7 ms·

I like the Pocket recommendations ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by marrone12 7y ago

welly 7y ago
You and me both! I've had some great recommendations!
- FillardMillmore 7y ago
  A lot of the recommendations are great. But there's also some ones recommending low-interest credit cards. I also like Pocket as software. Easily allows me to save pages for later reading and tag them as a method to introduce some organization to all the interesting pages one finds. Since I use Firefox across many devices, this makes my life easier.
suby 7y ago
I'd be fine if they limited it to just unpaid recommendations, but they include sponsored pocket stories in the new page tab too. It's inserting advertising into the web browser in a round-about way.
- _coveredInBees 7y ago
  Good thing you can turn it off? If you're not paying Mozilla for their browser, it seems weird to me to bitch and complain about ways Mozilla explores to generate some revenue without selling out their user's privacy. Especially when they make it very easy to opt out of the thing you don't like. Comments like yours are what makes me very nervous about the future for Mozilla. They are still entirely at the mercy of Google and their revenue sharing agreement for enabling Google as the default search engine. The day that ends, they are going to be in deep trouble if their user base is so hostile to any potential avenues they choose to explore to stay afloat.
  - ferzul 7y ago
    where's the button that gives me the paid version, and is it just a donation or a version that gives me a better, ahem, experience?
    - maccard 7y ago
      You can make a donation, and turn off the feature. That means everyone who can't/doesn't want to make a donation can still have the same experience as you, and you can still support FF.
    - _coveredInBees 7y ago
      Haha, if Mozilla ever hid a "better" experience browser behind a paywall I bet you would be here excoriating them for that move. The general feeling of entitlement that some people in the open source side of things have is quite astounding. They want everything possible, but absolutely for free and then justify how absurd it all is by saying people will pay in droves if only Mozilla made this magical, perfect, privacy-first browser. It's just tragic and I feel so bad for Mozilla in general given the total apathy that most technical minded people have towards their plight and long term financial sustainability.
  - autoexec 7y ago
    > "without selling out their user's privacy" This is the key. I think sending any unsolicited traffic to 3rd party websites counts as violating my privacy. Pocket goes far beyond that. Pocket Recommendations are personalized based on your browsing behavior in Firefox. It doesn't matter that Mozilla and Pocket don't see your browsing history directly. While the choice of which links to push at you are made client side if Pocket knows which pages are suggested to you (either as they are pushed to your browser or after you've clicked them) then they can take away from that information about why you were targeted for those sites. Sure enough, Pocket collects stats on which links show up in your browser and whether or not you click on them. "Sponsored stories" often link to DoubleClick or Bitly who redirect you to the suggested site so those companies are also collecting your data because of Pocket. Handing data to DoubleClick is not protecting user's privacy. Even if you opt out of data collection in Firefox's preferences Pocket and Mozilla will continue to serve you personalized sites and will continue to collect data on you and your browsing history. I don't mind that pocket exists, but it shouldn't be enabled by default, and it shouldn't take going into about:config to disable. Firefox should be applauded for taking steps to try to make money off their user's personal information without selling it outright, but at the end of the day they are still trying to make money off their user's personal information. They do have to compete with Google, but they can best do that by providing a better experience for users and by protecting their privacy. I've been a long time user of firefox because it's still the best browser when it comes to privacy and control, but it takes an increasing number of default setting changes and about:config edits to get it to stop leaking my data to 3rd parties. It's already to the point where I can't just recommend it to others without explaining there are a ton of settings they should immediately disable or change to protect themselves.
    - DenseComet 7y ago
      Whats really interesting to me is that this seems to be more of a huge marketing issue. Pocket IS Mozilla* and it seems like people would be more ok with the integration if they knew this. Now, obviously, Mozilla does need to improve the sponsored stories and not track the user without input, but at the same time, its not a 3rd party in the general stance. * https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-po...
danyork 7y ago
Agreed! I find many of the recommendations useful. (I also use Pocket personally for bookmarking sites.)

