement says everything is open source but I cannot find it...