Idiots. Buying a perfectly good service just to shut it down. I wonder if they even bothered looking for a buyer.
Also that new logo with the flag sucks.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Idiots. Buying a perfectly good service just to shut it down. I wonder if they even bothered looking for a buyer.
Also that new logo with the flag sucks.
The moment I setup an Omnivore account, it gets acquired and dies, the moment I switch to Pocket it's dead lol, I think I'll just move to some open source self hosted read it later app like Karakeep
No! Use your power for good! Switch to Facebook and X!
Count me in the group of people sad to see it go because it made it very easy to get articles onto my Kobo e-reader. There are other ways, but they're all too labour intensive to be practical. Probably should have seen the writing on the wall, though.
Really disappointed to lose Pocket. I am a big user of it and found it very convenient to save articles of interest as well as collecting anything that looked interesting that I might want to read. Have both the Android app and use it on the desktop.
Now I'm going to have to find a substitute.
Pocket is one service of theirs I did use from time to time. Save an article you want to read later without committing it to a bookmark.
As a Kobo user who sends articles to my Kobo via Pocket A LOT, this is some hefty bullshit.
Why don't they just open it up to let people run their own Pocket services? The usual "proprietary code" excuses make no sense for an organization like Mozilla and it's being end of lifed anyway. Just dump it on a repo somewhere and let people hack on it if they want to. Why isn't this part of the sunsetting plan?
code has been open for about 10 years. it was a binary blob to begin with but nowadays it's all here
I use Pocket since before Mozilla bought it. In combination with my kobo ereader, it changed the way I read the Internet for the better. Self hosting is no option for me and as far as I know Pocket was the best free read-it-later service. And the only one that worked seamless with Kobo. I really hope Rakuten buys it.
The fuck is a "read it later" service? Bookmarks?
Can you pull up a bookmarked item to read when you don't have an active network connection? If yes, that's a "read it later" service. If no, then that's why they are useful.
So saving a page.
No, because you don't save the bullshit along with the content. Also, it is a lot more organised than saving the html.
It also stripped the webpage to make it readable and mostly distraction-free, plus some services will also include tag suggestions to more easily find it later.
I used Pocket on my Kobo to read articles I saved, much easier to focus on the content and easy on the eyes with the eInk display.
As an occasional user, I am sad to see it go. Are there any other sites out there to maintain a list of links that I may find useful in the future? With a web UI and not self hosted?
Synced bookmarks. You'll be happy to learn that this is also a feature Firefox offers.
Never used pocket, how does this differ from just having a bookmarks folder called "stuff to read while you're taking a shit"?
Pocket saved an offline searchable archive of all of the article text. Multiple times I found articles I saved that were no longer online. So no, it's not the same as bookmarks
Bookmarks can do all that already or am I missing something?
Pocket can save the content of an article without the formatting and ads, which you can then download to Pocket's app for offline reading.
I wanted to like pocket but the articles were such useless slop crap. I feel bad for writers who actually have a passion for the craft but end up sitting down and shitting out low quality popsci articles all day.
From the 404media article on the subject:
The Distilled announcement post says the company made the choice to shut down these products because “it’s imperative we focus our efforts on Firefox and building new solutions that give you real choice, control and peace of mind online.” It also says the choice will allow Mozilla to “shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way.” Which is what everyone wants: more AI bloat in their browsers.
(The monkey paw turns, and) we got our wish.
Pocket is the sort of shit that makes me embarrassed to recommend Firefox.
Pocket was always among the first things I disabled when setting up Firefox and apparently, I wasn't the only one doing that.... I'm sure it had its users but I always found normal bookmarks to be more convenient.
Never even heard of Fakespot, though.
Yeah, me too. I hate that useless Pocket icon in the toolbar. It's the first thing I disable on every Firefox installation.
Glad it's gone for good.
YES! No more Pocket button sticking out like a sore thumb!
Nobody cared to use Pocket so its not surprising, btw what was that Fakespot thing?
pocket I never used. I found it ugly and just s violation of privacy as it moved a service that should be local only, to external webservers. I can see why it's finally had the plug pulled
It was redundant anyway, since it was just bookmarks with extra steps. But you can sync bookmarks between devices with Firefox anyway and you've been able to for years, so I have no idea why they kept it around other than to use it as a vehicle to push ads (because it seemed like roughly 25% of the "articles" it suggested to you were actually ads). I can't say as I'm too sad to see it go.
Fakespot could arguably have been useful on paper, but I have to admit I never used it because I treat most online reviews as if they're bullshit anyway.
the main thing with pocket and services like it is that it saves and syncs entire pages. like a local internet archive.
Good.
Pocket was actually useful. To sent web content to my e reader..
My Kobo has the Pocket app and I'll miss being able to send articles to it. Apparently I'll be one of the few to be sad to see Pocket go.
Pocket goes hand in hand with procrastination.
Hey Op why was Microsoft Palestine thread removed?
Pocket won't be missed. Self-hosted alternatives like Wallabag are better and private, so switched to it many years ago. Integration (and enabled by default, requiring about:config to disable) ensured I'd never use it out of principle.
Fakespot (the website) was genuinely useful to help ID scams on Am*z*n Marketplace, though I never used the extension. But I think that enshittified in recent years, so (in the style of Stephen King's Misery) it's probably for the best.
Related, the Keepa extension is useful as a price rigging detector, but I expect that will "number must go up!" soon enough, too...
Pocket was silly, just use tabs and buy more RAM.
Good. I've been disabling this shit in about:config for one decade too many.