Firefox is the default web browser installed on most Linux distributions. It is a well-known browser by Mozilla that respects user privacy by design, and
I think Mozilla really needs to refocus on just making a good browser and they need to start looking for alternate sources of funding instead of being primarily dependent on Google. A lot of people would support that purely for ideological reasons.
And ditch Pocket. My god almost all the articles are either straight up Western propaganda or clickbait time wasters. Maybe don’t display that shit by default on the splash page of your browser.
Can’t the suggestions be disabled? Though it is kind of in poor taste that they have it there by default.
I actually like Pocket though, and I’ve been using it since before the Mozilla acquisition. It provides a nice way to keep track of articles I may not have time to read when I come across them. It also provides a “reader” interface similar to Firefox, so it strips out a lot of the extra stuff that appears on many articles. And it syncs with my Kobo, which is a bonus since I like reading on eInk. It’s one of the few cloud services I use, and I have at least a little bit of trust in Mozilla. I never even look at their suggestions since I only ever load it up to read “that article I didn’t get to last week”.
I dunno, I guess I’m one of the 24 people who actually like it.
I used Pocket for a long time too, but recently I switched to Wallabag. The only thing I miss about Pocket is their android app (Wallabag for android doesn’t look that nice, although it offers all the features one would expect), but beside that, it has all the features Pocket has without the annoying recommendations and questionable integration into Firefox, plus a couple of additional things like tagging rules and RSS support. Also their API is in my opinion easier to use and, weirdly, far more reliable and predictable. No Kobo support though
The thing I really do not like about Pocket is the fact there have been years of promises to open-source its code. As far as I know, it is purposely swept away every time (I believe they will never open-source the code because then it would be obvious they sell your data to make profit – all my theory here, have no proof of that). Because of this, I think I cannot trust Pocket and the team behind it. Finding my way around that, I have been using xBrowserSync (Firefox add-on to sync bookmarks) for bookmarking articles to read in the future with adding a special tag (usually todo – general tag for doing something with the bookmark in the future – and article – the bookmark is an article to read – in my case) to the bookmark so every time I feel like reading, I search for that tag in the bookmarks and get my stored articles. The advantage for me this has is having stored articles available on all of my devices (desktop, notebook, phone and tablet – as all my other bookmarks). xBrowserSync works spectacularly for me and because I use it anyway for syncing bookmarks, storing articles is just a great bonus on top of that. Thinking about that, rather than using Pocket, I would use Wallabag if I must choose one, but I find myself content with my current setup, so I have never really paid much attention to these applications as I simply do not need them. Glad Pocket works for you, though.
Yeah, I really don’t like Mozilla funding model. I wish they’d just focus on crowd funding and building useful services people are willing to pay for. If Mozilla ran a decent mail service with good privacy for example, I’m sure a lot of people would pay for it.
I could be wrong of course, but I think there’s a market for people who are concerned about privacy and would be willing to pay for services like email from a vendor that was explicitly focused on protecting them. Apple has been successful advertising iOS as a privacy focused platform and seems like that’s working for them. But email is just an example, I’m sure there are other services Mozilla could offer that would be useful.
And I definitely agree that the way we use the internet leads to a lot of alienation. It’s very easy to get sucked into news or social media feeds and become increasingly disconnected from people around you.
Yeah. It aggregates articles from various media outlets on your homepage. You get the occasional serious one that is a good read, but a lot of the time they’re either fluff pieces or clearly intended to push an American narrative.
I know how they could sway me to give up a pretty penny. Offer paid hosted alternatives to Google Suite and two-way-file synchronization à Dropbox type thing. FOSS alternatives where I’m not the product. People, even normies are shouting for such services. Their VPN is basically useless as I have a subscription to Mullvad.
I don’t think they have neglected focus on their browser in the slightest nor have little focus on alternative income streams. But something is way off in their ability to assess market needs.
That certainly can be the case, but it’s a problem that Mozilla needs to solve in order to survive. They need some form of sustainable revenue either through crowdfunding or by selling some kind of services people want. What they’re doing now is clearly not working.
Yeah, Mozilla has been trying to break out of its current model of search engine contract funding browser development for many years without much success. I think part of the problem is that they keep picking areas with well established incumbent players so they never really have a chance.
I think Mozilla really needs to refocus on just making a good browser and they need to start looking for alternate sources of funding instead of being primarily dependent on Google. A lot of people would support that purely for ideological reasons.