I like the Pocket recommendations ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

welly 7y ago

You and me both! I've had some great recommendations!

FillardMillmore 7y ago
A lot of the recommendations are great. But there's also some ones recommending low-interest credit cards. I also like Pocket as software. Easily allows me to save pages for later reading and tag them as a method to introduce some organization to all the interesting pages one finds. Since I use Firefox across many devices, this makes my life easier.

suby 7y ago

I'd be fine if they limited it to just unpaid recommendations, but they include sponsored pocket stories in the new page tab too. It's inserting advertising into the web browser in a round-about way.

_coveredInBees 7y ago
Good thing you can turn it off? If you're not paying Mozilla for their browser, it seems weird to me to bitch and complain about ways Mozilla explores to generate some revenue without selling out their user's privacy. Especially when they make it very easy to opt out of the thing you don't like. Comments like yours are what makes me very nervous about the future for Mozilla. They are still entirely at the mercy of Google and their revenue sharing agreement for enabling Google as the default search engine. The day that ends, they are going to be in deep trouble if their user base is so hostile to any potential avenues they choose to explore to stay afloat.
- ferzul 7y ago
  where's the button that gives me the paid version, and is it just a donation or a version that gives me a better, ahem, experience?
  - maccard 7y ago
    You can make a donation, and turn off the feature. That means everyone who can't/doesn't want to make a donation can still have the same experience as you, and you can still support FF.
  - _coveredInBees 7y ago
    Haha, if Mozilla ever hid a "better" experience browser behind a paywall I bet you would be here excoriating them for that move. The general feeling of entitlement that some people in the open source side of things have is quite astounding. They want everything possible, but absolutely for free and then justify how absurd it all is by saying people will pay in droves if only Mozilla made this magical, perfect, privacy-first browser. It's just tragic and I feel so bad for Mozilla in general given the total apathy that most technical minded people have towards their plight and long term financial sustainability.
- autoexec 7y ago
  > "without selling out their user's privacy" This is the key. I think sending any unsolicited traffic to 3rd party websites counts as violating my privacy. Pocket goes far beyond that. Pocket Recommendations are personalized based on your browsing behavior in Firefox. It doesn't matter that Mozilla and Pocket don't see your browsing history directly. While the choice of which links to push at you are made client side if Pocket knows which pages are suggested to you (either as they are pushed to your browser or after you've clicked them) then they can take away from that information about why you were targeted for those sites. Sure enough, Pocket collects stats on which links show up in your browser and whether or not you click on them. "Sponsored stories" often link to DoubleClick or Bitly who redirect you to the suggested site so those companies are also collecting your data because of Pocket. Handing data to DoubleClick is not protecting user's privacy. Even if you opt out of data collection in Firefox's preferences Pocket and Mozilla will continue to serve you personalized sites and will continue to collect data on you and your browsing history. I don't mind that pocket exists, but it shouldn't be enabled by default, and it shouldn't take going into about:config to disable. Firefox should be applauded for taking steps to try to make money off their user's personal information without selling it outright, but at the end of the day they are still trying to make money off their user's personal information. They do have to compete with Google, but they can best do that by providing a better experience for users and by protecting their privacy. I've been a long time user of firefox because it's still the best browser when it comes to privacy and control, but it takes an increasing number of default setting changes and about:config edits to get it to stop leaking my data to 3rd parties. It's already to the point where I can't just recommend it to others without explaining there are a ton of settings they should immediately disable or change to protect themselves.
  - DenseComet 7y ago
    Whats really interesting to me is that this seems to be more of a huge marketing issue. Pocket IS Mozilla* and it seems like people would be more ok with the integration if they knew this. Now, obviously, Mozilla does need to improve the sponsored stories and not track the user without input, but at the same time, its not a 3rd party in the general stance. * https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-po...

danyork 7y ago

Agreed! I find many of the recommendations useful. (I also use Pocket personally for bookmarking sites.)