And ditch Pocket. My god almost all the articles are either straight up Western propaganda or clickbait time wasters. Maybe don’t display that shit by default on the splash page of your browser.
Yep pocket and its suggestions are super annoying.
Can’t the suggestions be disabled? Though it is kind of in poor taste that they have it there by default.
I actually like Pocket though, and I’ve been using it since before the Mozilla acquisition. It provides a nice way to keep track of articles I may not have time to read when I come across them. It also provides a “reader” interface similar to Firefox, so it strips out a lot of the extra stuff that appears on many articles. And it syncs with my Kobo, which is a bonus since I like reading on eInk. It’s one of the few cloud services I use, and I have at least a little bit of trust in Mozilla. I never even look at their suggestions since I only ever load it up to read “that article I didn’t get to last week”. I dunno, I guess I’m one of the 24 people who actually like it.
I used Pocket for a long time too, but recently I switched to Wallabag. The only thing I miss about Pocket is their android app (Wallabag for android doesn’t look that nice, although it offers all the features one would expect), but beside that, it has all the features Pocket has without the annoying recommendations and questionable integration into Firefox, plus a couple of additional things like tagging rules and RSS support. Also their API is in my opinion easier to use and, weirdly, far more reliable and predictable. No Kobo support though
The thing I really do not like about Pocket is the fact there have been years of promises to open-source its code. As far as I know, it is purposely swept away every time (I believe they will never open-source the code because then it would be obvious they sell your data to make profit – all my theory here, have no proof of that). Because of this, I think I cannot trust Pocket and the team behind it. Finding my way around that, I have been using xBrowserSync (Firefox add-on to sync bookmarks) for bookmarking articles to read in the future with adding a special tag (usually
todo– general tag for doing something with the bookmark in the future – andarticle– the bookmark is an article to read – in my case) to the bookmark so every time I feel like reading, I search for that tag in the bookmarks and get my stored articles. The advantage for me this has is having stored articles available on all of my devices (desktop, notebook, phone and tablet – as all my other bookmarks). xBrowserSync works spectacularly for me and because I use it anyway for syncing bookmarks, storing articles is just a great bonus on top of that. Thinking about that, rather than using Pocket, I would use Wallabag if I must choose one, but I find myself content with my current setup, so I have never really paid much attention to these applications as I simply do not need them. Glad Pocket works for you, though.Yeah, I really don’t like Mozilla funding model. I wish they’d just focus on crowd funding and building useful services people are willing to pay for. If Mozilla ran a decent mail service with good privacy for example, I’m sure a lot of people would pay for it.
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I could be wrong of course, but I think there’s a market for people who are concerned about privacy and would be willing to pay for services like email from a vendor that was explicitly focused on protecting them. Apple has been successful advertising iOS as a privacy focused platform and seems like that’s working for them. But email is just an example, I’m sure there are other services Mozilla could offer that would be useful.
And I definitely agree that the way we use the internet leads to a lot of alienation. It’s very easy to get sucked into news or social media feeds and become increasingly disconnected from people around you.
Isn’t that what they’re essentially doing with their VPN?
Yeah think so, not sure how profitable it is.
There’s suggestions?? I use it to send things I want to read to my ereader (Kobo thing).
Yeah. It aggregates articles from various media outlets on your homepage. You get the occasional serious one that is a good read, but a lot of the time they’re either fluff pieces or clearly intended to push an American narrative.
I know how they could sway me to give up a pretty penny. Offer paid hosted alternatives to Google Suite and two-way-file synchronization à Dropbox type thing. FOSS alternatives where I’m not the product. People, even normies are shouting for such services. Their VPN is basically useless as I have a subscription to Mullvad.
I don’t think they have neglected focus on their browser in the slightest nor have little focus on alternative income streams. But something is way off in their ability to assess market needs.
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Focusing on just the browser and the alternate sources of funding (such as their VPN) go somewhat against each other
That certainly can be the case, but it’s a problem that Mozilla needs to solve in order to survive. They need some form of sustainable revenue either through crowdfunding or by selling some kind of services people want. What they’re doing now is clearly not working.
Yeah, Mozilla has been trying to break out of its current model of search engine contract funding browser development for many years without much success. I think part of the problem is that they keep picking areas with well established incumbent players so they never really have a chance.